Praise Makes Them Nervous

There is no place in the world quite like South Park.

The outlandish people who populate that cartoon community have kept millions of Americans laughing and groaning on Comedy Central for a couple of years. Last summer, the characters were translated to the big screen in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

The creative team behind South Park is composed of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who were gratified and slightly startled that the movie received praise from the critics. Shortly after the movie opened, they spoke to Early Show Entertainment Reporter Mark McEwen about it.

"We were really, really bracing ourselves for a storm of bad reviews. That's the truth," said Stone. "We've been through that before with the TV show and movies we've done [Orgazmo and BASEketball]. We got our share of bad reviews. We were waiting for it again."

But, when they saw that most of the reviews were positive, "We thought, 'What did we do wrong? Maybe it's over,'" quipped Parker.

Parker is still looming dangerously close to respectability. With Marc Shaiman, he has been nominated for an Oscar, in the category of Original Song, for Blame Canada.

If the movie has a message, it is that parents should have the final word on what their children can and cannot do, including going to see a movie.

"I know there are very mature 13-year-olds in the world, and there are very immature 16-year-olds in the world," said Parker. "And that's why it is not a ratings board's decision."

If a movie is rated NC-17, parents cannot take their children to that movie, even if, in the parent's judgment, their children are mature enough.

Do they think South Park is irresponsible?

"No, although Trey and I are pretty irresponsible people," quipped Stone. "We feelÂ…we've always done the show, and we do the movie, to make people our age laugh, to make each other laugh, and our friends laughÂ… Somebody asked us, 'How many jokes in a show do you try to do for kids vs. adults?' We don't do that. We do the jokes for ourselves. We still consider the TV show and the movie adult animation, adult cartoon."

The characters in South Park, including the large aggressive Cartman and the poor luckless Kenny, were inspired by the creators' childhoods.

"Where I grew up, it is winter all the time, except for one month out of the year," said Parker. "And your friends were defined by your bus stop. There was the fat kid there, and the poor kid, and you didn't choose your friends. It was who was at the bus stop with you."

The duo has written every episode of the program, but how much longer do Parker and Stone expect to get laughs out of the South Park group of characters?

"We don't want to leave the show and have it become a show where people sit around the table and come up with jokes," said Parer. "As long as we're doing the show, we'll do it."
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"We started out as friends," said Stone. "All we do is sit around and make each other laugh, and sometimes we're on the clock, and sometimes we're not."

Is there anything too gross to put in the movie or on the TV show>?

"Not at all. I don't think we've come up with something and [said], 'That's going too far.' You can't do that," said Parker. "Once we say we'd better not make fun of [one group] anymore, all of a sudden, none of it is OK. Either it is all OK or none of it is OK."