TOTAL TV MAGAZINE ARTICLE
Tracing the underground roots of TV's subversive new animated series, South Park By Kirk Miller
IT'S THE QUINTESSENTIAL holiday story: a benevolent television executive gives two down-on-their-luck artists $2,000 to make his video Christmas card. They use most of the cash to buy holiday gifts and use the rest to produce a five-minute short film, The Spirit of Christmas, involving construction-paper Jesus and Santa figures kung-fu fighting and four potty-mouthed kids egging them on. In the end, Jesus buys Santa a smoothie; the kids convert to Judaism; and Frank Capra rolls over in his grave. Oh, yeah--and the artists, along with the benevolent exec, get a TV deal producing and writing Comedy Central's controversial South Park.
"We just did something [that would] make our friends laugh," explains Matt Stone, cowriter of the now infamous short that was originally sent to a mere 40 people but was copied so much that it wound up being shown at various rock concerts. "It was like, 'The guys from Metallica want to meet you. It's their favorite video,'" Stone's partner in crime, Trey Parker, recalls hearing from friends in the business. When copies starting landing on the desks of numerous TV network execs, a small bidding war for the duo's talents developed. "It was insane," Parker notes.
Some would argue that South Park is what's insane. The cartoon follows the adventures of Spirit's four tykes--Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny--in a small Colorado town based on the one Parker and Stone grew up in. "People think [our hometown] is a big UFO landing base," Parker states. "It's where all the cattle mutilations are." Such far-out inspiration mixed with the guys' warped sense of humor takes the show everywhere from Cartman being anally probed by aliens to Stan's dog coming out of the closet to a chef (voiced by Isaac Hayes) who sings pornographic R&B songs in the school cafeteria.
Yet for all of South Park's questionable humor ("[Comedy Central] is going to get in soooo much trouble," Parker snickers), the gang claims its vulgarity and weirdness won't be gratuitous. "Unlike Beavis and Butt-head, where they're just [being] nasty, we have things to say," argues Brian Graden, the former Fox suit who commissioned Spirit. "We have an episode where Stan's grandpa wants to be killed." He laughs. "It's our 'very special euthanasia episode.' We're not trying to be pithy, but we are sort of saying, 'Look at the f--ed up things going on in the world.'"
While its creators admit that Spirit's no-holds-barred humor had to be toned down just a bit to make South Park TV-friendly, they're determined to make sure the show stays true to its underground roots. "It's hard because we've hired some really great animators," offers Parker. "It's been frustrating for them because we've had to crap [their work] down. But the crappier it is, the more people can say, 'Okay, it's cool that little kid died because it's not a little kid, it's a little piece of construction paper.'" And isn't that the true spirit of Christmas, after all?