South Park - New "Canadian Prime Minister" Revealed: Saddam Hussein

South Park ^ | 12/17/2003 | Those Whacksters at South Park

[an amused spectator]

They really used recent current events for this one. Matt and Trey are geniuses in my book.

They even nailed me, too. I didn't realize that Chretien was gone, and that Paul Martin is the new prime minister (as of December 12). :-)

[Calvin Locke]

They must have thought the plot line up in under 24 hours.

My guess is they just reworked the ending, like the gray beard and "I want to negotiate".

However, how did Saddam get the hell out of hell?
(SATAN maybe????)

Poor Paul Martin. In office for what? Three days?

[Guvmint_Cheese]

I saw a VH1 special on South Park that explained the process. They used some program called PowerAnimator to generate and store the graphics. Because the characters are so simplistic, they can put together an entire episode in 72 hours.

Matt and Trey did a little SP documentary of "Spirit of Christmas" with Stan and Kyle showing the process of cutting out construction paper, positioning it, and taking a picture. The four minute cartoon took 70 days to make.

I had no idea that Newfoundlanders sodomize each other, but I am curious about what really goes on during Dildo Days in Dildo, N.F. (see http://www.k12.nf.ca/stgeorgeshigh/Dildo/DildoDays.htm for more info)

[NeoCaveman]

They had Saddam with his long beard.

Comedy Central reruns it over the weekend.

[af_vet_rr]

Does anyone have any idea how they turned this show around so quickly? I presume that most of the labor is done off-shore.

I read somewhere they use a South Korean animation studio (South Korea and Japan are to animation what Hollywood is to movies) and the South Park staff in the US is small - they could easily be writing the story and as segments are finished, they send them off to be done while they work on the next segment, and when they come in the next day, because of time differences, the work they sent off the day before would be done. The voice work though (the songs, etc.) and putting it altogether though, kudos to them, it's got to be hard to squeeze that all in.

If you handle animation, it makes perfect sense to use a Korean or Japanese studio (not just because of time differences) - animation is incredibly huge in Asia - it's hard to explain to people here in the US how big it is. I've been to both South Korea and Japan, and it blows your mind to walk into a newstand and see the amount of animation/cartoons/whatever sold, compared to here.

A lot of it is Anime-style which I never cared much for (hard to explain, you just have to look at it). I always found it weird to walk into a newsstand or bookstore in Japan or South Korea and see tons of adults (people in business suits, moms, etc.) reading animation over there.

The episode last night was as funny, if not funnier, than the Janet Reno/Elian Gonzalez/Kenny episode because of the current events. My wife and I were both laughing at the ending (and she's not a big fan yet although the musical number about the Americans capturing Saddam probably pushed her over).

I don't know if it's just me reading into it, but it seemed like Cartman was like Saddam, all talk but caved in when confronted.

[af_vet_rr]

Actually it may have been the Simpsons that was done in South Korea and not South Park.

[TexanAmerican]

aww crap cant believe I missed it
Re-run in 75 minutes or so. Set that VCR or Tivo. I just did.
\\\\

And if you missed that, try Fri night at Midnight EST. They usually rerun that weeks new episode then.

[retrokitten]

It was hysterical!!! My husband and I were just dying laughing! Cartman was a riot. "That's it!! We are going to thrown down!" LOL!! Then the "Ding-dong Saddam is gone!" song had us both near tears from laughing. This season of South Park has been one of the best, if not the best ever.

[GOPJ]

Sweet Tivo bump.

[Xenalyte]

It's animated here. The boys have several mostly-animated stories that they're ready to use if and when they become topical.

[an amused spectator]

I was laughing so hard that I didn't really catch the "ding, dong, Saddam is gone" bit. ;-)

[CounterCounterCulture]

'SOUTH PARK' NABS SADDAM (New York Post)