South Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys—Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick—and their exploits in and around the titular Colorado town. South Park also features many recurring characters. It became infamous for its profanity and dark, surreal humor that satirizes a large range of subject matter.
Parker and Stone developed South Park from two animated short films, both titled The Spirit of Christmas, produced in 1992 and 1995. The second short became one of the first Internet viral videos, leading to South Park's production. The pilot episode was produced using cutout animation; the remainder of the series uses computer animation recalling the prior technique. Since the fourth season, episodes are generally written and produced during the week preceding its broadcast, with Parker serving as the lead writer and director.
Since its debut on August 13, 1997, 325 episodes of South Park have been broadcast. It debuted with great success, consistently earning the highest ratings of any basic cable program. Subsequent ratings have varied, but it remains one of Comedy Central's longest-running programs. In August 2021, South Park was renewed through 2027, and a series of television specials was announced for Paramount+, the first two of which were released later that year. In October 2019, it was announced that WarnerMedia acquired exclusive streaming rights to South Park starting in June 2020 for HBO Max. The series’ twenty-sixth season premiered on February 8, 2023.
South Park has received critical acclaim, and is included in various publications' lists of greatest television shows. It has received numerous accolades, including five Primetime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award. A theatrical film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, was released in June 1999 to commercial and critical success, garnering an Academy Award nomination. In 2013, TV Guide ranked South Park the tenth Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time.
SETTING & CHARACTERS
South Park centers around four boys: Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick. The boys live in the fictional small town of South Park, located within the real-life South Park basin in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado, approximately a one-hour drive from Denver. The town is also home to an assortment of other characters, including students, families, elementary school staff, and other various residents. Prominent settings include South Park Elementary, various neighborhoods and the surrounding mountain range, actual Colorado landmarks, and the businesses along the town's main street, all of which are based on the appearance of similar locations in Fairplay, Colorado. As one of the few television programs set in the Mountain West region that takes place outside the urban core of Denver, South Park frequently features the unique culture of the region, including cattle ranchers, Old West theme parks, snowy climates, mountaineering, Mormons, real-life Colorado locations such as Casa Bonita and Cave of the Winds, and many other regionally specific characteristics.
Stan is portrayed as the everyman of the group, described in official media as an "average, American 4th grader." Kyle is Jewish, and his portrayal as one of the few such people in South Park is often dealt with satirically. Stan is modeled after Parker, while Kyle is modeled after Stone. They are best friends, and their friendship, symbolically intended to reflect Parker and Stone's friendship, is a common topic throughout the series. Cartman (as he is commonly referred to) is amoral and increasingly psychopathic, and is commonly portrayed as an antagonist. His staunch antisemitism has resulted in a progressive rivalry with Kyle. Kenny, who comes from a poor family, tightly wears his parka hood to the point where it obscures most of his face and muffles his speech. During the first five seasons, Kenny died in almost every episode before reappearing in the next with no definite explanation. He was killed off in the fifth season episode "Kenny Dies", being reintroduced in the sixth season finale. Since then, Kenny is depicted as dying sporadically. During the first 58 episodes, the children were in the third grade. During the fourth season, they entered the fourth grade, where they have remained ever since.
Plots are often set in motion by events, ranging from the fairly typical to the supernatural and extraordinary, which frequently happen in the town. The boys often act as the voice of reason when these events cause panic or incongruous behavior among the adult populace, who are customarily depicted as irrational, gullible, and prone to overreaction. They are frequently confused by the contradictory and hypocritical behavior of their parents and other adults, and often perceive them as having distorted views on morality and society.
THEMES & STYLE
Each episode opens with a tongue-in-cheek all persons fictitious disclaimer: "All characters and events in this show—even those based on real people—are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated.....poorly. The following program contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone."
South Park was the first weekly program to be rated TV-MA, and is generally intended for adult audiences. The boys and most other child characters use strong profanity, with only the most taboo words being bleeped during a typical broadcast. Parker and Stone perceive this as the manner in which real-life small boys speak when they are alone.
South Park commonly makes use of carnivalesque and absurdist technique, numerous running gags, violence, sexual content, offhand pop-cultural references, and satirical portrayal of celebrities.
Early episodes tended to be shock value-oriented and featured more slapstick-style humor. While social satire had been used on the show occasionally earlier on, it became more prevalent as the series progressed, with the show retaining some of its focus on the boys' fondness of scatological humor in an attempt to remind adult viewers "what it was like to be eight years old." Parker and Stone also began further developing other characters by giving them larger roles in certain storylines, and began writing plots as parables based on religion, politics, and numerous other topics. This provided the opportunity for the show to spoof both extreme sides of contentious issues, while lampooning both liberal and conservative points of view. Rebecca Raphael described the show as "an equal opportunity offender", while Parker and Stone describe their main purpose as to "be funny" and "make people laugh", while stating that no particular topic or group of people be exempt from mockery and satire.
Parker and Stone insist that the show is still more about "kids being kids" and "what it's like to be in [elementary school] in America" stating that the introduction of a more satirical element to the series was the result of the two adding more of a "moral center" to the show so that it would rely less on simply being crude and shocking in an attempt to maintain an audience. While profane, Parker notes that there is still an "underlying sweetness" aspect to the child characters, and Time described the boys as "sometimes cruel but with a core of innocence." Usually, the boys or other characters pondered over what transpired during an episode and conveyed the important lesson taken from it with a short monologue. During earlier seasons, this speech commonly began with a variation of the phrase "You know, I've learned something today...".
THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON
Revel in all seventeen classic episodes from South Park's fourth season, available in this
3-disc set. This season introduced one of South Park's favourite characters, Timmy!
Season Four also marks the boys' passage into fourth grade and the launch of their boy band, Fingerbang. Oh, and did we mention that this season is the first time Timmy, appears?
So join Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny and Timmy for Season Four as they take on the Tooth Fairy, NAMBLA, Satan and Janet Reno. For them, it's all part of growing up in South Park.
EPISODES:
1. THE TOOTH FAIRY TATS
2. CARTMAN'S SILLY HATE CRIME
3. TIMMY 2000
4. QUINTUPLETS
5. CARTMAN JOINS NAMBLA
6. CHEROKEE HAIR TAMPONS
7. CHEF GOES NANNERS
8. SOMETHING YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR FINGER
9. DO THE HANDICAPPED GO TO HELL?
10. PROBABLY
11. FOURTH GRADE
12. TRAPPER KEEPER
13. HELEN KELLER!
THE MUSICAL
14. PIP
15. FAT CAMP
16. THE WACKY MOLESTATION ADVENTURE
17. A VERY CRAPPY CHRISTMAS