Trey Parker and Matt Stone are nothing short of comic geniuses, which is why they’ve been allowed to get away with pretty much anything on South Park, as well as pursue other creative endeavors like an all-puppet movies or writing a Tony and Grammy award winning musical. To celebrate South Park’s return to Comedy Central for an 18th season, let’s get to know the show’s brilliant creators even better.
Trey Parker experimented with construction paper animation in 1992
Trey Parker first used the construction paper animation technique, later utilized in South Park, on a college project called American History, and won the Student Academy Award for his work — much to the dismay of other animators, who felt their work was far more professional and deserving.
They rented a hotel conference room to debut Cannibal! The Musical “near” Sundance Film Festival
After submitting Alfred Packer: The Musical (later renamed Cannibal! The Musical) to Sundance Film Festival and not getting a response, they rented out a conference room at a nearby hotel to screen the film during the festival. This turned out to be a great idea because they met tons of people from the industry.
Some of the South Park characters debuted in The Spirit of Christmas
Some of the South Park characters (not fully formed) made an appearance in a stop motion video Trey and Matt made called The Spirit of Christmas (aka Jesus vs. Frosty) while studying at the University of Colorado. This later lead to an executive at Fox paying them to make a sequel, Jesus vs. Santa.
Trey Parker writes almost all of the music used in their projects
Trey Parker is a very talented musician, and has written most of the music for their projects including: “America F*ck Yeahm,” “Freedom Isn’t Free,” and he co-wrote “Everyone Has AIDs.” He also received an Oscar nomination for best original song “Blame Canada,” which he wrote along with fellow musician Marc Shaiman for the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
Matt Stone had Michael Moore depicted as a fat slob in Team America: World Police
Michael Moore asked Matt Stone to be in his anti-gun documentary Bowling for Columbine, because Matt is from Littleton, CO — where the Columbine school shooting occurred. When the movie was released, Matt Stone was upset with how his interview was edited.
“We have a very specific beef with Michael Moore,” Stone said. “I did an interview, and he didn’t mischaracterize me or anything I said in the movie. But what he did do was put this cartoon right after me that made it look like we did that cartoon.”
Matt decided to exact revenge on Moore by depicting him as a greedy, overweight slob.
They were asked to write the prequel to Dumb and Dumber
When you’re as successful and in demand as Trey and Matt other projects tend to fall in your lap, which is why they were approached to write the prequel to Dumb and Dumber. In an interview with Playboy in 2000 they explained they worked on it for two years, they were too busy with South Park to finish it. In the end, the studios went with different writers, and ended up with Dumb and Dumberer.
Half of the budget for Orgazmo came from the Japanese porn company Kuki
They thought it would be a good way to expose some of their performers to western culture.
Trey Parker was supposedly offered the directing job on Barney’s Great Adventure
Shortly before South Park began to air Trey Parker was supposedly offered the title, but turned it down. And to think how great the Barney movie could have been.
