south park

This article is about the television series. For other uses, see South Park (disambiguation).

South Park is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning American animated television series created, written and voiced by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Distributed by and airing on Comedy Central since 1997, it follows the adventures of four grade school boys who live in the small town of South Park, Colorado. In addition to the series, a full length movie was produced in 1999 entitled South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. South Park satirizes (sometimes surreally) many aspects of American culture and current events, and challenges deep-seated convictions and taboos, usually employing parody and black comedy. The show is often regarded as a subtle politically right perspective of American culture and society, eventually influencing the novel [[South Park Conservatives], while also spawning the phrase South Park Republican. The series is known for its characteristically blunt handling of current events and its pop-culture parody. The series has spawned angry criticism from religious groups and others who claim it is morally offensive and sometimes anti-American.

The first half of South Park's tenth season ended on May 3, 2006, and the second half began on October 4. Since Season 7, each season has aired in roughly two parts (the first in Spring and the second in Autumn). After the second half of Season 10, two more seasons of South Park are scheduled for production, allowing the series to run until at least 2009. After the 2009 run there is an option for renewal.

Origins

South Park began in 1992 when Trey Parker and Matt 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' and an unnamed character that resembles Kyle bringing a murderous snowman to life with a magic hat.

Executives at FOX saw the movie, 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. Titled 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 (two characters who have since been recurring characters in the series) over the true meaning of Christmas. This video was later featured in the episode A Very Crappy Christmas in which Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny and Mr. Hankey 'save' Christmas for the town. The video was a hit and was quickly shared, both by underground duplication and over the 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. A clip of the short can actually be seen in the opening sequence for the series contained within a billboard. The first short can also be seen during the opening sequence on an old television.

Evolution

South Park's early episodes, especially the first, tended to be shock value-oriented. Although satire had been used on the show occasionally in its early and middle years, it has become more evident around the eighth season; with episodes involving Michael Jackson visiting South Park ("The Jeffersons"), the boys seeing The Passion of the Christ ("The Passion of the Jew"), blue-collar workers in South Park losing their jobs to immigrants from the future ("Goobacks"), and an episode featuring a "Paris Hilton" toy video camera ("Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset").

The pilot episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", took three months to make and was produced using construction paper and traditional cut-out animation techniques. Current episodes duplicate the original, amateurish look using modern computer animation tools - first PowerAnimator, then Maya (which Parker and Stone have described as "building a sandcastle with a bulldozer" on a VH1 special, Inside South Park). This allows for a short production schedule that enables the creators to respond quickly to current events. For instance, the December 17, 2003 episode ("It's Christmas in Canada") depicts 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 ("Quintuplets 2000"), the creators stopped and changed production of an episode to focus on these events. Another example is the "Trapper Keeper" episode which originally aired just eight days after the 2000 Election and featured a kindergarten class president election being delayed by, among other things, an undecided girl named "Flora", an obvious reference to the undecided vote-count in the state of Florida. AWESOM-O was made in three days, which is the shortest amount of time in which an episode has been made.

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 multiple subplots.

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. Stone and Parker later claimed that their episode prevented any alterations from happening when they appeared on a VH1 special, Inside South Park.

Feature-film

In 1999, 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 Academy award and was performed by Robin Williams during the awards show. It has been speculated that "Blame Canada" was chosen from other Oscar-worthy songs in the movie because it was the only one that could be performed on live TV with its lyrics relatively intact (as the song contains only two examples of profanity). 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 less than anathematical portrayal of Satan and his justification of evil in the lyrics. Phil Collins won the Oscar, however, with his song You'll be in my Heart from Disney's Tarzan, which prompted a number of Phil Collins jokes in a subsequent South Park episode. The film also got into the Guinness Book of World Records for most obscenities in an animated movie, with "399 swear words, 221 acts of violence and 128 offensive gestures".

Censorship

What little censorship South Park has is usually done by way of bleeping out certain words, like most other shows on Comedy Central. However, even South Park does not enjoy limitless sanction. The episode "Jared Has Aides" was never aired again on Comedy Central because it showed abuse towards Butters and made light of AIDS (though it has been aired in syndication on local stations), although some claimed the reason for the banning of the episode was from a press release by Subway. The words "asshole", "bastard", and "bitch" always go uncensored (although when the word "asshole" is said on syndication, usually "hole" is censored instead of "ass"). "Goddamn" is left uncensored in all episodes however in syndication, the "god" part is censored. The word "shit" is left uncensored only in two episodes. The word "fuck" is censored in all episodes (Kenny has been known to say it, though it is said in his usual muffled speech), but not within Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which Comedy Central has aired uncensored several times in the Secret Stash after 1 AM. The word "cock" is occasionally beeped, while other times left uncensored, as evidenced in the episode "It Hits the Fan". Some local networks choose to bleep out words that are not censored in the original cartoons. In 2005, South Park began airing on U.S. broadcast stations and the syndicated distributor, Mort Marcus, a former Disney executive (in conjunction with Tribune Entertainment), worked with a panel of representatives from stations purchasing the show to make it acceptable for broadcast. Some episodes may not air at all, if the creators of the show do not approve of the changes. Many rerun episodes on syndicated TV stations removed and omitted ethnic jokes and slurs about minority groups, especially the episode "Here Comes the Neighborhood", which cuts off before Mr. Garrison uses the word "nigger" (in contrast to "You Got F'd in the A", where a caricature of Lil' Kim speaks it towards the end of the episode).

Controversy

Main article: Subject matter in South Park

The show has faced numerous controversies since its inception, from its use of vulgarity to its satire of subjects such as Scientology, Catholicism and global warming. Stone and Parker are self-described "equal opportunity offenders" and episodes often lampoon all sides of a contentious issue, rather than taking a concrete position.

Public Protests

The show's provocative, adult-oriented material quickly drew protest from various spokespersons, who deemed the program offensive, and South Park merchandise (especially T-shirts) were banned from a number of public schools, day care centers, and other public places. This occurrence is similar in a manner 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 is not meant for children to watch. They also pointed out that it only airs the show during night-time hours and never during the day, when children may be more likely to see the show. In fact, at least for the earlier part of the show's run, trailers for the series did not run until after 7 PM.

Vulgarity

In the episode "It Hits the Fan", South Park broke the swearing record by using the word 'shit' a total of 162 times, uncensored. The 22-minute episode averages one 'shit' every eight seconds, and there was a counter throughout the episode displaying the number of times it was said. A song by Mr. Garrison that consisted of, 'Hey, there, shitty shitty fag fag, shitty shitty fag fag, how do you do?' (sung to the tune of the title song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), repeated for four verses, provides an example of how 'shit' was so abundantly used. This was meant as a satire of an episode of Chicago Hope, released shortly before this episode, where one of the main characters said the phrase 'shit happens' without being censored, and the American public discussed this for weeks. An additional gag in this episode allowed homosexual or bisexual characters to use the word 'fag' freely, while heterosexual characters were bleeped when attempting to use the same word (this episode suggested that Stan's uncle Jimbo was actually gay or bisexual, as he was able to say 'fag' without being bleeped).

Scientology

In November 2005, South Park satirized the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta and R&B star R. Kelly, in the top-rated episode, "Trapped in the Closet".

In the episode, Scientology leaders hail Stan as a reluctant savior while Cruise locks himself in Stan's closet and will not come out. "Coming out of the closet" is widely used as a term for homosexuals revealing their orientation; Tom Cruise, R. Kelly and John Travolta have often been rumored to be gay.

Dubbed 'Closetgate' by the Los Angeles Times, the controversy continued as Comedy Central pulled the episode from a scheduled repeat on March 15, 2006 at the last minute. It is alleged that Tom Cruise threatened Paramount with withdrawal from promotion of his latest film Mission: Impossible III if the episode was broadcast; both Paramount and Comedy Central are owned by Viacom. Though Paramount and Cruise's representatives deny the allegation, The Independent reports that "no one believes a word of it." In typical satirical form, Parker and Stone issued the following statement, with several mocking references to Scientology: "So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for Earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"

The Los Angeles Times reported that, "For Stone and Parker, Closetgate will be the gift that keeps on giving" because there are likely endless storylines that can follow, considering South Park's consistent satirizing of Scientology. This episode was also recently nominated for an Emmy.^[1][2] The episode, however, has been shown as recently as May 12, 2006 in Canada on The Comedy Network and on August 29 on SBS in Australia.^[3] On July 19, 2006 Comedy Central aired a rerun of the episode at 10:00 Pacific Time and did so again on July 23, 2006 at 11:00pm Pacific Time. The episode Trapped in the Closet will appear on South Park's 10th Anniversary DVD, called "South Park The Hits: Volume 1". The episode was aired recently on Comedy Central on August 18 and September 24, 2006, and again September 25, 2006.

As a parody attempt to evade a potential lawsuit, the credits for this episode only read John or Jane Smith.

Response

Main article: The Return of Chef

In response to Isaac Hayes quitting the show, Parker and Stone used South Park's 9th season premiere to lambaste Scientology again, as well as kill off Hayes's character, "Chef". In the episode, entitled "The Return of Chef", Chef returns from a three month long stay with the Super Adventure Club (SAC), an organization full of Colonel Mustard-type adventurers who scour the world for adventure and children to have sex with. This "fruity little club" is a parody of Scientology. Though Chef returns, he is in a zombie-like state and his dialogue is obviously patched together from recordings of past episodes, intended as part of the joke. Eventually in the episode, all Chef begins to talk about is child molestation.

There are other similar examples of Chef's new strangeness, and the boys visit the Super Adventure Club in an effort to learn what is wrong with him. They learn the true nature of the club and eventually free Chef from its thrall with a trip to the Peppermint Hippo - a play on the well-known Los Angeles based Spearmint Rhino (a strip club), but the Super Adventure Club kidnaps Chef and return him to their stronghold. As the kids try to re-rescue him, Chef ultimately decides to return to the SAC and is killed by being struck by lightning, falling down a cliff, landing onto a jagged tree stump, being shot multiple times then eaten by a mountain lion and a grizzly bear, finally voiding his bowels as "proof" that he is really, really dead. Kyle delivers a eulogy at Chef's funeral, urging the town to remember the good times with Chef and to forgive him for his transgression ("We shouldn't be mad at Chef for leaving, we should be mad at the fruity little club for scrambling his brain"). After this, Chef is resurrected in a "Darth Vader"-style scene highly reminiscent of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The "light saber" he holds at the end is a glowing red spatula. As a final in-joke, they cast British voice actor Peter Serafinowicz as the voice of Darth Chef. Serafinowicz was the voice actor dubbed over Ray Park's Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I.

Catholicism

In December 2005, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights protested the season finale episode, "Bloody Mary", for its depiction of a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding from her rectum. The group claimed a victory when Comedy Central voluntarily cancelled a scheduled airing of the episode which coincided with the Christian holiday season. In early 2006, Comedy Central denied that they were bowing to that group's request to pull the episode from future repeats and DVD releases.^[4] In New Zealand, C4 pushed the airing date for the episode forward after much publicity from Catholic bishops who urged a boycott of the station and its advertisers. The protest backfired as viewer numbers increased by 600% during the episode. The episode was later referred to the Broadcasting Standards Authority where they ruled, "The material in the cartoon was of such a farcical, absurd and unrealistic nature that it did not breach standards of good taste and decency in the context in which it was offered." ^[5][6] It has since been rebroadcast on Comedy Central. SBS in Australia has "deferred" the episode^[7] possibly due to their recent problems with the "Trapped in the Closet" episode. The episode has aired in Australia on the Pay T.V. channel, The Comedy Channel.

In February 2006 in the Philippines, authorities threatened to ban the showing of South Park on television as it offends the sensibilities of the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country. South Park is still shown in the Philippines with 1-hour double episodes, though showing South Park in the Philippines has become a politicized issue there, and the future of South Park in the Philippines is unknown.

On August 2, 2006, Comedy Central reran the episode at 10:00 PM EST.

Islam

Most recently South Park has indirectly attacked the rising censorship in its April 5, 2006 episode "Cartoon Wars Part I", which ended with the statement that the second part of the two-parter episode, will only be shown if Comedy Central does not "puss out".

The following episode "Cartoon Wars Part II" that aired April 12, 2006, replaced the scene of Muhammad on Family Guy with a message stating that Comedy Central had refused to show a depiction of Muhammad on their network, thereby "pussing out". With the episode, the South Park boys make an impassioned, anti-censorship plea to a network exec named Doug, a reference to Comedy Central president Doug Herzog. This comes months after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark, in which an editorial cartoon depicted Muhammad also in a satirical way. However, he can in fact be seen in the season 10 opening credits from the episode "Smug Alert!" onwards and was featured in the "Super Best Friends" episode, which aired on July 4, 2001, though at the time there was no pre-existing controversy over depicting Muhammad.

It has come out via AP television writer David Bauder that Comedy Central did in fact, citing safety concerns, opt to censor the image of Muhammad, a situation that was satirized in "Cartoon Wars Part II". Furthermore, while the channel refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad, Comedy Central opted not to censor images of Christ, the president and the American flag being defecated upon. Stone and Parker's choice has drawn fire from frequent South Park critic William A. Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League. Donohue has called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle, and was quoted as saying, "The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central — that's their decision not to show the image of Muhammad or not — it's Parker and Stone". ^[8] It should be noted though, that Stone and Parker made the choice to mock Christ to illustrate the hypocrisy in censoring the mockery of one religion and not another, echoing their similar stance on Scientology.

Recurring themes

Political issues

Stone and Parker spend a great amount of time on current events and issues of the day, more so in recent years than they did in the past, which has caused some fans to complain, but has also won them new fans. The stance that the show takes reflects the beliefs of the creators; Both creators have at one time or another described themselves as libertarians. Politically-active celebrities, who are generally liberal, (such as in the recent episode Smug Alert with the "smug" from George Clooney's Academy Awards acceptance speech) have been ridiculed on the series, as well as liberal and conservative ideas, stereotypes and actions. Bill Clinton was frequently ridiculed on the show, George W. Bush less so (although he was shown as a tool of Satan in one episode, and Stone and Parker have created a separate sitcom entirely about the Bush Whitehouse). Liberals are portrayed as being arrogant hippies or yuppies and conservatives as angry rednecks, hence the characters "Aging Hippie Liberal Douche" and "Pissed Off White Trash Redneck Conservative". Both sides are portrayed as imposing their views on others and generally having a malignant influence.

In general, Stone and Parker are extremely disdainful of any person they perceive to be overly preachy and lecturing about their political or religious views. The show itself is, ironically, regularly quite preachy on these subjects, often ending with an obvious or even directly explained moral. This may be meant as a meta-critique, poking fun at the show itself, as these morals are often ultimately undercut by comic absurdity.

The episode that aired the week following the 2000 presidential election used a school election to poke fun at Florida's inability to certify a winner and Al Gore's contesting of the results. The episode included an angry Rosie O'Donnell coming to the defense of the loser, in another example of how the show is highly critical of celebrity activism.

The term "South Park Republican" was coined after Parker and Stone claimed to be Republicans whilst receiving an award from the liberal advocacy group, People For the American Way (PFAW) in 2001. At the same time they declared TV producer Norman Lear, the founder of PFAW, to be one of their heroes, and Lear subsequently worked on South Park. More recently, a small movement has sprung up of youngish, South Park Conservatives who hold ideas from extreme ends of the political spectrum, believing, for instance, that global warming is a myth while supporting gay rights. In an interview with the two in Time Magazine (March 13, 2006) the two have stated that the only reason people might peg them for conservatives is that they are willing to mock anti-smoking laws and hippies. They also stated that the show could just as easily be pegged as a show supporting liberal ideologies. The interview ended with Trey quipping "We still believe that all people are born bad and are made good by society, rather than the opposite" and Matt adding "Actually, I think that's where we're conservative." Stone has also stated: "I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals." [9]

Gay rights

Although Parker and Stone are presumed to be libertarian, the show has not explicitly supported gay rights. In the episode "Follow That Egg!", gay marriage is deemed "too offensive" to people with religious values and it's suggested it should be re-designated as something else. In the end of this episode however, gays are shown as capable of raising children, and gay marriage is made legal in South Park. "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina" is critical of transgendered for not keeping the bodies that nature gave them, but ends with the lesson that if you feel different in another body, it's okay to change it. Mr. Garrison decided in the end to stay a woman and has been in every episode since. In "Cripple Fight", the creators take the position that the Boy Scouts should not have been forced to allow homosexuals to be Scoutmasters, whilst at the same time mocking the Boy Scouts for trying to exclude homosexuals from the organization. They use the example of a married heterosexual child abuser to show sexuality is unrelated to child abuse. Furthermore, in an earlier episode "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", homophobia is portrayed sarcastically when Mr. Garrison says to Stan when he asks what a homosexual is, "Gay people, well, gay people are EVIL, evil right down to their cold black hearts which pump not blood like yours or mine, but rather a thick, vomitous oil that oozes through their rotten veins and clots in their pea-sized brains which becomes the cause of their Nazi-esque patterns of violent behavior. Do you understand?" Later in the series, Mr. Garrison "outs" himself as homosexual. The episode also features Stan Marsh stating that it is okay to be gay.

Child abuse and neglect

Child sexual abuse and child neglect are recurring thematic elements in South Park. For example, the emotional, verbal, and physical abuse inflicted upon Butters is usually depicted in episodes in which he appears. Cartman is shown several times as a target of actual or attempted sexual abuse, such as when he unknowingly gets involved with NAMBLA. There is other evidence where he has been sexually abused in the episode "Simpsons Already Did It" where after getting semen ("sea-men") from a sperm bank, he is filling up a fish tank for his "sea people" and tells his friends that he got the rest of the semen from a guy in an alley who told him to "close his eyes and suck it out of a hose." This scene is partially censored on some local networks. In the episode "Fun with Veal" Cartman cries "No, uncle Jesse! No!" while sleeping, and in the episode "Super Best Friends", he cries out, "No, Paula Poundstone! Leave me alone!" in his sleep.

The treatment of this theme ranges from realistic to cartoonish. For example, the character Butters Stotch clearly has some psychological issues as a result of the treatment he suffers at the hands of his parents; he is incontinent (in "AWESOM-O", Cartman has to put a suppository in his rectum), has low self-esteem, and wrings his hands (although, strangely, Butters is also an unfailingly optimistic character and is one of the few genuinely nice people in the whole town, which often makes him a constant target for ridicule and abuse). However, his parents' emotional manipulation of him is shown as completely "over-the-top;" at one point, they try to sell Butters to Paris Hilton. Butters reveals that he has received anilingus from his uncle when detectives are questioning the children whether Chef has molested them, and in "Butters' Very Own Episode" his mother tries to kill him when she goes temporarily insane after learning of her husband's gay bathhouse proclivities. (Butters' parents are visited by O. J. Simpson, Gary Condit and the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, all of whom agree that "some Puerto Rican" must have done the things they were accused of). Butters, of course, survived with no knowledge of what was going on, until his parents publicly admitted what had happened (thus, yet again, crushing Butters' hopes for a functional family). Butters' parents did take him to Bennigan's as he wanted, however.

While Cartman and Butters have more overt personal experiences with their families, to the point of farce at times, Kenny, Stan and Kyle have also been shown to be neglected on a more subtle level.

Kenny comes from a poor family and, as a result, he and his siblings are shown to be malnourished due to his family's poverty. His father is an unemployed, barely functioning drunk who, while not abusive towards Kenny, is usually shown verbally arguing with his wife or being berated by her.

Stan suffers from a subtler type of neglect. His father likes to party (after he and Sharon separate he ends up at the party, for much younger people, at Cartman's "clubhouse") and drinks a lot, although he is nowhere near being an alcoholic like Stuart McCormick and is able to provide for his family. Stan's older sister Shelley is a borderline sociopath who regularly physically abuses Stan and considers her younger brother to be subhuman. His relationship with his mom is equally strained, as she considers Stan's happiness secondary to her own, which she actually told him on one occasion in the episode, "Clubhouses". She and Randy are completely blind to Shelley's abuse of Stanley.

Kyle suffers at the hand of Cartman's continual racial slurs. Kyle's mother is over-protecting, attempting to censor the world that her son and the rest of the children experience. Her belief in her own moral compass has gone so far as to start a war with Canada over Asses of Fire, the Terrance and Phillip movie.

Animal sexuality

Another recurring theme includes animal sexuality, whether full sex ("Chickenlover"), masturbation ("Proper Condom Use", in which older boys teach Cartman and Kenny to manually pleasure a dog, telling them it's the same as milking a cow), cross-species breeding ("An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig"), a pony simulating oral sex by sucking on a hotdog ("Scott Tenorman Must Die"), or simply that an animal is discovered to enjoy gay sex ("Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride"). In the episode "Douche and Turd", South Park satirizes PETA, the animal rights organization, when Stan discovers that the PETA members in their forest encampment have grown physically close with their animals to the point of bestiality, and one "couple" has created a scary human/ostrich hybrid "child" whose only, repeated line in the episode is "kill me." Other episodes containing this theme include "Woodland Critter Christmas", in which a group of talking satanic animals engage in a "blood orgy".

Religion

Episodes that debunk the more literal tenets of religions such as Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, fundamentalist Christianity, and Scientology (which the creators consider a cult) and Catholicism further cement the leanings of the show's core belief system. Multiple episodes have tackled the shaky logical foundations of cults, religious leaders who exploit worshipers for money, and the general problems with following religion too literally. Perhaps most indicative of the blasé notion towards over-fervent worship, the show's depiction of God in physical form is a strange hybrid of many animals. Further deepening the satire is God's claim to be a Buddhist. The show suggested at one point, in a joking matter, that heaven is full of Mormons who spend eternity cheerfully singing songs and making craft projects (implying that this is because that is the one "correct" religion). This is ironic because in the episode "All About Mormons" the show implies that Mormonism is a complete hoax made up by someone who was obviously lying.

In addition Jesus has been shown multiple times, living in South Park and hosting a public access call in talk show (Jesus and Pals), and in one episode fighting Satan. (Within the world of South Park, Jesus died in 2002, saving Santa Claus from Iraqis; Santa said that, from now on, Christmas should be a celebration of Jesus). In a third season episode, "Jewbilee", at a Jew Scouts camp, Moses appears in the form of the Master Control Program from Tron and tells the assembled children in an ominous voice, "I desire... macaroni pictures." He also appears this way in "Super Best Friends", and with VCR capabilities to boot. He also appeared as a judge in the episode Chef Aid.

The criticism of anti-religion is also apparent in South Park. In "All About Mormons", Stan ridicules the Mormons for believing a story that offers no proof. However, at the very end, a Mormon named Gary whom Stan had been hanging out with for most of the episode delivers his side of the story:

• Gary: All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you're so high and mighty you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend back. You've got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls. (Gary walks off in disgust, leaving Stan and his friends stunned)
• Cartman: (after a pause) Damn, that kid is cool, huh?

South Park often hints that religious people may be illogical and that atheists can be overly arrogant. In "Red Hot Catholic Love"), Stone and Parker depict the recently converted atheist townsfolk as being litterally full of shit, coughing out actual feces as they discuss their dislike for religion and how exposure to religion could harm their kids.

Similarly non-religious cults of personality which cross over into a religious-like structure are caricatured, such as the episode where a cult of 'Blaintologists' (named for charismatic illusionist David Blaine) forms, and progresses to ritualistic mass cult suicide unless they obtain their tax-exempt status.

The show has come under fire from conservative religious groups for its portrayal of Satan, who appears occasionally. Satan appears as a generally nice, easygoing guy just doing a difficult job. He hosts luaus in Hell, and is also presented as a homosexual, shown in committed relationships with some of Hell's denizens, including Saddam Hussein, who is the dominant one in the relationship, mentally and verbally abusing Satan, leading to Saddam's deaths and Satan's eventual single status; Satan's followup relationship with Chris ends when he learns (after visiting Heaven and asking advice from God) that Chris is "a pussy."

Environment

South Park has had multiple episodes with anti-environmentalist themes.

In the 1999 episode Rainforest Schmainforest, an environmental activist, voiced by Jennifer Aniston, made a harrowing trip to the rain forest of Costa Rica with the children, and the experience caused her to conclude that the rain forest "sucks ass". This episode seems to highlight the lack of in-depth knowledge many people have about a cause they are supporting, and the way in which they appear to 'jump on a bandwagon'. It is therefore unlikely that the episode is intentionally trying to justify the destruction of the rain forest.

The 2001 episode Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow is about the South Park Earth Day "Brainwashing Festival", where a group of conservationists try to brainwash the crowd into caring about the environment.

In the 2005 episode Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow mocks the connections between recent hurricanes and global warming. The title and several plot elements are a play on the film The Day After Tomorrow.

The 2006 episode Smug Alert mocked the self-satisfaction and 'smugness' of people that drive hybrid vehicles (which cause "smug" instead of "smog") and featured George Clooney's Academy award acceptance speech as a major contributor to the dangers of "smug". The importance of hybrid cars and the underlying good that they do for the environment is highlighted at the end of the episode indicating again that it is the people who are being satirized rather than what they represent. A further 2006 episode, Manbearpig mocked Al Gore's "attention seeking" outspokenness about the danger of global warming, ending with Al Gore going on to "...make a film...about ME!" in what is presumably a jab at the film "An Inconvenient Truth".

Episode list

Main article: List of South Park episodes

As of October 4, 2006, there have been 147 episodes of South Park produced.

Characters

The characters and backgrounds of South Park are crude; in fact, paper cut-outs were used in the original pilot Parker/Stone animation and in the very first Comedy Central episode. Every subsequent episode aired on TV has been produced by computer animation that provides the same look, though the animation has arguably become less crude over time. The improvements in animation are mostly used for comedic effect; special effects such as prepackaged explosions have replaced cardboard-style fires, and light shading has been used to highlight "sappy" or movielike moments and Eric Cartman's propensity for striking dramatic poses. Corel is used to create the characters, which are animated using Maya. The style of animation used for South Park was inspired by the paper cut-out cartoons made by Terry Gilliam for Monty Python's Flying Circus, of which Trey Parker and Matt Stone are lifelong fans. For perspective, the average episode of The Simpsons takes six to eight months to create, while episodes of South Park have been completed in as little as five days(which explains why current events that occur mere days before episode air dates are often included, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein). Some episodes contain sections of regular film as well (e.g., "Tweek vs. Craig" and "Cat Orgy").

Matt Stone is the voice of many of the characters including Butters, Kenny, Kyle, Gerald Broflovski, Stuart McCormick, Jimbo Kern, Jesus, Saddam Hussein, Big Gay Al (speaking voice), Pip, Terrance, Tweek, and many others. Trey Parker is the voice of Cartman, Stan, Randy Marsh, Grampa Marsh, Big Gay Al (singing voice), Craig, Dr. Alphonse Mephisto, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Hankey, Mr. Mackey, Ms. Choksondik, Phillip, Timmy, Jimmy, Satan, Officer Barbrady and many others.

Other voices are currently provided by April Stewart (Liane Cartman, Sharon Marsh, Mrs. McCormick, Shelley Marsh, Mayor McDaniels, Principal Victoria, Mrs. Veronica Crabtree, Wendy Testaburger, others), Mona Marshall (Sheila Broflovski, Linda Stotch, others), Adrien Beard (Token) and formerly, Isaac Hayes (Chef). Mary Kay Bergman, sometimes credited as Shannen Cassidy, voiced most of the series' female characters from 1997-1999 (when she committed suicide) and Eliza Schneider (aka Blue Girl) voiced them from 1999-2003. Eric Stough, the animation director, was the inspiration for the character of Butters.

Major characters

Main article: Recurring South Park characters

The main characters of the show are four elementary school students (often called "the boys" when as a group for easier reference):

Stanley "Stan" Marsh

Often the "straight man" of the group. Generally good natured and clear-thinking, albeit over-sensitive at times, Stan usually tries to come up with logical solutions to their outrageous situations. Designed as the alter-ego for co-creator Trey Parker, Stan often attempts to summarize the message or moral of the episode, though sometimes without success. He is best friends with Kyle and their relationship is central to several episodes.

Kyle Broflovski

Easy-going, Jewish (but not particularly religious), skeptical, intelligent and at times short-tempered. He hates Cartman because of his constant ridiculing of his faith. Kyle is effectively the alter-ego of co-creator Matt Stone. Along with Stan, Kyle often provides a reasonable perspective on the crazy behavior of the adult world around them. Kyle is often depicted as the most moral member of the four.

Eric Theodore Cartman

Based on Archie Bunker, and often the catalyst for the plot, Cartman is an abusive, anti-Semitic, violent, smart, campy, aggressive, greedy, corrupt, sexist, bigoted, self-centered, morbidly obese, rude, racist, and extremely manipulative person.

Cartman commonly acts in a manner directly opposed to, or against, that of the other boys. Cartman regularly insults Kyle for being Jewish, Stan for being "a pussy", and Kenny for being poor. His pretentious and often sociopathic ways often cause him to be disdained by the other boys, who do not quite know why they put up with him. He also demonstrates an uncanny ability as a businessman and leader, and was twice seen dressed in a way that mimics Adolf Hitler. In one episode, Cartman organizes a group to get a "future-telling device" off the girls, which shows his smarts and leadership skills. In this same breath, it personifies the children's basic innocence in which they are still motivated by childish desires and naivete, despite their adult situations. Cartman also occasionally serves as a mouthpiece for some of Parker and Stone's more extreme social commentary and has a rabid hatred for anyone he considers to be a "hippie".

Part of his behavior may be due to the fact that he has never had a father and that his mother is a hermaphrodite who is also commonly acknowledged to be a "crack whore" who spoils Eric with gifts, food, and giving into his many complaints. (She was featured on the cover of one issue of Crack Whore magazine and has been known to appear in German "scheiße videos".)

Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick

Kenny is the kid who comes from a poverty-stricken family in South Park's equivalent of the pre-gentrification NYC "Lower East Side". He is the most worldly-wise of the four boys and is often sought out for answers when the other boys encounter a sexual term they have never heard before. His speech is difficult to understand due to the fact that his hood is closed around his face, although all of his lines are real dialogue that are always understood by Stan, Kyle and Eric; however in some episodes, Kenny's dialogue is visible by closed captioning.

During the first five seasons, Kenny served as the eternal victim, routinely killed in a number of grotesque ways meant to entertain during each episode, only to appear in the next episode without explanation. Parker and Stone let Kenny live in only one episode from the first season (Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo). In season 4 he was run over by a bus in part one of a two-part episode (Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?); however in part 2 (Probably) it shows that he lived, but ended up trapped in Mexico which Jesus claims at the end of the episode is a fate worse than death and Hell. At the end of Season 5, Kenny was more permanently left off for a while, since he had to survive for some time before coming back. Parker and Stone explained at the time that this was due to their feeling creatively boxed in by the requirement to kill Kenny in each episode before he survives and comes back.

In season 6 he is replaced by Butters and Tweek as the boys' "fourth friend". However, due to Kenny's lasting popularity, he was included in a "soul" arc involving his soul being trapped in Cartman's body, and then brought back permanently for the seventh season. Kenny's deaths are now much more rare than before. The show's oldest gimmick, existing from the first cardboard concept video, began with Stan shouting, "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" followed by Kyle responding, "You bastards!" whenever Kenny is killed. This is parodied in The Return of Chef. When Chef is killed, Stan screams "Oh my god, they killed Chef!" followed by Kyle who yells, "You bastards, you BASTARDS!".

Leopold "Butters" Stotch

(Appeared in earlier seasons but replaced Kenny as a main character during the first part of the Season 6 and was later replaced by Tweek. Though Kenny was brought back for the 7th season, Butters has remained prominent)

Butters is nervous, naive, easily manipulated, and repressed — while at the same time remains ironically optimistic, wistful and sometimes insightful. He is often punished by his callous and overbearing parents, and is meanwhile blatantly vilified, taken advantage of and/or disregarded by Cartman, Stan, and Kyle. Adding to the tragic nature of his character, his birthday is September 11.

When Kenny seemed to be permanently dead in season 6, the boys tried Butters out as their fourth friend for a while, and when it did not work out a spurned Butters adopted the alter ego of "Professor Chaos", whose costume is clearly inspired by that of Dr. Doom, and he has a sidekick called "General Disarray" (Dougie, a first-grader). Butters tried various schemes to take over the world, but his niceness and general ineptitude doomed all of his efforts. His character is based on animation director, Eric Stough. In one episode he had to dress up as a girl and his name was "Marjorine" ("Margaret" in the Spanish version) in order to retrieve a fortune teller.

Minor characters and celebrities

Main articles: List of celebrities on South Park and Fictional races in South Park

Part of the show's surrealist nature derives from the minor characters who appear in the series. Some of these include:

• God, who has made an appearance in several episodes as a small creature resembling a hippo-rodent hybrid with a reptilian tongue. On the show, God is a Buddhist.
• Jesus, who owned a home and hosted a public-access television talk show in South Park called Jesus and Pals, but was killed off and no longer appears on the show.
• Satan, who has been romantically connected to Saddam Hussein, and a sensitive '90s guy named Chris.
• Moses, a giant glowing dreidle who appears exactly as the Master Control Program (MCP) does in the Disney film Tron and demands pictures made of macaroni glued to paper plates from his faithful
• The Jakovasaurs, whom Cartman find hilarious and everyone else finds annoying.
• Death, who rides a tricycle & finds Terance & Phillip hilarious.
• Mr. Hankey "the Christmas poo", who adds to the holiday festivities in much the same spirit as the 1960s Rankin-Bass cartoons.
• The Crab People, an ancient race of crustacean-like creatures that try to take over the world by dressing up as the men from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, in order to have straight men dress more metrosexually, turning them into "metrosexual pussies", thus potentially destabilizing the world and enabling the Crab People to take over. According to the fictional TV executives of that episode, the Crab People made a similar attempt in the 1970s on The Jeffersons.
• Towelie, A genetically engineered towel created by the government, who is constantly high, and constantly asks the boys, "You wanna get high?" Also, when people look down on him by mentioning that he is a towel, he uses his signature comeback "YOU'RE A TOWEL!" He is also the author of the best selling novel, "A Million Little Fibers" a parody the controversy with James Frey's book. The boys are quoted saying often that Towelie is the worst character ever, which is a response to the critic's mention of him being a 'rip-off' of Mr. Hankey
• Santa Claus, who regularly appears around the annual Christmas episodes. His first appearance in South Park involved a duel between him and Jesus over who was the central figure of Christmas, but the duel was resolved when the boys encouraged them that they were both essential to the spirit of Christmas. Santa's friendship with Jesus continued, although he still expresses occasional jealousy that Jesus is given more prominence in the Christmas season than he is. He was however able to set that aside after Jesus gave his life to rescue Santa from Iraq.

Music

The show's opening theme song is an original musical score performed by alternative rock band Primus. The song has been remixed three times in the course of the series (as of the second half of season ten), and certain lines have been altered (see below).

Kenny's lines in the song, like the rest of his speech in the show (with the exception of two lines in episode 807, The Jeffersons, and when he says "Goodbye, you guys" in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut) are muffled by his parka hood, which covers his entire face except for his eyes. Kenny actually says from season 1 to 2 "I like girls with big, fat titties. I like girls with big vagina," in season 3-5 he says, "I've got a 10-inch penis. Use your mouth if you want to clean it," and then from season 7 on he says "One day I'll be old enough to stick my dick in Britney's butt." ^[9] (All of these lines have been proven official in an interview with the creators.) The general unintelligibility of Kenny's lines has helped them avoid being censored by television networks on a number of occasions, although the gist of it can usually be understood. It is sometimes easy to comprehend the lines, given the context in which they are delivered.

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, La Resistance Medley, 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. For instance, Mountain Town is highly similar to the song Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Up There is a take-off of two different Disney songs, "Out There" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid. La Resistance Medley spoofs One Day More from the stage musical Les Miserables, and Tonight from West Side Story. James Hetfield of Metallica sings on the song, "Little Boy, You're Going to Hell", although it is uncredited.

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

In the show, 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 "I'm A Little Bit Country" Cartman sings Paula Cole's anti-war song "I Don't Want to Wait" while beating someone to death (Cartman also sings the song as an homage to his Dawson's Creek trapper-keeper in the episode Trapper-Keeper). In The Death of Eric Cartman. Cartman sings "Make It Right" with Butters in a weak attempt to reconcile his sins. In Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods, Cartman sings the old Donna Summer song, She Works Hard For The Money during an audition for Cheesy Poofs. In the episode, Simpsons Already Did It Cartman sings about how the sea people will "take me away from this damn planet full of hippies." In the episode Ginger Kids he sings a song about tolerance once he realizes he's not one of the "Gingers" and that he just convinced every "Ginger" in town to exterminate non-Ginger people. Cartman also uses the song Heat of the Moment in episode 513 (Kenny Dies) to convince the U.S. Senate to approve stem cell research. And, of course, there's Cartman's mental quirk that forces him to finish singing Styx's Come Sail Away whenever someone sings a few bars of the song. As soon as he learns this, Kyle, who hates Cartman, takes advantage of this and forces Cartman to finish the song so many times that Cartman becomes literally unintelligible.

Cartman was also the lead singer for Faith + 1, a Christian band he formed with Butters and Token in the episode Christian Rock Hard, singing several "Christian" songs about Jesus, by taking sexually suggestive love songs and substituting the word "Jesus" for "baby," and singing about sexual, or physical love for Jesus instead of spiritual love.

In Fat Butt and Pancake Head, Cartman's hand puppet (who pronounces her name as "Hennifer Lopez" and is revealed at the end to be a transvestite) recorded a hit single titled "Taco Flavored Kisses", incited the wrath of the real Jennifer Lopez (wrecking her career, so that she ends up working in a taco restaurant) and got sexual advances from Ben Affleck. At the end, Cartman, who had credibly denied having any control over "Ms. Lopez" yelled "Hah hah hah! I fooled you kinda!" (which he invariably does whenever he succeeds in putting something over on the others) after Kyle finally agreed to admit that it was possible Cartman had been telling the truth about having no control over what was going on.

Additional musical contributions to the show come from the band Primus, which performed the original opening and ending themes for the show, and formerly from Isaac Hayes, who voiced Chef's singing of usually-sexual songs to explain certain adult themes to the boys.

Many episodes also feature highly melodramatic musical scores to comically exaggerate the emotional content of the scene. (For example, the melancholy music playing in the background when Timmy sends his beloved pet turkey, Gobbles, away in the episode Hellen Keller! the Musical.)

Future

On September 9, 2005, Comedy Central struck a deal with Parker and Stone for three more seasons of the show.^{citation needed]} The network has committed to three more seasons of South Park over the next three years, meaning the show will run until at least 2009. Parker and Stone will continue to write, direct, and edit every episode of the show, bringing the series total to 182 episodes by the end of its twelfth season.^{citation needed]} Edited versions of South Park episodes, with the TV-14 rating, began broadcasting in syndication on September 19, 2005 on various local channels around the US.

Awards

• South Park has been nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Series five times (1997, 1999, 2001, 2005, and in 2006 for its controversial episode Trapped in the Closet). So far the show has only won once, for the 2005 episode Best Friends Forever.
• On April 5, 2006, it was announced that the show had won a Peabody Award. This is the third Comedy Central show to win, following two awarded to The Daily Show for its 2000 and 2004 presidential election coverage and one given to Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1994.
• South Park was nominated for important awards such as the 1998 Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Primetime or Late Night Television Program. It was also nominated for the 1998 GLAAD Award for Outstanding TV - Individual Episode for Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride. It also received an Image Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Isaac Hayes) in 1999.
• South Park was nominated for a 2006 Teen Choice Award for "Best Animated Show", but was defeated by the show Family Guy.
• South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut was nominated for an Oscar for "Best Music, Original Song" for the song "Blame Canada". It was performed by Robin Williams during the program.

Trivia

• In 1995, George Clooney received a tape version of The Spirit of Christmas, the video greeting card which would inspire South Park. He thought it was so funny that he made copies and sent it around the LA area; Stone and Parker were so thankful for his help that they invited him to play a role in the show, and he ended up voicing Stan Marsh's gay dog Sparky in the episode Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride, a role with no dialogue except normal dog noises. He later appeared in the film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut as the doctor who fails to save Kenny. Despite this history, Trey Parker and Matt Stone lampooned Clooney for his outspoken political views in their feature film Team America: World Police. However, Clooney later said that he would have been offended if he were not made fun of in the film (see [10]). George Clooney was also later lampooned for his 78th Academy Awards acceptance speech, in which he claimed that Hollywood was ahead of the curve on social issues, in the Episode Smug Alert!.
• Eric Idle, one of the comics in Matt and Trey's favorite show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, is the voice of Dr. Vosknocker in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. He is the man who reveals the V-chip, which shocks Cartman every time he swears.
• Stanley Kubrick films are frequently referenced in the show, a couple of examples such as the V-chip in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut being similar to the Ludovico Technique in A Clockwork Orange, the use of the school boys as apes in Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society being a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some have pointed out that the Marsh family lives at #2001, which some have seen as a nod to Kubrick. Trey Parker has said that Kubrick was his favorite movie director.
• Conan O'Brien in the South Park movie is actually played by Brent Spiner, best known as the android Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the same scene, Brooke Shields is played by the actress Minnie Driver. Other celebrity cameos: Kenny's one unmuffled line, "Goodbye you guys," is voiced by Mike Judge, creator of the animated shows Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill; and the Baldwin brothers (before being bombed by the Canadian Air Force) are voiced by Dave Foley of Kids in the Hall. Stewart Copeland, drummer for The Police, plays an American soldier; Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran plays a Canadian fighter pilot.
• The popular children's TV show, Arthur, once spoofed this show on an episode.
• Cartman's mother is named Liane after Trey Parker's former fiancee. He caught her with another man, so he named the promiscuous character after her.
• Butters' name was "Puff Puff", and later "Swanson", before Parker and Stone settled on "Butters".
• In the show's unaired pilot, Trey Parker is credited as "Tupac Schwartz" and Matt Stone as "M.C. Schwartz".
• The film Bowling for Columbine includes an interview with Matt Stone that suggests South Park was largely inspired by Stone's childhood experiences in Littleton, Colorado. Stone describes Littleton as painfully normal and highly intolerant of nonconformist 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 (the animation, in fact, does not take place directly after Stone's interview in later releases of the film. The animation starts more than ten minutes after Stone’s interview—-in-between the segments Moore interviews Marilyn Manson and a short commercial for a metal detector is shown). It became a point of contention between them and the filmmaker, Michael Moore, as they believed Moore meant to imply they had contributed it to his film. They have said the appearance of Moore as a ham-stuffed suicide bomber in their 2004 feature film Team America: World Police is their sardonic response to this incident.
• Les Misérables has had several cameo roles throughout the series, including an appearance by Cosette, Cartman's prison number being 24601 (Jean Valjean's prison number), and two song in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut that are based on One Day More, and A Little Fall of Rain, both songs from the musical. 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 Les Misérables at the Denver Community Playhouse for five weeks.
• 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 friend store, where Cartman walks in and complains that Kenny, the friend that he bought, is dead. Eventually, an ending showing crude cut outs of Terry Gilliam, Venus de Milo, and the Monty Python foot appear. Monty Python has been a major influence of Parker and Stone, especially Terry Gilliam's animation style, which would explain the paper cut-out style of South Park.
• Trey Parker animated a South Park version of a joke called The Aristocrats which was used years later for the documentary film of the same name.
• The Parker-Stone production company is named Braniff Productions, 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 101 as a joke, but it was decided (since Parker and Stone had already established Braniff as their company) that the logo would close every episode. The melody that plays while the Braniff airplane is shown is taken from "Shpadoinkle," a song that was written for and appears in Trey Parker's first movie (which he made while at the University of Colorado, Boulder), Cannibal! The Musical. The lyrics associated with the melody are: "The sky is blue/and all the leaves are green".
• Supposedly, in almost every episode of South Park, one of the aliens from Episode 101 is hidden somewhere in the episode.^[10][11] Let it be noted the alien is visible at the end of the opening credits, when a majority of the characters are gathered around the South Park sign.
• Cutouts of South Park characters were used in the unaired pilot version. The rest of the show was created by a computer.
• There are constant references to the geography in and around the fictional town of South Park that correspond to the real South Park in Colorado. It is noted that Trey Parker attended Evergreen High school in nearby Evergreen, Colorado. Bailey and Conifer are actual communities a short distance away from South Park; Conifer is the boyhood home of Trey Parker. South Park City is an outdoor old-west museum in the town of Fairplay, Colorado. South Park is also the name of a (see [11]) Park County School which has been mentioned in South Park. There are also references to popular places elsewhere in Colorado such as Casa Bonita, an eatery located in Lakewood, Colorado. The Highway mentioned in several episodes (U.S. Route 285) actually links Denver, Evergreen, Conifer, Bailey, and Fairplay, the last being the most obvious parallel to the fictional town of South Park, Colorado. However, in recent years the town has been portrayed as more of a suburb of Denver and less of a small town. This is seen most often in the episodes that travel to real Denver locations such as Colfax Avenue, Five Points, Coors Field, and Capitol Hill.
• There are also references to Colorado News Stations that actually exist. For example, the main station, News 4, is a reference to CBS 4 located in Denver, Colorado (of note, CBS was once actually a corporate sibling to Comedy Central). There is also NBC 9, and ABC 7 which also have a few references.
• There is an actual street in Littleton, Colorado called ([12]) Southpark Drive, which is named after the geographical basin in Colorado.

• Stan's and Kyle's immediate families have the same names as Trey Parker's and Matt Stone's.
• So far, seasons 5 and 9 are the only seasons that do not have a Christmas episode.
• Pip, and A Million Little Fibers are the only episodes to not feature any of the main boys. In Not Without My Anus, Cartman [if not all the boys] is visible on a television. In addition to these episodes Butters' Very Own Episode, Krazy Kripples and Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset feature the main boys, but none of them have a large part.
• Season 9 is the only season so far to have all of the episodes air in the correct production order. Future seasons will most likely air in the correct order since Trey and Matt claim to make each episode a week before it airs.
• Warner Bros. originally distributed the first two seasons on VHS and DVD, which included various opening segments like "A Fireside Chat with Matt and Trey" and "Makin' Bacon with Macon". Beginning with the third season, there were no more VHS releases, and the DVDs were distributed by Paramount without any opening segments or sketches. However, Matt and Trey's "Commentary-Minis" began appearing in the third season. Later pressings of season one and two now have the Paramount logo, making the originals somewhat difficult to find.
• Since 2003 some Air Arabia advertisements and their webpage have featured cartoon characters which some believe bear a striking similarity to the characters in the cartoon.
• NASCAR NEXTEL CUP Driver Kyle Busch has a pitboard with a picture of the character Kyle on it.
• Blizzard Entertainment's popular MMORPG World of Warcraft was featured in the premeire episode for the second half of the 10th season. The episode aired October 4th 2006. Press Release

Running gags and catchphrases

Main article: Running gags in South Park

• Kenny died in almost every episode during the first five seasons, usually near the end. In a few episodes, his death is used as a plot device, most notably in the movie, where his friendship with Satan in Hell is essential to the story, to the point of providing the final deus ex machina.
• When Kenny dies, Stan says "Oh, my God! They (or We) killed Kenny!" Kyle will then say "You bastard(s)!" These lines are sometimes used as jokes, such as in the episode Super Best Friends, where Stan used his line as echolocation, Marco Polo style, to find Kyle. This is again used when Kenny is stomped to death by revelers in Cartman's tree house; Cartman says Stan's line and Kyle, walking by the tree house, alone, stops to say "You bastards!". In another episode, when Cartman is trampled by a bull, Kenny utters Stan's line, although Cartman is not actually killed. In recent seasons, this exchange between Stan and Kyle happens when anyone on the show dies, including Kenny.
• Frequently when Kenny dies, rats scurry onscreen, eat his corpse, and then scurry off.
• When Cartman gets aggravated by his friends, he often leaves, saying "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home", however, when the current situation requires his attention, he usually comes right back or does not leave at all.
• Cartman always mispronounces authority as "authoritah" and has similarly mispronounced several other words including "integritah", "molestered", "propertah", "blasphemah", "myaah" (here, as in "Guys, get me down from myaah!"), "sqwah" (square, as in "I will kick you right sqwah in the nuts"), and "Confederaçah".
• In the earlier episodes, usually at the end after a wild series of events has occurred, Stan says, "Dude, this is pretty fucked up right here."
• Near the end of most episodes, either Kyle or Stan start a moral to the episode with "You know what, I learned something today..."
• Kyle and his family are supposedly the entire Jewish community in South Park, but in episodes where Kyle's in a synagogue and "The Passion of the Jew" there are many Jewish people shown.
• Several background characters are named Kevin, Chris and Steven.

Religious humor

South Park often satirizes and insults organized religion, such as in Super Best Friends. Throughout the years, critics complained on the heavy use of references on Jews and Jewish stereotypes (the Broflovskis). Kyle's father wears a yarmulke, although he does not require his sons to do so, and is the town's only lawyer; Kyle's mother is a strict mother, an activist, resembles a caricature of a middle-aged Jewish woman, and adores Barbra Streisand. According to the episode Red Hot Catholic Love, South Park is a predominantly Catholic town and apparently all the major and recurring characters in South Park are (not very devout) Roman Catholics, except for:

• The Broflovskis (Kyle's family) are Jewish, and apparently constitute "the [entire] Jewish community" of South Park, though a synagogue of Jewish residents is shown in the episode "Passion of the Jew."
• The Harrisons are Mormon (they only appear in one episode).
• Chef, who converts to Islam in Chef Goes Nanners, changes his "slave name" to Abdul Mohammed Jabbar-Rauf Kareem Ali (a combination of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Muhammad Ali and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, all the names of African-American athletes who were also Muslim converts). He eventually renounced his newfound religion, only to become a member of the Super Adventure Club (a parody of the Church of Scientology), which brainwashed him into becoming a child molester.
• Chef's parents practice Voodoo and Occult rituals (though their precise faith is unknown). Chef, however, states in the episode Damien that his mother would be upset if he beat Jesus, his sparring partner, so his mother must at least have respect for Jesus.
• The Super Best Friends - a satire of the Superfriends cartoons. The founders of all the world's major religions are super best friends with each other and use their special powers to fight evil (except Buddha, who does not believe in evil).
• God, who claims to be a Buddhist.
• David Blaine — before South Park "exposed" the Church of Scientology, there was David Blaine's cult/religion (seeBlaintology), an episode with commentary suggesting there is no difference between magic and miracles (i.e. the tricks performed by David Blaine are as real as the miracles performed by Jesus Christ).
• Stan, who in Trapped in the Closet was claimed to be a reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard from The Church of Scientology, but denounced it at the end of that episode.
• In the episode Probably, it is claimed that the only people who get into heaven are the Mormons, though this changes in Best Friends Forever when God decides that the Mormons aren't tough enough to go against Satan's forces. Hell doesn't really seem so bad either, having orientation and luaus. The episode Best Friends Forever also asserts that Japanese people don't have souls, nor do "Gingers" (red heads with freckles and pale skin) according to Cartman in "Ginger Kids"...
• Aside from the creators' frequent playful mockery of organised religion, South Park has also taken a satirical approach to atheism in the episode Red Hot Catholic Love (an episode where the Catholic parents decide to become atheists over concerns that their children are at risk of being molested by their priest). It contains a scene where the South Park Atheists Club are speaking of removing all references to God from education and American currency while openly defecating from their mouths.

Computer and video games

• South Park for Nintendo 64, PlayStation and PC
• South Park: Chef's Luv Shack for Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Dreamcast, and PC
• South Park Rally for Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Dreamcast, and PC
• Save Kenny for mobile phones

See also

• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
• List of South Park episodes
• South Park Republican
• Cheesy Poofs
• Chewbacca Defense
• Chocolate Salty Balls
• Colorado
• Park County, Colorado

References

External links

• South Park Studios - official website
• South Park at Comedy Central's website
• South Park Scriptorium
• The original "Create a South Park character" flash game
• South Park at the Internet Movie Database
• South Park at TV.com
• Wikia has a wiki about: South Park