March 24, 2003 7:45pm CST

We know how much you care about our opinion, so here - what? You don't? Too bad! You're getting it anyway!

Girly says:
Ice cream shitting tacos RULE!! I thought this episode was pretty funny. They are definately pushing the envelope lately, but I like it. It's so good to have Kenny back again. I didn't realize how much I missed him on the show until he came back. SUCK THAT JAGGON!! (or however it's spelled)

Zuzu says:
It was good, but not great. The pace of the episode went from too slow to too fast, but I guess that could have been intentional. I found that my two favorite moments in the show had to do with voice gags - the Missy Elliot "backwards singing" bit, and the "nnnderp!" during the first "commercial" announcement for Earth. I liked what they did with Kenny -he's back, no big deal, no death.
Alrighty then, kids. Now that we've finally bothered to comment on last week's episode, here's the info for next week's episode:

KK ... K?
paltry ~266KB
From SPS.com:
Episode 702 Title: Krazy Kripples Jimmy is offended when a recently disabled celebrity sweeps through town and steals his limelight. He and Timmy pull together a group of people like themselves who were handicapped from birth. They call their new club the "Crips".
From Comedy Central's press release:
Jimmy is offended when a recently-disabled celebrity sweeps through town and steals the limelight from his latest stand-up act in an all-new episode of "South Park," premiering Wednesday, March 26 at 10:00 p.m. on COMEDY CENTRAL.
In this week's episode, "Krazy Kripples," Jimmy convinces Timmy to help him form a club made up of other kids who were handicapped from birth. They're pretty excited to find out a group like that already exists, and soon, Jimmy and Timmy are livin' large when they hook up with the notorious Denver "Crips."

More evidence of how influential South Park is: The Kansas City Star reports that one of the city's mayoral candidates will be using a SP-esque cartoon as part of his campaign. I'll be interested to see how that turns out!

You knew there would be a few South Park/Matt n' Trey mentions with the Oscars ... Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post_Dispatch includes MNT's drag show as a "legendary Oscar highlight". Pretty spiffy!

My favorite episode is being used as a source in the New York Times! The article's not too bad, but if you're too lazy to read it, scroll to the bottom two paragraphs.

Here's a great mention on MercuryNews.com:
Sgt. 1st Class Dale Roberts, a wisecracking GI from the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, flashes a faux "South Park" bus pass from the animated comedy show.
"That's to fool the enemy in case I'm captured," said Roberts, 33, of Covington, La. "They'll think I'm Stan."
That last news item allows me to climb up on my soap box for just a second. This particularly goes out to our American readers: whether or not you agree with the war in Iraq, please remember that the men and women of our military didn't make the decision to take these actions. They made the decision to give their time, talent, effort, and possibly their life to protect us. Keep that in mind if you choose to speak out against the war.

Done with the soap box, let's get back to the tidbits. Okay, I don't know about y'all, but I think this might be an insult ... from Town Crier Online about one of the myriad of "adult-oriented" cartoons out there:
And it’s not like a kiddie show like South Park. It’s sort of set during that college age where you get out of school and you don’t know what you want to do.
A CANADIAN insult at that! Sure, most of SP is set in the fourth grade, but COME ON! KIDDIE STUFF? Damn Canucks.

To further prove that Canadians deserve - NO, NEED - to be made fun of, here's a link from Canada.com saying something to the effect of SP fans love goofy-looking cars. Yeah, I didn't get it either.

Okay, enough already! This was going to be a short update!

~~Zuzu


March 20, 2003 6:15pm CST

Here's another article from the New York Times about the South Park-inspired puppet musical "Avenue Q".
"Avenue Q" isn't nearly as outrageous as the blissful, foul-mouthed "South Park" cartoons, clearly a source of inspiration here. Nor are its leaps of imagination as radical.
Well, where's the fun in that?

The Lansing State Journal (here and here) really wants us to know that four students watched South Park instead of news coverage last night. Apparently the show is important to Michigan.

Matt Groening tells Canoe how he really feels about Fox, and pays Matt and Trey a little compliment. That's kind of a switcheroo, now isn't it?
"We're talking about doing [a movie]. We just want to make sure, if we do, it doesn't follow in the dismal footsteps of other currently-running TV shows turned into movies. I can only think of one that worked and that was South Park"
Everybody say
all 644 dirty kb
Mattt over at OrgazmoDVD.com sent us this exclusive candid shot of the REAL Dave the Lighting guy in action. And I do mean action, so don't click on that image for the full picture unless you're 18 ... or something.

~~Zuzu


March 19, 2003 7:15am CST

Look what Comedy Central put out for us (BIG-ASS IMAGES):


~813k version

~833k version
 

~1.16MB version

~1.25MB version

~992k version

~~Zuzu


March 17, 2003 6:15pm CST

beefylogs is encoding the BASEketball outtakes from the VHS for us. The first two are available now! (Thanks to Big Will for getting that pesky second screenshot for me.)

~~Zuzu


March 17, 2003 5:00pm CST

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'd put some St. Patty's Day themed something-or-other up, but the whole site's kinda St. Patty's Day themed, isn't it?

SPS.com has the information about South Park's Season Premiere up:

Click here for 612k version
Episode #704
Episode Title: "Cancelled"

The boys discover Earth is nothing but one big intergalactic reality show and it’s about to be canceled when "South Park" returns for its seventh season on Wednesday, March 19 at 10:00 p.m. on Comedy Central

With a nod to the first episode of South Park, the satellite dish in Cartman’s ass has been reactivated. The question of "Visitors" in the small mountain town is finally answered when the aliens return to wrap up one of their longest running reality shows, "Earth". Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny, yes Kenny, are once again trapped in space and it’s up to them to save the planet from annihilation.
The New York Times reports that Matt & Trey inadvertantly inspired some puppeteers to create a musical. These boys inspire the weirdest shit, I swear.
"But `Avenue Q,' " he added, "owes much more to the `South Park' movie. That was a fantastic musical, and it inspired us, though we wanted to give our show more heart than `South Park' had."
~~Zuzu


March 14, 2003 7:00pm CST

Breayle at SPS.com tells us to look for Access Hollywood on March 18 and August 7 to see the boys. She was even nice enough to provide us with the link to Access Hollywood's website, so us non-Hollywood types can see when it airs in our area. (Be sure to go to the bottom of the page.)

Breayle also broke the news (to me, at least) that Normal Lear will be working with MNT this season! It's been all over the place, but here's a good summary from the Charlotte Observer:
Ground-breaking "All in the Family" producer Norman Lear will collaborate on several episodes of Comedy Central's "South Park," which will mock the U.S. push for war in Iraq, reality television and immigration. "We just love his company and love people who have an opinion about things," says Trey Parker, who created the cartoon with Matt Stone. The three became friends appearing on discussion panels about censorship and programming.
You can certainly find longer articles (like these: Naples Daily News, myinky.com and Hollywood Reporter). Hell, even my LOCAL PAPER saw fit to write about it! Unfortunately, the facts aren't quite right, but we'll overlook that, right? I've already instructed my husband to mention the mistake to the writer, so it's all good. :D

Here's another article about how South Park made Comedy Central a success. This one's from USA Today.

Our friend Janina, of Planearium fame, is a regular Internet celebrity! Since Comedy Central "picked up" her South Park character creator, I've seen mention of it all over the place. Today it's on the Arizona Daily Wildcat.

Here's a very good Kansas City Star article on Stan Brakhage, who died of cancer on Sunday in British Columbia. MNT fans know him as Dian's father in Cannibal!

~~Zuzu


March 12, 2003 2:15pm CST

Breayle from SPS.com just let me know that Matt & Trey will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight! United Statesers can catch the show tonight at 12:05am eastern (11:05am central) on ABC.

~~Zuzu


March 11, 2003 6:00pm CST

I'm sure most of you interested in South Park have already run across the information on new episodes, but here it is for those of us living in a hole:
"South Park" returns with more action, more social satire, more life lessons and more of those four lovable boys, Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny! In this, the seventh season of the groundbreaking series, "South Park" joins the exclusive ranks of those who have reached the 100th episode mark. "South Park's" all-new episodes begin airing on Wednesday, March 19 at 10:00 p.m. on COMEDY CENTRAL. The 100th episode is scheduled to air Wednesday, April 9 at 10:00 p.m.

Cartman shines this season as he represents the United States in a youth-oriented mock UN, sponsored by Michael Jackson. In other episodes, Cartman travels back in time to face-off with the country's founding fathers and, if that weren't enough for the average fourth grader, he's forced to deal with the pressures of stardom when one of his body parts becomes too famous for its own good.

Not to be outstaged by the big-boned one, when Jimmy and Timmy feel they aren't getting the respect they deserve, they join the "Crips." And finally, in a horrifying holiday episode, "South Park" explores the origins of every child's darkest fantasy, the Easter Bunny.
Well, I did come across a very interesting article about how cartoons are warping everyone's fragile little minds, but Irish Examiner Online doesn't want to load for me. Give it a shot, but don't hold your breath. ..::edit: there it goes ... it just took a while::..

"South Park" is now an adverb! A reviewer on MSN's Slate uses it to adequately convey just how bad he thinks a new album is: "The lyrics to the songs ... range from the Theory Reading List mode ... to the South Park vulgar ..."

An article on Cleveland.com led me to a website which overanalyzes references in television shows including South Park. So far, FootnoteTV has Season 5 and Season 6 up. There's some interesting stuff in there.

The Louisville Scene has a very good article on computer animation, with lots of information about MAYA, the program used to make South Park.

Look for some new videos up soon!

~~Zuzu


March 6, 2003 6:45pm CST

You cut out the next tree   It's nappy time

I love it when stuff like this just appears in my inbox. Thanks, Uncle Mattt!

Breayle at SPS.com dug up some "That's My Bush" news. Timothy Bottoms did such a good job portraying Dubya on TMB, he gets to go legit! NY Post has the full story, with a bit of info about MNT towards the bottom. United Press International and Zap2It also have information about this story.

"South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" lands at number 9 on the Online Film Critics Society's list of the best animated films of all time. Heck, MNT even got a pretty big compliment:
While films such as 'Snow White' and 'Fantasia' may have been the blueprint for animation, the recent films of Pixar, Mayazaki and Trey Parker and Matt Stone have reconfigured how we view animated films and have expanded their artistic, emotional and satiric potential to new heights.
It seems a bit hyperbolic to me, but hey, I'm not the film critic.

~~Zuzu


March 3, 2003 6:45pm CST

Here's an interesting fact from Electronic Media Online about South Park's worth:
When a hit becomes a signature show, as Comedy's Central's "South Park" has become, a network stands to make even more money with brand extensions and merchandising opportunities. "South Park," for instance, has generated $500 million in merchandising revenues for the network since it launched six years ago.
Someone at Bernie's Insiders thinks ESPN personality John Clayton and South Park's Mr. Garrison were separated at birth. You be the judge:

image from espn.go.com   image from southparkstudios.com

I dunno who T.F. is, but they apparently write for the Kansas City Star, and apparently didn't like the new Ramones Tribute CD. T.F. describes a few of the performances thusly: like Brian DePalma directing "South Park."

Finally, crapTV has uploaded some new shorts (actually, I think they're all recycled, but definately worth watching), one of which features Trey singing an upbeat song while perched upon a travelling animal - this one's a camel. Look for Jason, Glasgow and Dian as well, and you can thank nobby for bringing that one back!

~~Zuzu