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South Park is an American animated television comedy series about four third/fourth-grade school boys who live in the small, backward mountain town of South Park, Colorado. The series was created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and has been distributed and aired by Comedy Central since 1997. The show is well-known for its pop-culture parody, scatological humour, and satirical handling of current events.

On August 26, 2007, it was revealed that South Park creators' had renewed their contract for a 15th season, running through 2011. In recent years, each season has been aired in two halves, in spring and in autumn, with a summer hiatus. The eleventh season began airing on March 7, 2007, and is set to follow this system. The first half of the eleventh season ended on April 18, 2007, and is scheduled to begin again on October 3, 2007.

Characters

Prior to season four, the main characters of the show were four third grade students (often called "the boys" when as a group for easier reference): Stanley "Stan" Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Theodore Cartman and Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick. There are many recurring characters on the show, including the boys' families, school staff and other students. These include Leopold "Butters" Stotch, Chef, Mr. Hankey, Towelie, Jesus, and Satan. There are also many other minor characters.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker voice most of the male South Park characters, while April Stewart and Mona Marshall (formerly Mary Kay Bergman and Eliza Schneider) voice most of the female characters such as Wendy and Sheila Broflovski. Other voices are currently provided by Adrien Beard (Token Black), Vernon Chatman (Towelie), Jennifer Howell (Bebe Stevens), and John Hansen (Mr. Slave). Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski were initially designed to represent creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone respectively, however, both have admitted to ultimately identifying far more with Cartman.
 
Origins

South Park began in 1992 when Trey Parker and Matt Stone, at the time students at the University of Colorado, met in a film class and created an animated short called Jesus vs. Frosty. The crudely made film featured prototypes of the main characters of South Park, including a character resembling Cartman, but named "Kenny," an unnamed character resembling Kenny, and two near-identical unnamed characters who resembled Stan and Kyle. These four bring a murderous snowman to life with a magic hat.

In 1995, FOX executive Brian Graden saw the film, and commissioned Parker and Stone to create a second short film that he could send to his friends as a video Christmas card. Titled Jesus vs. Santa, it resembled the style of the later series more closely, and featured a martial arts duel and subsequent truce between Jesus and Santa Claus over the true meaning of Christmas. This video was later featured in the episode "A Very Crappy Christmas" in which Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny and Mr. Hankey "save" Christmas for the town. The video was popular and was widely shared, both by duplication and over the Internet. This led to talks to create a series, first with FOX, then with Comedy Central, where the series debuted on August 13, 1997. During the first four seasons of South Park, clips of the shorts can be seen in the opening sequence within an old television and a billboard.

Animation

South Park’s success can be attributed in part to its crude, cutout animation style. Construction paper cutouts were used in the original pilot animation and in the first episode made for Comedy Central. Subsequent episodes have been produced by computer animation providing the same look as the originals. The appearance of characters and scenes has become less crude over time, largely in order to enhance the comedic effect. Special effects, such as prepackaged explosions, have replaced cardboard-style fires. Light shading has been used to highlight "sappy," movie-like moments as well as some of Cartman’s dramatic poses. Some episodes, such as Tweek vs. Craig and Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina, have even incorporated sections of live action video. CorelDRAW is used to create the characters, which are animated using Maya, or in early episodes, PowerAnimator. The style of animation used for South Park was inspired by the paper cut-out cartoons made by Terry Gilliam for Monty Python's Flying Circus, of which Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been lifelong fans.[6] For perspective, the average episode of The Simpsons takes six to eight months to create[7], while episodes of South Park are usually completed in six days (although some, such as AWESOM-O or Woodland Critter Christmas have taken only three or four).[8]

 

Awards

  • South Park has been nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program seven times (1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007). The show has now won twice, for the 2005 episode "Best Friends Forever". and the 2006 episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft".
  • On April 5, 2006, it was announced that the show had won a Peabody Award.
  • South Park was nominated for important awards such as the 1998 Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Primetime or Late Night Television Program. It was also nominated for the 1998 GLAAD Award for Outstanding TV - Individual Episode for "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride". It also received an Image Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Isaac Hayes) in 1999. 
  • South Park was nominated for a 2006 Teen Choice Award for "Best Animated Show", but lost to Family Guy.
  • South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was nominated for an Oscar for "Best Music, Original Song" for the song "Blame Canada". They lost to Phil Collins and made fun of him in two consecutive episodes in season 4 ("Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000" & "Timmy 2000"). Creator Trey Parker explained the reasoning for these barbs in the season 4 DVD commentary. Saying, "we were fully expecting to lose, just not to Phil Collins." It was performed by Robin Williams during the televised award show, which was the first to carry a TV-14 parental advisory, in part because of the performance of that song, which contains some adult language.
  • Another track from the movie, "Uncle Fucka", won an MTV Movie Award for Best Musical Performance; Trey Parker and Matt Stone accepted the award, and thanked the audience for "not nominating Phil Collins".
  • South Park is the last actively-running television series that has won a CableACE Award. It won the award for Best Animated Series in 1997, the last year the awards were given out.