South Park: Arguably one of the most Influential Animated Series to Exist
How South Park Came To Be
Creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, both met when they were attending the University of Colorado, Boulder during their undergraduate years. Parker was previously enrolled in music school at the Berklee College of Music, but then transferred to Boulder where he met Stone for the first time. Stone, a math and music major, instantly clicked with Parker when they met (Albert). Both coming from music and film backgrounds, they decided to make a musical together called The Spirit of Christmas, which had the same plot as South Park: four foul mouthed boys asking for advice from Jesus Christ. This was one of the first videos to go, what we consider these days as viral, and Comedy Central took notice. In 1997, Comedy Central gave them a contract saying they would release a show based on the movie in 30 minute segments. Immediately, South Park was a hit. It reached over 1 million people in the first episode and over 5 million in the first season. The title of the cartoon was created because both Stone and Parker grew up in Colorado, naming the show after a real town in that state. South Park went on to win 5 Emmy Awards and is still in production today (Albert).
Animation Techniques
I am personally a HUGE fan of South Park and watch it every night. Despite how much of a fan I am of South Park, I never actually thought to dive into what really made up this show, animation wise. It was not until I was on Spring Break this year that one of the boys in our house told me that South Park was actually made using construction paper cut outs shot frame by frame. In fact, he is correct. South Park was made by Stone and Parker using some scissors, various colored construction paper, and an 8 mm camera (Parker). It is considered a stop motion animation and was originally being made as a movie, as previously mentioned. It was not only a hit because of the use of profanity, or the fact that it was coming out of the mouths of a bunch of underage 8 year olds, but because of the technique and style of animation. South Park was ahead of its time using paper cut out stop motion animation. The only other cartoon that was even close to being similar was The Simpsons, which was not made the same way. The creators of The Simpsons were using classic cel and paint stop motion animation tactics to create their characters, which later turned into computer animation (Desiderio and Geaghan-Breiner). South Park gained popularity due to the paper cut out medium it was using, rather than the typical cel animation of the time. However, making an entire animated series out of cut out paper was not easy. In an interview with Fox, Stone and Parker, who are still heavily involved with the creation of the series today (yes, they still crank out new episodes) said that a 5 minute run time for the cartoon resulted in 60-70 days of production time of just sitting in the dark and cutting out paper scene after scene. Because of that, in the later years as technology developed they switched over to computer animation. However, the show still looks exactly like it did back in the 90s when it was just the two of them cutting and pasting characters together. The show retained a lot of its core authenticity despite the switch to a different medium. What would originally take over a month to produce a few minutes of air time will now take less than a week for a full episode ("South Park") which led to them pumping out episodes quicker while keeping what made South Park special intact. Parker and Stone were huge fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which also utilized paper cut outs. They took much of their early inspiration from this cartoon to debut their own. After the first few seasons, the internet became increasingly utilized and computer softwares were developing fast. They wanted to use this to their advantage, so they started producing their show using PowerAnimator, after being drawn on cardboard and scanned into the software using CoreIDRAW. Though, just because in later seasons the characters were hand drawn with story boards and panels and then scanned into the computer with PowerAnimator, does not mean the portrayal of the animation was different. For example, South Park had a deliberate jerky motion to it. The cut outs were 2D and stayed 2D even when they were drawn and used by the computer. All the characters kept their jerky motion despite any medium used to create them, even when they had the means to make them 3D or add more fluidity to their actions. The characters were always the same, no matter the software, and were shot at the same angle every episode. As the show progressed, there was the occasional special feature character, like Tom Cruise for example, who would make an appearance but would not be animated. Most of the time, it was an actual photograph of the celebrity’s face that was put on a hand drawn body that you could tell not much detail, time or effort was put into creating. The reason PowerAnimator was chosen to use over other softwares is because it “retained that homemade look” that gave the show its popularity in the first place ("South Park"). Parker and Stone were no strangers to animation styles and techniques, they actually dabbled with a lot of different softwares on the computer and off the computer even in later seasons. For example, in season 12 there is an episode titled, “Major Boobage” that was actually shot using a rotoscope. A few episodes in season 8 had live action footage and even an episode titled “Good Times with Weapons” used anime style to animate it.
As the show progressed, there was the occasional special feature character, like Tom Cruise for example, who would make an appearance but would not be animated. Most of the time, it was an actual photograph of the celebrity’s face that was put on a hand drawn body that you could tell not much detail, time or effort was put into creating. The reason PowerAnimator was chosen to use over other softwares is because it “retained that homemade look” that gave the show its popularity in the first place ("South Park").Parker and Stone were no strangers to animation styles and techniques, they actually dabbled with a lot of different softwares on the computer and off the computer even in later seasons. For example, in season 12 there is an episode titled, “Major Boobage” that was actually shot using a rotoscope. A few episodes in season 8 had live action footage and even an episode titled “Good Times with Weapons” used anime style to animate it.
As previously mentioned, Parker in particular was heavily involved with the creation and production of South Park. On top of the style used for most of the episodes, Parker also wrote most, if not all, of the music that debuts in the beginning and ends of each episode. He was also involved in creating a lot of the songs that the character Chef sings, although actually sung by Isaac Hayes ("Chef (South Park)").
Beginning in 2008, there were two main men who made most of the scores for the show, but they would be summoned to record them in another state and send the final cuts to the South Park creators, who would fit the jingles in where they wanted them. Those two men are Jamie Dunlap and Scott Nickoley ("South Park") Since Parker and Stone would write almost all of Chef’s songs, they actually created a band called DVDA that would get credit for the music. The band would also be rolled in the end credits of every episode of the show ("South Park"). I am also going to insert a video here by WatchMojo's channel that really explains their technique well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEAwrI1vbVg
Why What Stone and Parker did was Monumental
Evidently, Parker and Stone had the biggest influence in the creation of their show. To this day, they still
help write all the music, create all the animation, and Parker even voices most of the characters on the show. Despite experimenting with a few episodes in recent seasons with new animation techniques, the show retains the paper cut out homestyle feeling that birthed it in the first place. These characteristics are due entirely to Stone and Parker, which has become their signature way of animating. Although South Park does still air with new episodes, the duo took on a few other movies and musicals that gained traction. One of their most famous musicals that debuted on Broadway is called “The Book of Mormon,” (Lloyd) which is critically acclaimed. South Park is the only animated cartoon the pair ever made, with some side projects and focuses on live action movies and musicals. However, the animation world was dominated by Stone and Parker’s niche animation style and involvement.
Work Cited
Albert, Melissa. “Trey Parker.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2010, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Trey-Parker.
“Chef (South Park).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Mar. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef_(South_Park)#:~:text=Jerome%20McElroy%2C%20often%20referred%20to,was%20voiced%20by%20Isaac%20Hayes.
Desiderio, Kyle, and Meredith Geaghan-Breiner. “How the Look of 'the Simpsons' Has Changed over Three Decades of 2D Animation.” How the Look of The Simpsons Has Changed over Three Decades of 2D Animation, Insider, 8 June 2021, https://www.insider.com/how-simpsons-2d-animation-aesthetic-changed-over-time-cartoon-evolution-2021-5.
Hollywood Reporter, 26 Sept. 2016, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/south-park-20-years-history-trey-parker-matt-stone-928212/.
Lloyd, Brian. “Trey Parker & Matt Stone of 'South Park' Are Making Their First Live-Action Movie.” Entertainment.ie, 17 Feb. 2020, https://entertainment.ie/movies/movie-news/trey-parker-matt-stone-alma-junction-live-action-441476/#:~:text='Alma%20Junction'%20will%20be%20Trey,play%20a%20superhero%20called%20Orgazmo.
Parker, Ryan. “Holy Shit, 'South Park' Is 20! Trey Parker, Matt Stone on Censors, Tom Cruise and Scientology's Role in Isaac Hayes Quitting.” The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Sept. 2016, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/south-park-20-years-history-trey-parker-matt-stone-928212/.
“South Park.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Mar. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park#:~:text=Construction%20paper%20and%20traditional%20
stop,of%20the%20time%20to%20produce.).
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