Posted on 03/10/2006 12:32:36 PM PST by SteveBosell
They brought us four foulmouthed Colorado kids on South Park, spoofed the President in the sitcom That's My Bush! and annoyed Sean Penn with the movie Team America: World Police. Ahead of the March 22 start of South Park's 10th season on Comedy Central, Stone, 34, left, and Parker, 36, talked to TIME's James Poniewozik about celebs, politics and the innate badness of children.
YOU GUYS ARE FAMOUS FOR HANDING IN EPISODES AT THE LAST MINUTE. HAVE YOU EVEN STARTED SEASON 10? MATT STONE We just started about two days ago. TREY PARKER We're trying to work, but with no pressure we just aren't that funny.
HOW IS SOUTH PARK DIFFERENT FROM IN 1997? M.S. It's just way better. When we started, we didn't know what we were doing. And none of the shows we've done in the last two or three seasons could have been shown on air back in 1997. If you look at the first season, they're tame. T.P. It's definitely a lot dirtier.
YET IN '97 ALL PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT WAS THE VULGARITY. NOW ALL THEY TALK ABOUT IS THE SOCIAL COMMENTARY. T.P. We created a brand for ourselves, so that now people can't get mad at what we do, because then they're just making fun of themselves. We had an animated Muhammad five years ago. But people say, "Oh, yeah, that's just South Park."
ARE THERE EVER TIMES IN THE OFF-SEASON WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS AND YOU THINK, "DAMN! I WISH WE COULD WRITE ABOUT THAT"? M.S. Last year it was the [Live 8] concert, and I was like, "Oh, man, I want to rip on them." And then there was when Tom Cruise was acting crazy. He just stayed crazy for so long--and it was still in the news--that we did a Tom Cruise show anyway.
WHAT WAS SCARIER: THAT TOM CRUISE MIGHT SUE YOU OR THAT SEAN PENN MIGHT PUNCH YOU? T.P. Well, Sean Penn is about 4 ft. 3 [M.S. laughs], so I'm definitely not scared of him. We're both fairly large guys. M.S. Yeah. I'm not scared of Sean Penn or Tom Cruise physically. Now legally, that's a different story.
THE BOOK SOUTH PARK CONSERVATIVES SAID YOUR SHOW IS AN ANTILIBERAL SATIRE. IS THAT A FAIR DESCRIPTION? M.S. I think that's a fair description of some of the show's politics. But you could also easily write a book called South Park Liberals, because we've attacked a lot of funny stuff that conservative people and institutions do in America. But we're the only show that rips on Rob Reiner and antismoking laws and hippies, so we get that label.
THAT'S MY BUSH! LASTED ONE SEASON IN 2001. WOULD IT HAVE DONE BETTER A FEW YEARS LATER? M.S. I think it would. But I don't think we would have been interested, because it would have been more politically charged. And it wasn't a political show for us. T.P. To be a sitcom you need just a superlovable guy at the center, who, yeah, he f___s up a lot, and yeah, he's harebrained sometimes, but he's got a good heart. Which I think is basically George Bush. M.S. He's like Homer Simpson.
WOULD YOU EVER DO ANOTHER MOVIE? SOUTH PARK OR OTHERWISE? T.P. The only way we'd do it is if we were sitting around and were like, "That's a sweet idea for a movie." A lot of the South Park episodes we've done could have probably been really good movies. M.S. We have a hungry baby we have to feed. South Park takes every idea.
SPEAKING OF BABIES, NEITHER OF YOU HAS KIDS, RIGHT? BOTH No. SO HOW DO YOU STAY IN TOUCH WITH HOW YOUNG BOYS, LIKE YOUR CHARACTERS ON SOUTH PARK, THINK? T.P. Yeah, sometimes I wonder. We still think like kids. Once you have kids, you think like a parent. You get a lot more protective. You start to think these kids are so beautiful, you can't see past your child's-- M.S. What a bastard your child is. [Laughs] T.P. We still believe that all people are born bad and are made good by society, rather than the opposite. M.S. Actually, I think that's where we're conservative.
I actually conned my mom into watching Baseketball. She loved it.
I can hear it now.......[in best hippie voice]...Good guy? Good heart? Yeah right! Tell that to the 100,000 slaughtered Iraqi innocents! Tell that to the American people [liberal democrats] who have fought to keep Bushitler from turning Amerikkka into a theocratic dictatorship! Tell that to the innocent detainees who are being tortured worse than they were under Saddam on a daily basis by the American gestapo! Tell that to the world that was kind and charitable and totally free of all conflict before the first Bush inaugural! Tell that to mother Earth, who is being gang-raped by oil men and forest murderers......blah, blah, blah.....
And these idiots wonder why they can't win elections.
Trey and Matt have hit the nail on the head when it comes to criticizing these senseless hippie liberals, you need to look no further than the episode when pot smoking hippies infest Southpark and put on a jam fest to bring the evil corporations and the military industrial complex to their knees.....and then they're saved by Cartman's plan to drill to the center of the crowd and disperse them by playing death metal.
Why not?
Awesome-O is my all time favorite episode. I think Butters is one of the best characters they have ever developed.
Nope, has to be a smiley of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban to get Riots.
~()):~)>
DUDE!
Where' Old Cracker when you need him?
I thought Baseketball was not as good as other work...
If you truly appreciate the work these guys do, I HIGHLY recommend Cannibal! The Musical. Terrific songs and lyrics as you might expect. And as the NYTimes wrote in their review: "After the first 10 minutes, it's not completely appalling" :~D
I agree. I can ALWAYS generate a laugh in one of my college history classes by just saying, a la Team America, "Matt Da-mon."
I tried really hard not to like South Park because it can be so nasty.....but dang it does make me laugh and if I do not like an episode I can always shut it off....I loved the Tom Cruise episode....I laugh whenever I think of it....these guys are really talented
Fantastic show!!!!
I love Tweak (Meth heads are known as tweakers). Hyper, make no sense, paranoid. Perfect.
I'm so ronery....
"Tom Cruise, come out of the closet."
He does a lot worse than that.
Great post. Saw them here in Denver just after they became famous. Trey's dad was just shaking his head in disbelief as people were coming up and getting autographs. Anyway, them's our hometown boyz.
LOL
Is it just me or did Time miss the whole point of "South Park Conservatives" - it wasn't anti-liberal satire. Seems like a gross overgeneralization. It's satire, and it's anti-liberal, but it's anti-everything, which is the point of the book. Then again, to be anti-everything is to be anti-liberal.
TIMMAH!
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