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DVD notes
Just one facet of the genius behind Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of “South Park” and “Team America” is that as well as they know how to push the boundaries of taste, humor and crude animation on television, they are wisely restrained on the DVD sets of “South Park.”
The co-creators do “Mini-commentaries” on each episode of the series, sticking around only for the first four to six minutes to remember choice bits from a particular show or just goof on the origin of the idea for a last-minute save — many “South Park”s are completed the same day they air on Comedy Central.
Parker and Stone say that anything longer than short commentaries would be boring for even fans of the show and they stick to their guns; when they realize they’re rambling on, they stop short and move on to the next one.
If the handsome six volumes do not best “The Simpsons” in longevity, they at least make the argument that “South Park” rivals Groening and Co.’s show for sheer laughs and brilliance; even if many fans gave up on “South Park” soon after the shock value wore off.
Some choice bits from the just-released “South Park — The Complete Sixth Season”:
- With an episode railing on George Lucas, the “South Park” guys may have saved Indiana Jones. According to Parker and Stone, Stephen Spielberg sent them a note about “Free Hat” an episode in which the cartoon Spielberg and Lucas decide to remake parts of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with new special effects, a la “Star Wars.” Sometime after the episode aired, Spielberg shelves real-life plans to to do the same.
- “City Wok” was based on a real Chinese restaurant owner that Parker and Stone once called for take-out.
- “Simpsons Already Did It,” an ode to all the great jokes that Parker and Stone come up with only to find out later have already been done on “The Simpsons” ended up becoming a victim of its own title when a secondary plotline in the show did end up matching something “The Simpsons” had done in a “Treehouse of Horror” episode. In the spirit of the episode, Parker and Stone, who claim they’ve only seen a handful of “Simpsons” episodes because of their busy schedules, left it in.
- Butters is still one of Parker’s and Stone’s favorite characters and Season Six was when the character’s voice and mannerisms crystallized in “Professor Chaos.”
- Parker and Stone still firmly believe that “Crossing Over” host John Edward lives up to his billing in the episode about him they called “The Biggest Douche in the Universe.”
- Parker and Stone joke that they should have made a “Terrance and Phillip” movie instead of “Team America.”
- In “Red Sleigh Down,” Parker and Stone decided to kill off Jesus as a character on the show, but brought back Kenny, after a season of placing surrogate characters in his place.
- Parker says he’s officially over “Star Wars.”
- The creation of tunnel-dwelling Lemmiwinks from “The Death Camp of Tolerance” is something Parker and Stone are very proud of, but they had to convince their animators that it wasn’t an elaborate prank that they never intended to put on the air. Nobody else thought it was funny.
- Parker and Stone still start on some episodes the Thursday before air and finish them on Tuesday or Wednesday, mere hours before the show is nationally broadcast. For “Asspen,” the boys didn’t get clearance to use A-Ha’s song “Take on Me” until the day the episode aired.
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