South Park is one of the most influential and downright intelligent displays ever made.
On its surface, the show appears to be a few bunch of kids with childish senses of humor who adore swearing... But each episode of the display is truly a microcosm for what is going on in the international around us. Numerous the time, this will also be triggering for people. This reality could also be considered one of the causes why the South Park Pandemic Special was met with mixed reviews.
However, South Park co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker got down to create a show that dissected racism, social conventions, organizations, movements, religions, politics, celebrities, and every single value we grasp dear... And they did this via edgy animated comedy.
No wonder so many networks rejected the display... But here's exactly why it took goodbye for a community to pick out the display up...
Their College Films Caught The Attention Of The Networks
The reality is, there are lots of things about South Park that fans aren't aware of, particularly the origins of the display and how onerous it used to be to get made. In a unbelievable oral historical past on the creation of South Park by Entertainment Weekly, Trey Parker and Matt Stone went into detail about why exactly such a lot of networks became their sensible idea down.
Eventually, Comedy Central picked up the show, but beforehand, Matt and Trey persisted a very long building process. The idea for South Park stemmed from a pair of college animated shorts that won the attention of a Hollywood govt named Brian Graden. Brian was once in a position to get Matt and Trey some seed money to redo their shorts in order that the animation used to be of upper high quality. These re-dos went 'viral' (by way of VHS tapes) and all of sudden each and every single network wanted to fulfill with them.
However, most executives had been highly skeptical of the caricature youngsters with foul mouths and a proclivity for getting into satirical conflicts that many to find offensive. In particular, they did not assume it generally is a weekly display.
The Networks Didn't Think Adults Would Continuously Tune In
The main reason why networks turned down the South Park concept was that they didn't suppose adults would steadily music into the display. Sure, the two Christmas shorts have been humorous, and adults love them, but there wasn't a strategy to make that idea into a TV show that would care for older viewers... So, they concept.
"[Network executives] were saying, "You may just by no means repeat this as a TV display, since you couldn’t be this dirty on TV and so it wouldn’t be funny," Trey Parker explained. "We began bobbing up with the concept of Mr. Garrison and Mr. Mackey and we had drawings of them, they usually’re like, “It’ll by no means work because adults don’t wish to watch a show about kids. They wish to watch a display a few circle of relatives.” We knew it wouldn’t must be this grimy to be funny; you simply must push the envelope. Plus, we idea there was once extra to it than that."
But networks weren't convinced. Ultimately both MTV and Fox completely turned the South Park boys down, missing out on a multi-million dollar opportunity... Little did this know.
However, then-Comedy Central president Doug Herzog thought differently. He was introduced to Matt and Trey's animated short films by his development executive, Debbie Liebling, who dragged him into a conference room to show him. Immediately, Doug knew he had to work with the South Park boys.
Enter Comedy Central
"We [flew] them to New York for some meetings," Doug Herzog explained in the Entertainment Weekly interview.
Doug claimed that he wasn't just impressed with the boys' work, but also with their strange, crazy, and out-going personalities. Eventually, he told them to take some money and go make a pilot for their TV show.
With a little dough, Matt and Trey went and made the pilot for South Park, an episode entitled, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe". However, Comedy Central was disappointed with it. But they weren't sure, so they went and did a focus group with a bunch of adults.
Not surprisingly, some people were very offended and even cried when they saw the kids swearing... Ultimately, the focus group rated the show VERY low.
However, Comedy Central gave Matt and Trey another chance by asking them to re-do the ending of the episode. While it turned out to be a lot more work than they thought, they fixed a couple of things and Comedy Central went ahead with the show even though the focus group hated it.
"That takes more bravery than folks know till they’ve had the ones jobs," South Park producer Brian Graden said.
When South Park debuted in 1997, nearly a million viewers tuned in. This was huge for basic cable at the time. And ratings grew continuously from there.
"I got here from MTV, and South Park took off quicker, faster, and with extra affect than any kind of rock band or music act that I’d ever observed," Doug claimed. " It took off like a rocket. And it got an immediate, fantastic important response."
South Park is still enjoying high-viewership and critical acclaim more than 20 years later, making it a bonafide hit... But clearly, only one network had any foresight to see what it could be.
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