South Park has always been one of my favorite shows on TV since I saw it when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. I remember hearing all the hype about this crude show that no of the kids’ parents would let them watch but many of them did anyway. The creators of the show are Matt Stone and Trey Parker who were friends from college. They originally made the animated short “The Spirit of Christmas” with stop-motion animation using construction paper featuring Jesus and Santa fighting each other and early versions of the four kids of South Park. The short became immensely popular as it spread around the early days of the Internet. The pilot episode was also made of construction paper stop-motion animation. One can imagine how tedious this process must have been for the both of them. This is the original Spirit of Christmas, please don’t watch if you are easily offended by foul language.
As you can see this is a very primitive version of what South Park would come to be. Each of the facial expressions are much more limited than they would be in future episodes and the episodes of today. The simplicity of the animation in this and the early episodes of South Park are what captivated many people like myself to the show. While the Simpsons had the cel style, South Park had its own unique take on animation. I personally think the fact the animation wasn’t like what you would usually see made the show that much funnier. The show always has had controversy following it with its violence, profane language, sexual inneudos, and mocking of mainstream society.
The aspect of the show that has kept it fresh is its social commentary and political satire. The show has a habit of making fun of both left and right wing views. With the show’s animation now being done by Adobe Illustrator and a program called AutoDesk Maya, the show is able to make new episodes at an incredibly fast speed. In fact the episode about the election of Barack Obama was done less than a day after he was declared the winner in 2008.
As you can see the animation is very distant from the construction paper animation of the first episode. Stan’s dad Randy(the excited character) is hopping around with glee as his arms and legs are moving up and down. He runs from side to side with his eyes looking up as if he is extremely grateful. There is no way that the construction paper stop motion could have showed those feelings.
South Park is still going strong into its 14th season and 13th year being on the air of Comedy Central. Some say that the show has lost its steam but I think its still great and America certainly supplies Matt and Trey with alot of great material.
I commented on Danyael Hughes’ blog and Myca Taylor’s blog.
