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South Park

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South Park
File:South Park into.jpg
Created byTrey Parker & Matt Stone
StarringTrey Parker
Matt Stone
Isaac Hayes
Mary Kay Bergman (1997-1999)
Eliza Schneider (2000-2003)
Mona Marshall
Gracie Lazar
John Hansen
Jennifer Howell
and Adrien Beard
Country of originUSA
No. of episodes141 (Season 9: 1/2 begins on October 19, 2005)
Production
Running timeapprox. 0:23 (per episode)
Original release
NetworkComedy Central
ReleaseAugust 13, 1997 –
Present
For other uses, see South Park (disambiguation).

South Park is a comedy animated series created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Distributed by and airing on Comedy Central since 1997, it follows the surreal adventures of four young boys who live in the small town of South Park, Colorado. South Park satirizes many aspects of American culture and current events, and challenges deepset convictions and taboos, usually using parody and black humor. The show is expected to be syndicated through Tribune Entertainment starting Fall 2005.

New episodes in the show's ninth season began airing March 9, 2005. Recent seasons have aired in two parts; for example, half of the episodes from the eighth season were put on hiatus for Team America: World Police, another Stone and Parker production.

The show is noted for its characteristically blunt handling of current events while they are still current. For example, an episode involving the repatriation of Romanian quintuplets aired during the Elián González issue, and depicted Janet Reno, then U.S. Attorney General, as a murderous Easter Bunny. An episode that aired after the September 11, 2001 attacks had the boys stow away on a military transport to Afghanistan, where they encounter Osama bin Laden. More recently, the 2005 Terri Schiavo case was parodied in an episode in which the town is at odds over the removal of a feeding tube from Kenny McCormick. The episode, "Best Friends Forever," originally aired the night of March 30, less than 12 hours before Schiavo died.

Series history

South Park got its start in 1991 when Parker and Stone, then film students at the University of Colorado, created an animated short called Jesus vs Frosty. The crudely made film featured prototypical versions of the kids of South Park, including a character resembling Cartman but called "Kenny", bringing a murderous snowman to life with a magic hat. The baby Jesus then saves the day by decapitating the monster with a halo.

Executives at the Fox network saw the film, and in 1995 executive Brian Graden commissioned Parker and Stone to create a second short film to send to friends as a video Christmas card. Entitled The Spirit of Christmas, it closely resembled the style of the later series, and featured a martial arts duel (and subsequent truce) between Jesus and Santa Claus over the true meaning of Christmas. This video was later featured in an episode of South Park in which Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny, Mr Hanky and his family "save" Christmas. The video was a hit and was quickly shared, both by underground duplication and over the then-burgeoning Internet. This led to talks to create a series, first with Fox, then with Comedy Central, where the series premiered on August 13, 1997.

File:Kenny dies-again.jpg
One of the many deaths of Kenny

The show's provocative, frequently offensive, and unquestionably adult-oriented material quickly drew howls of protest from various conservative spokespersons, and South Park merchandise (especially T-shirts) were banned from a number of public schools, day care centers, and other public places in a manner similar to the prohibition of Bart Simpson T-shirts in the early 1990s after The Simpsons was accused of contributing to juvenile delinquency. Comedy Central defended South Park by noting that the show is given a "Mature Audiences" TV rating (TV-MA) and that it only airs the show during nighttime hours and never during the day when children may be more likely to see the show.

In February 1998, one episode of South Park posed the question of who Eric Cartman's father was. The episode ended with the announcement that it would be revealed in four weeks' time. Four weeks later, the airing of an episode about Terrance and Phillip (two Canadian comedians the main characters idolize) prompted outrage, and also prompted Comedy Central to push the true season premiere up earlier than expected. It was apparently a well-planted April Fools Day gag, meant to poke fun at season-ending cliffhangers.

The following year, the full-length animated feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was released to generally enthusiastic reviews. The film managed to satirize both itself and the anticipated reaction that it engendered from moral conservatives. It also presented a twisted but seemingly sincere tribute to the film musical with a number of songs, including "Uncle Fucka" and "Blame Canada." The latter was nominated for an Oscar and was performed by Robin Williams during the awards show. It has often been said that "Blame Canada" was chosen from other Oscar-worthy songs in the movie on the basis that it was the only one that could be performed on live TV with its lyrics relatively intact as the song contains only one swear word (while it is true that "Up There" by Satan contains no swear words at all, it would most likely have created far more controversy on religious grounds given its sympathetic portrayal of Satan and his justification of evil in the lyrics).

On November 11, 1999 shortly after the U.S. theatrical release of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, actress Mary Kay Bergman, who had provided all of the female voices on the South Park television series and in the full-length movie, committed suicide in her suburban Los Angeles, California home. After her death it was revealed that she suffered from a severe form of clinical depression. Her husband, Dino Andrade, founded the Mary Kay Bergman Memorial Fund at the Suicide Prevention Center of Greater Los Angeles in an effort to help and educate people with the same type of depression that his wife suffered from.

In the episode "It Hits the Fan," South Park broke the swearing record by saying the word "shit" a total of 162 times. In a 22 minute episode, this means that they averaged one "shit" every 8 seconds. There was even a counter throughout the episode showing the number of times it was said. An example of how it was used was Mr. Garrison's song that went, "Hey, there, shitty shitty fag fag, shitty shitty fag fag, how do you do?" and repeated this for four verses. This was meant as a satire on a NYPD Blue episode released shortly before this episode where one of the main characters said the word "shit" without being censored, and the American public discussed this for weeks.

Characters

The characters and backgrounds of South Park are made to appear deliberately crude, as if they are simply made of cut-out pieces of paper. Paper cutouts were indeed used in the original pilot Parker/Stone animation and in the very first Comedy Central episode, but every subsequent episode aired on TV has been produced by computer animation that provides the same crude look. To put the efficiency of this process in perspective, consider that the average episode of The Simpsons takes 8 months to create while episodes of South Park have been completed in as little as 3 days. Some episodes have sections of regular film edited in (e.g., "Tweek vs. Craig" and "Cat Orgy").

Major characters

File:South park.jpg
The main characters as they appeared during eight of the nine seasons (from left to right): Kenny, Cartman, Kyle and Stan

The main characters of the show are four elementary school students:

  • Stan Marsh: Often the "straight man" of the group. Generally easy going and clear thinking, he usually tries to come up with logical solutions to their outrageous situations. Stan, as the alter-ego of Trey Parker, often summarizes the message or moral of the episode. Best friend of Kyle and their relationship is central to most episodes.
  • Kyle Broflovski: High strung (due to an overcontrolling Jewish mother), skeptical, yet the most easily persuadable. As the alter-ego of Matt Stone (who, like Kyle, is Jewish), Kyle also often provides the reasonable wise perspective on the crazy behavior of the adult world around them. In parallel with his real life counterpart (who is Trey Parker's "best friend"), Kyle is the best friend of Stan.
  • Eric Cartman: Aggressive, bigoted, spoiled, overweight, rude, and antagonistic. Often the catalyst for the plot, frequently insults Kyle for being Jewish and Kenny for being poor. He is hated by his 'friends', and they frequently question the reasons for their friendship with him.
  • Kenny McCormick: Comes from an extremely crude, classless, poverty-stricken family. Obsessed with sex and bathroom humor, he is difficult to understand due to his hood closed around his face. The eternal victim, during the first 5 seasons Kenny was killed in a grotesque and often very entertaining way during each episode only to miraculously appear alive again with no ill effects at the beginning of the next episode. At the end of season 5, Kenny was killed off for good and replaced by both Tweek and Butters as the fourth friend. He reappeared as a regular character in season 7, but now rarely dies.

In recent seasons, two other characters have gained prominence:

  • Leopold "Butters" Stotch (replaced Kenny as a main character during the first part of the 6th season, though Kenny was brought back for the 7th season; has remained prominent): Nervous, naive, easily manipulated, yet sometimes insightful. He is often repressed by his overbearing parents, and used as a foil to Cartman's schemes. Adding to the tragicness of his character, his birthday is September 11.
  • Tweek (replaced Kenny during the second part of the 6th season, though Kenny was brought back for the 7th season; less prominent than Butters, has mostly returned to his pre-sixth season popularity): Spastic, neurotic, wants to be left alone. His problems are often glossed over by his very docile, Hallmark commercial-esque coffee-shop-owning parents. Although initially touted as one of the leading supporting characters, he has since been upstaged by the more viewer popular Butters and has returned to playing a minor role.

The show's earliest well-known gimmick, beginning in the first episode, was that in every episode, Kenny would die in some horrible, "unexpected" way. After this Stan would shout, "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" and Kyle would add, "You bastards!" Originally, the notorious "bastards" were the cow-aliens who shot Kenny with plasma; however, Kenny was in fact unharmed by this, and he was actually killed by Officer Barbrady's car after being trampled by Farmer Dinkins' cows. Kenny would be back in the next episode, the incident forgotten. For some time (after the 5th season episode "Kenny Dies"), Kenny had actually died "permanently." In the 6th season episode "A Ladder to Heaven," Kenny's soul became entrapped inside of Cartman's body, but an exorcism performed by Chef's mama in "The Biggest Douche in the Universe" undid this. He came back to life for an unexplained reason in "Red Sleigh Down" and is now the same regular kid he was before, except his deaths are much rarer now. Kenny was killed by Saddam Hussein in "It's Christmas in Canada," the final episode of season seven. He was also killed once during the eighth season, unmasked, by "Mr. Jefferson," an alias of Michael Jackson, in the episode "The Jeffersons", and in the ninth season, he was killed by the Chinese mafia in the episode "Wing," as well as the following episode, "Best Friends Forever" (in fact, he dies twice in the latter).

Recurring characters

Main article: Recurring South Park characters

There are many other frequently recurring characters, besides the boys and their families.

  • the boys' teachers Mr. Herbert Garrison (currently Mrs. Garrison after receiving a sex change in episode 901, Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina), and Ms. Choksondik (pronounced "chokes-on-dick") who dies in season 6.
  • Mr. Slave, Mr. Garrison's gay live-in lover until his sex change in episode 901 (replacement for Garrison's beloved puppet companion, Mr. Hat).
  • Jerome "Chef" McElroy (voiced by Isaac Hayes), the school cafeteria chef whom the boys seek out for advice.
  • Satan, portrayed as the insecure and overly sensitive gay lover of Saddam Hussein.
  • Jesus and Santa Claus, who are frequently depicted as gun-toting heroes.
  • Mr. Mackey, the school counselor who often appends "Mmkay?" to the end of his sentences.
  • Officer Barbrady, the incompetent town police officer.
  • Wendy Testaburger, a schoolmate and Stan's girlfriend until Episode 714 (Raisins).
  • Timmy, a schoolmate confined by handicap to a wheelchair. He has a limited vocabulary, usually only consisting of his own name, Jimmy's name, his pet turkey, Gobbles, and his usual babble that sounds like "livin' a lie", though, on occasion, has managed a few other words.
  • Jimmy, a handicapped schoolmate with crutches and a speech impediment. Often performs stand-up comedy. He is afraid of getting an erection and took steroids to win the Special Olympics.
  • Towelie, is a "super towel" created to dry a person, but while being studied he smoked marijuana and "just sort of" wandered off. Towlie is frequently getting "high" in the episodes he's been in.
  • Token Black, a schoolmate of black descent who often accompanies the boys on their adventures. Token is also a frequent target of Cartman's racism.
  • The goth kids, originally featured in episode 714 (Raisins).
  • Scott Tenorman, a much older schoolmate, originally introduced when he cons Cartman out of his allowance money in the episode Scott Tenorman Must Die. Cartman later takes revenge on Scott by feeding him Scott's own parents at Cartman's chili con carnival. Scott has appeared in minor roles in at least two subsequent episodes.

Minor characters and 'celebrities'

File:Southpark disclaimer.gif
The satirical disclaimer that begins every episode

Part of the show's surrealist nature derives from the minor characters who appear in the series. Notable appearances include God, who appears as a small creature resembling a hippo-rodent hybrid; Jesus, a recurring character, who owns a home and hosts a public-access television show in South Park (Jesus and Pals); Satan and his lover Saddam Hussein; Moses, who appears exactly as the Master Control Program (MCP) does in the Disney film Tron and demands macaroni pictures; the alien Marklar race; the jakovasaur; Death; and Mr. Hankey "the Christmas poo", who adds to the holiday festivities in much the same spirit as the 1960s Rankin-Bass cartoons. And also Towelie the towel who always gets, or wants to get high (off cannabis).

Celebrities often appear (usually "impersonated.....poorly"). Examples include:

See list of celebrities on South Park for more persons who have appeared on the show in one way or another.

Running gags

These are events that have recurred in almost every episode of South park.

  • Kenny has died in almost every episode during the first five seasons. Mostly he dies at the end, though his death is used as a plot device in a few episodes.
  • After most of Kenny's deaths Stan says "Oh my god, ',they, it, he, she' killed Kenny. Kyle will then say "You bastard(s)!" In earlier episodes Kyle did the entire line, this the most popular one.
  • Eric says "Screw you guys, I'm going home." Usually after he and Kyle get into an argument (mainly the ones that involve Eric being selfish).
  • Eric's mom gets it every once in a while for being a slut. Sometimes they find a magazine or website though it's usually Ms. Cartman taking men into her room.
  • Whenever Wendy says something about love to Stan or kisses him on the cheek, he will throw-up shortly after. (this has ended as of Season 7 when the two had to break up because the actor who provided Wendy's voice had passed on.)
  • If Chef is asked about sex or love, he will answer by singing a song then pretend he didn't say anything.
  • Kyle is ripped on a lot for being Jewish. In the episode Rainforest Schmainforest, Cartman said "Kyle, you don't have rhythm because you're Jewish."
  • When the boys are looking for a guinea pig, or someone to sacrifice, they always choose Butters. (e.g they decided to send Butters to have sex with a bunch of paedophiles in Cartman Joins Nambla, and he was the first choice to be sacrificed to a statue of the provider: John Elway.
  • Eric will threaten to make someone "eat their parents" when they don't agree with him. Which is a reference to when he made his nemesis; Scott Tenorman, actually eat his own parents in Scott Tenorman Must Die.
  • In Season 5, Stan and Kyle were often found burning a Jennifer Lopez doll by putting a magnifying glass to the sun.
  • Canadian characters on South Park exhibit many random oddities, such as beady eyes and semicircular heads that, during speech, detach from their body and jaw (which is also semicircular). They also speak rapidly with affected accents, pronouncing "about" as "a-boot" and "house" as "huce"; they frequently refer to others as "Buddy."

Religious affiliation of characters in South Park

According to the episode "Red Hot Catholic Love", virtually all the major and recurring characters in South Park are Roman Catholic, except:

  • The Broflovskis (Kyle's family), who are Jewish
  • The Harrisons, who are Mormon
  • Chef switched to Islam in Chef Goes Nanners but apparently switched back
  • God, who is shown as a rodent like creature, is a Buddhist
  • Chef's Parents, who practice Voodoo and Wiccan rituals.

Music

File:South Park Soundtrack.jpg
Cover from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut - Music From And Inspired By The Motion Picture

Although South Park is well known for its humor and controversial plots, viewers are also treated to an original musical score. The show's opening theme song is performed by alternative rockers Primus.

It should be noted that Kenny's lines in the song, as well as all but one of his lines throughout the show (episode 807, "The Jeffersons") and one in the movie, are muffled. Kenny always wears an anorak with the hood concealing his head apart from the eyes. The fact that the lines are unintelligible helped them slip past network censors. It is sometimes easy to comprehend the lines, given the context in which they are delivered.

One of the rumors is that Kenny's original line says "I like women with fat titties, I like women with big titties." Another interpretation that is common is, "I like girls with big fat titties, I like girls with big fat titties." Another variation states that he sings "I like girls with big fat titties, I like girls with big vaginas."

Kenny's line in the theme tune changed at the start of the 7th season. It was promised that the line would be revealed a year after the change. When the time had passed, the creators had forgotten exactly what the line was, but were '95% sure' that it was as follows: 'Someday I'll be old enough, to stick my dick in Britney's butt'.

Popular songs such as "Kyle's Mom is a Bitch" originated on the show, but the creators' musical abilities were not frequently used until the release of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. The film's soundtrack featured songs like "Mountain Town", "Uncle Fucka", "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" (a song to which Brian Boitano has been known to figure skate), "I'm Super", and "Blame Canada" (nominated for an Oscar, see below). Several of the songs from the movie were satires of tunes from Disney cartoons--Mountain Town is highly similar to Bonjour from Beauty and the Beast, and Up There is a takeoff on Out There, from the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone have, on occasion, performed these and other songs (some unrelated to the show, such as "Dead Dead Dead"), under the band name DVDA.

The character of Eric Cartman will often burst into song to convey a false altruism or optimism that belies his baser motivations. In Red Sleigh Down, he sings "Poo-Choo Train", an unnervingly cheery Christmas carol, in an obvious attempt to convince Mr. Hankey and Santa Claus that he is worthy of Christmas presents. In The Death of Eric Cartman he sings "Make it Right" with Butters in a weak attempt to reconcile his sins. He also used the song Heat of the Moment to convince the USA Senate to approve Stem cell research.

Additional musical contributions to the show come from themselves and from Isaac Hayes, who voices the character Chef, and from the band Primus, which performed the original opening and ending themes for the show. But another high point of the series is its dramatic score, for it dramatizes common and deep parts with a very heartwarming, melancholic or mysterious soundtrack.

Video Games

South Park and politics

The political leaning of South Park has been open to some debate. The show has drawn widespread criticism from both conservatives and liberals for its themes and its offensive language The show has consistently made fun of all sides of the political spectrum. In fact, a recent ad ran on Comedy Central listing many categories of people South Park has made fun of (including rednecks, blacks, gays, politicians, transsexuals, Jews and the disabled) and stated afterward "We apologize if South Park has left you out."

Recurring Theme of Child Abuse or Neglect

Child abuse or neglect is an ongoing theme in the show. For example Butters' emotional abuse by his parents is usually depicted in episodes where he appears. Cartman is depicted several times as a target of actual or attempted sexual abuse. Stan's sister Shelley is depicted as physically abusing him, and also the other major characters, in earlier episodes of the show. Kenny's parents are depicted and referred to as dysfunctional alcoholics, and his brothers appear to be neglected - although Kenny himself is not shown to be affected. The ways in which this theme is shown range from realistic to 'cartoonish'. For example Butters' state of mind as a result of his treatment by his parents is depicted in a generally realistic and unfunny way - he is incontinent, has low self-esteem and is given to hand-wringing, for example. However his parents' emotional manipulation of him is shown in an over-the-top way; and at one point they try and sell him to Paris Hilton. Tweek's constant state of tension has both comic elements (his parents keep him dosed on coffee for no obvious reason), and more serious and realistic ones (his problems, caused by his family, are misdiagnosed as ADD, and it is implied that he has a therapist who treats his problems as purely personal and ignores the role of his parents).

Trivia

  • The film Bowling for Columbine includes a brief interview with Matt Stone that suggests South Park was largely inspired by Stone's childhood experiences in Littleton, Colorado. Stone presents a vision of Littleton as painfully normal, and highly intolerant of non-conformist behavior. Stone's appearance was followed by an uncredited cartoon in a style strongly reminiscent of South Park that was not the work of either Stone or Parker. It became a point of contention between them and the filmmaker, Michael Moore, as they believed Moore meant to imply they had contributed to his film. They have said the appearance of Moore as a suicide bomber in their 2004 film Team America: World Police is their sardonic response to this incident.
  • Les Misérables has had several cameo roles throughout the series, including Cosette's appearance, Cartman's prison number, 24601 (Jean Valjean's number), and an entire song in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut that is based on a song from the musical named "One Day More." Also, in episode 414 "Helen Keller! The Musical," the "musical theater expert" sounds similar to Colm Wilkinson, who played the original Jean Valjean on Broadway. In fact, Cartman says the expert (introduced as "Geoffrey Mainard") played the lead in a production of Les Misérables. Characters on The Simpsons, perhaps not coincidentally, often have the number 24601 as well.
  • A short tribute sketch was shown for the 30th anniversary of Monty Python which parodied the "Dead Parrot sketch." The parody takes part in a friends store, where Eric Cartman walks in and complains that this friend (Kenny) that he bought is dead. Eventually an ending showing crude cut outs of Terry Gilliam, Venus de Milo, and the Monty Python foot appear.
  • Parker animated a South Park version of a joke called The Aristocrats for the documentary of that name.
  • The Parker-Stone production company is named Braniff Productions, named after a defunct airline. The logo (which featured a computer-generated shot of the Braniff airline with the subtitle "...believe it") originally appeared in Episode One as a joke, but decided since Parker and Stone had already established Braniff as their company anyway, the logo would close every episode.
  • Many celebrities say this is their favorite cartoon.
  • There are 4 references to O.J. Simpson: 1. When Cartman tries to drive away from the cops on a powerwheels truck shaped like the white bronco going 50 MPH. 2. O.J. was in the episode where Butters went missing on account of his mom trying to kill him. 3. In "Chef Aid" when Chef asks who Johnny Cochran is, Gerald Brovlovski says "He's the guy who got O.J. off." 4. In "The Jeffersons" the police complain how they framed him and it was only because someone said the 'n word' too much that he got off.

Evolution of the series

South Park's early episodes tended to be shock value-oriented, but the more recent episodes are often oriented more toward poking fun at current events. This was very evident in the first half of season 8: events in its episodes include Michael Jackson visiting South Park, the boys seeing The Passion of the Christ, blue-collar workers in South Park losing their jobs to immigrants from the future, and an episode featuring a "Paris Hilton" toy video camera. Season 9 premiered with the episode "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina," which incorporated uncensored footage of a farm animal being neutered. In a previous episode, similar footage had been used, namely that of an animal delivering its afterbirth.

The pilot episode was produced using construction paper and traditional stop-motion animation techniques, but current episodes duplicate the original, amateurish look using modern computer animation tools (first PowerAnimator, then Maya, which South Park creators have described as "building a sandcastle with a bulldozer"). This allows for a short production schedule which enables the creators to respond quickly to current events. For instance, the December 17, 2003 episode ('It's Christmas in Canada') depicted the capture of Saddam Hussein a mere three days after his capture by U.S. forces, even referring to the "spider hole" where he was found. In the case of this and the Elián González episode, they stopped and changed production of an episode to focus on these events. Another example is the Trapper Keeper episode which originally aired just 8 days after the 2000 Election and featured a kindergarten class election being delayed by, among other things, an undecided girl named "Flora", a reasonably obvious reference to the undecided vote-count in the state of Florida.

In the audio commentary on the season 4 DVD set, Parker and Stone remarked that beginning with episode 408, "Chef Goes Nanners," they began to consistently make episodes centering on a single issue, rather than having different sub-plots going on.

In 2002 the episode "Free Hat" was aired. In this episode, prompted by Kyle's comment on Ted Koppel's Nightline that changing E.T. would be like changing Raiders of the Lost Ark, the South Park depictions of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg decide to alter the first Indiana Jones film. Soon after "Free Hat" aired, the real Lucas and Spielberg announced that they would not be altering Raiders of the Lost Ark for DVD release (contrary to rumors surrounding it). Stone and Parker later claimed that their episode prevented any alterations from happening when they appeared on a VH1 special, Inside South Park.

While in college, Stone and Parker collaborated on the movie Cannibal! The Musical, a Western satire with humorous musical numbers (the "Braniff" tune that plays at the end of many South Park episodes is an excerpt from the Cannibal! song, "Shpadoinkle"). Later they created Orgazmo, a comedy about a Mormon starring in a pornographic movie, which found distribution thanks to the success of South Park later that same year. The pair starred in the 1998 film BASEketball directed by David Zucker (in a recent episode in which the boys see the Passion of the Christ and subsequently decide to get their money back for watching a lousy film, Stan comments to Kenny, "This is just like that time we got our money back from BASEketball," commenting on the film's box office failure). Their latest collaboration is the marionette action/comedy, Team America: World Police.

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to South Park.
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