‘South Park’: Still Sick, Still Wrong
DEEP IN A MAZE OF ADOBE-colored huts at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort conference center in Indian Wells, California, men in polo shirts are striding to 8:30 A.M. meetings. Most are gathering to debate recent advances in re-wetting drops for contact lenses – “I have superior lens technology to Bob, I know that,” one man jabbers, croissant in hand – but beyond the golf course, in a hut with a majestic plaque reading VILLA CAPRI, six Viacom employees huddle over coffee on polka-dotted chairs. This is the secret corporate retreat for Comedy Central‘s most popular, antinomian and flat-out awesomest show: South Park.
For the past decade, Comedy Central has footed the bill for twice-yearly South Park writers’ retreats in Tahoe, Hawaii and Vegas, where episode plotting was trumped by strippers and dark nights of twisted fun. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the show’s cocreators, were younger then. With South Park‘s debut a month away, this is Day Three of their four-day spring retreat, and they have played golf and eaten dinner at festive Mexican restaurants while drinking themselves into a stupor. Not one episode has been written, but brains are being whetted for the onslaught of work to commence a week before the season premiere – each episode of South Park is created nearly from scratch a week before broadcast, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
For three long hours, Stone, 35, and Parker, 37, ponder future episodes about George Bush as a superhero and one centering on “ghost cats,” genetically engineered felines from outer space. The complicated, affable and devilish Parker – possessed of schlubby sex appeal, like a young Bill Murray – grabs at a plate of sweet-potato fries, taking notes on his scratched-up laptop. Stone, who resembles the high school science teacher with a cool haircut who is always telling you how the world really works in his parched basso voice, drums on his leg. They wear T-shirts in primary colors and baseball caps. When they’re deep in thought, Stone bites his nails and Parker bites his lip. They are damn cute, surrounded by a half-dozen equally adorable producers and writers, all wearing serene smiles and chortling at the silliest jokes.
Stone, it seems, is having some problems with the city of Venice, California, over the height of a fence he wants to build around his house, and has been subject to multiple community-board meetings in elementary-school gymnasiums presided over by gray-ponytailed dudes (“Anytime a guy with a ponytail is telling me what to do, I get bummed out,” he says). It’s not like Venice is such a perfect place – there are a zillion homeless people there and in Santa Monica, an observation that quickly turns into an hour-long assembly of an episode in which the South Park foursome – Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny – confronts the homeless while their parents argue about the best way to save them. “We should give the homeless designer sleeping bags and really nice clothes so they’re pleasant to look at,” says writer Kyle McCulloch, in Randy Marsh’s voice.
“Let’s give them $150 for a spa treatment,” says writer Jon Kimmel.
“They’ll use it for crack!” scolds Parker. “Let’s give them really nice engraved money clips and see if they’ll go away.”
“OK, that didn’t work – we’ve got to double the amount of money and crack,” quips Stone. Parker looks in the distance. “Oh, my God: The homeless are crossbreeding!” he declares. “They’re starting to get jobs and homes. They’re the hybrid homeless!”
“You mean like a Prius?” asks McCulloch.
“They’re changing, evolving, buying homes,” whispers Parker. “They’re adapting!” He takes the voice of a South Park police officer. “We caught one.” He lowers his voice. “He was about to buy a home.”
Everyone laughs. “At the end of the show, we’ll run a placard that says, THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF HOMELESS PEOPLE IN AMERICA, IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP CALL THIS NUMBER,” says Parker. “If you would like to help!” He giggles for a long time. “Oh, I don’t care.” Then he pretends to fart.
FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS – THE show debuted on August 13th, 1997 – South Park has satirized America’s moral panic over issues big and small, from gay marriage to global warming to Lindsay Lohan’s drinking habits. Taking the country to task for hypocrisies like the abandonment of the homeless is South Park‘s way, even though there’s something uncomfortable about watching six adults make jokes about homelessness for a solid hour without ever once talking about solutions to the problem. It’s the stupidest smart show on television, consistently pushing the envelope on scabrous humor with the perhaps unintended side effect of paving the way for dumber-than-dumb shows such as Family Guy. The silly parts of the show, say its authors, are the ones they really like. “I spend shockingly little time thinking about real-world stuff,” says Parker. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got a computer, the Internet, an Xbox and PlayStation 3, so fuck off.”
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