South Park
Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Brian Graden are the minds behind the American animated series South Park, which they produced for Comedy Central.
South Park got created by Parker and Stone from two animated shorts named The Spirit of Christmas. The second short inspired the creation of South Park and turned into one of the first Internet viral videos.
The Plot
- The four boys, Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick, are the focus of the show’s narrative, which takes place in and around the named Colorado town.
- For its vulgarity and dark, surreal humor that targets an adult audience and satirizes a wide variety of subjects, South Park rose to fame.
- The brothers reside in South Park, a made-up tiny town situated in the South Park Basin of the Rocky Hills in central Colorado, about an hour’s drive from Denver.
- Many characters call the village home, including kids, families, elementary school employees, and other citizens.
- South Park Elementary, several neighborhoods, the surrounding mountain range, natural Colorado monuments, and the establishments along the town’s main street are prominent settings modeled on comparable places in Fairplay, Colorado.
- According to the website for the television show, Stan is presented as the group’s everyman and is a “typical, American fourth-grader.”
- Kyle is Jewish, and his portrayal in South Park as one of the few such persons frequently satirized.
- Kyle got modeled after Stone, while Stan got modeled after Parker. They are great friends, and the series often discusses their friendship, metaphorically meant to symbolize Parker and Stone’s bond.
- As widely known, Cartman is presented as an antagonist because he is noisy, annoying, and immoral. His adamant antisemitism has given rise to a developing rivalry with Kyle.
- Kenny, who hails from a low-income household, pulls the hood of his coat so tight over his face that it obscures much of it and obstructs his speaking.
- In the first five seasons, practically every episode had Kenny dying before he mysteriously reappeared in the next one.
- He got revived in the sixth season finale after being killed off in the fifth episode, “Kenny Dies.” Since then, Kenny has got portrayed as passing away suddenly.
- The kids were in third grade for the first 58 episodes. They started fourth grade during the fourth season and have been in there ever since.
- Events that commonly occur in the town, ranging from the very average to the strange and unusual, usually catalyze plots.
- The boys frequently serve as the voice of reason when these incidents produce fear or out-of-character conduct in the adult population, who got typically portrayed as illogical, gullible, and prone to overreacting.
- Because of their conflicting and hypocritical actions, they typically believe their parents and other adults have warped perspectives on morality and society.
Accomplishments
South Park has had 318 episodes (counting television features) since its premiere on August 13, 1997. It had a tremendous premiere and consistently has the best ratings of any basic cable program.
Although subsequent numbers have fluctuated, it remains one of Comedy Central’s most popular shows.
Later that year, the first two movies of a series were made for the streaming service Paramount+. The series received a 2027 extension in August 2021.