South Park Appreciation

[picolas]

shitty simpsons?

also there's no reason for only cartman/kyle to know that pulling one episode starts a chain reaction/it's all speculation and no actual stakes.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I was referring to how Homer got more and more idiotic each season (except, in his case, it grew funnier, whereas I only really find the adults freaking out funny sparingly).

[picolas]

i think in the simpsons homer's levels of stupidness in the good seasons made sense is the difference. like the clip highlighted in the 138th episode spectacular where he's about to hit a chestnut tree is 'stupid' but hilarious because he's so enthused by getting out of work that he doesn't notice he's about to hit a chestnut tree and yet he does and weaves it into the song he's singing. that makes so much sense. and yet it's the stupidest thing he could've done.

[grand theft sparrow]

for the record/to get it off my chest i've thought/realized since team america that trey parker/matt stone are amazing at concepts, but absolutely horrible at writing the actual scenes. and after cartoon wars part one i think they're not as good at concepts anymore. maybe it's because they've been sticking with south park for so long. but the bury heads in the sand thing isn't good. the adults are becoming unreasonably stupid.

The adults are becoming unreasonably stupid... just like in real life.  The biggest crime the show is guilty of is preaching to the converted; most of their viewers know that things like the James Frey situation are ridiculous, otherwise they wouldn't still be watching.  But the thing with them is that the jokes are usually good enough to cover up the weaknesses of the satire.  It usually is still good for a laugh but episodes like last night's are just plain lazy.  Maybe they're wearing down because they've done it for so long but I still stand by them managing to put in at least one joke every episode that makes it worthwhile (last night being an exception).

I'm sure the appeal was to attack a "sacred cow" like Oprah (please believe me, no pun intended) but it wasn't done well.  This wasn't like Cartman's hand being mistaken for Jennifer Lopez or Christopher Reeve sucking stem cells out of dead fetuses... context was missing.  What do Oprah's nether regions have to do with the James Frey situation at all?

[Gamblour.]

Pussies and assholes, man. I mean, I guess that's what the connection is. Pretty dumb, if so. The absurdity was funny, but the episode was terrible.

[squints]

The absurdity was funny, but the episode was terrible.

I only found myself laughing at the sheer idiocy of the whole concept. It definitely lacked at least one really funny joke or something extremely gross (i.e. actual footage of a sex change operation) that usually "saves" the episode, or at least makes it memorable. . Towlie is an awful character and I wish i had been high when i saw it. It just might have been funny that way.

[squints]

This week's episode was pretty funny. Not so much for the Manbearpig or Al Gore (that was outta no where), but anytime i see cartman more overweight than normal..i'm in stitches.

[Garam]

I thought the towelie episode was pretty dern amusing. I'm not familiar with the James Gern (?) story, but I just found the absurdity of the plot hilarious. The muddled English accents of the pussy and asshole were damn funny.

But the Al Gore episode wasn't very good. Does anyone care about Al Gore anymore?

[squints]

Does anyone care about Al Gore anymore?

Exactly

[MacGuffin]

'South Park' Creators' "Favorite Memo"

The photo of a memo purportedly sent by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker to the MPAA ratings board to get their South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut passed with an R rating in 1999 was posted on several websites Tuesday. (Among the points listed in the memo: "We put a new storyboard in for clarification in the scene with Sadaam (sic) Hussein's penis. The intent now is that you never see Sadaam's real penis, he in fact is using dildos both times." Also: "We left in the scene with Cartman's mom and the horse as per our conversation. This is the one joke we really want to fight for." Stone's "P.S.": "This is my favorite memo ever." South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song, for "Blame Canada."

[polkablues]

I love that... also, apparently the original title of the movie was "South Park: All Hell Breaks Loose", which was rejected by the MPAA because of the word Hell, a word which a quick IMDb search reveals has been used in over 600 titles previously.  So they changed the title to a dick joke, which the MPAA either didn't get, or was totally cool with.

[Ravi]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060713/ap_en_tv/tv_south_park_scientology

'South Park' Scientology episode to re-air
27 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - "Trapped in the Closet," the controversial "South Park" episode that skewers Scientology and its popular proponent
Tom Cruise, is hitting the airwaves again.

Comedy Central plans to air the Emmy-nominated episode on July 19. It was last scheduled to rerun in March but was abruptly pulled by the network.

The network rotates its 150 episodes of "South Park" in and out of the broadcast schedule, spokesman Tony Fox said Wednesday.

"This episode just happens to be rotating back in," he said.

The show's co-creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were told in May that the episode was pulled from the schedule to appease Cruise and his partners in "Mission: Impossible III," according to reports.

"If they hadn't put this episode back on the air, we'd have had serious issues, and we wouldn't be doing anything else with them," Stone said in Wednesday's edition of the trade paper Variety.

[MacGuffin]

TV News: SOUTH PARK CREATORS GIVE FINAL WORD ON ISAAC HAYES LEAVING THE SHOW OVER THE SCIENTOLOGY EPISODE
They suspected Hayes would quit over the "Trapped in the Closet" episode, but proceded with it anyway 

THE SKINNY: Isaac Hayes may have quit SOUTH PARK because of the Scientology-based episode "Trapped in the Closet," but the creators of the series, Trey Parker and Matt Stone revealed yesterday at the Summer Television Critics Association that they expected there would be trouble when they decided to tackle Hayes' religion.

"We did the Scientology episode and Isaac came to our office the next week to see us and I had a two hour meeting with him," recalls Stone. "And he was really upset because as you know by now, he's a Scientologist. He wasn't doing anything underhanded. He really loves Scientology and he really loves SOUTH PARK and those two things were at odds. This was right after the episode aired in November. He asked us to pull the episode off the air and to go to the network and pull the episode off the air and don't ever make it into a DVD. We said, 'No, we're not going to do that.' He said, 'okay,' and he left. And then we didn't hear anything. That was really our last contact with him."

Months later, Parker says that's when they heard Hayes was quitting the show.

"We were at the office and we heard Isaac's quitting and we're like, 'well, you know, we knew that might happen when we made the episode," admits Parker. "But we didn't want to be hypocrites. We always say, 'Hey, it's all okay to make fun of or none of it is. Everything has to be okay.' So when we had this good idea for a Scientology episode, we were like, 'You know what – this could piss Isaac off.' And we're like, 'Yeah, but you know what, we're hypocrites if we don't make it for that reason.' So we knew he might quit, and we got this letter and we're like, 'Okay, he quit.' To be honest, Chef hasn't been a big part of the show for five years, so it wasn't like a devastating blow or anything. We were bummed, out, but it was 'okay, he has totally a right to do that, and that's great,' and that was sort of going to be the end of it. But then this press release came out, whether it was sent by Isaac's people or Isaac or whatever, but it said, 'Isaac has left the show. I can no longer tolerate [it],' and 'Trey and Matt are bigots' and all that stuff. It was so crazy because we got along so well and that's where we were like, 'Wow, you really thought the show was fine until we did your religion, and now we're bigots.' So that's why we were like, 'Okay, game on mother f*cker.' And we did that first episode."

[grand theft sparrow]

I guess they're contractually bound by Viacom to not suggest that Viacom is allowing the episode to run again since people stayed away from MI3 specifically because of Tom Cruise.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

since people stayed away from MI3 specifically because of Tom Cruise.

But if South Park never made fun of him, we'd all respect him for the classically trained thespian that he is?