South Park is an American multimedia franchise created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It includes the television series of the same name, developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central, as well as video games, music videos, and short films that expand the universe. The South Park franchise is primarily set in the fictional titular Colorado town. Prior to the television series, Parker and Stone released two shorts, both known as The Spirit of Christmas, which would go on to form the basis of the series and franchise. Besides the namesake show, the franchise includes several video games, music videos, a compilation album, various short films and an ongoing series of TV specials and movies created for exclusive release on Paramount+.
Television series
South Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for the Comedy Central television network. The show revolves around four boys—Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick—and their bizarre adventures in and around the titular Colorado town. Much like The Simpsons, South Park uses a very large ensemble cast of recurring characters and became infamous for its profanity and dark, surreal humor that satirizes a wide range of topics towards a mature audience. The pilot episode was produced using cutout animation, leading to all subsequent episodes being produced with computer animation that emulated the cutout technique. Parker and Stone perform most of the voice acting for the show's male characters. Since 2000, each episode has typically been written and produced in the week preceding its broadcast, with Parker serving as the primary writer and director. There have been a total of 338 episodes over the course of the show's 28 seasons.
Other media
Theatrical film
In June 1999, less than two years after the series first aired, a feature-length film was released domestically by Paramount Pictures, with Warner Bros. handling international distribution. The film, a musical comedy, was directed by Parker, who co-wrote the script with Stone and Pam Brady. The film was generally well received by critics, and earned a combined US$83.1 million at the domestic and foreign box office. The film satirizes the controversy surrounding the show itself and gained a spot in the 2001 edition of Guinness World Records for "Most Swearing in an Animated Film". The song "Blame Canada" from the film's soundtrack earned song co-writers Parker and Marc Shaiman an Academy Award nomination for Best Music, Original Song.
Imaginationland: The Movie was released direct-to-video in 2008 and features the three episodes from the 11th season (Imaginationland I, Imaginationland II, and Imaginationland III) merged into a compilation film.Parker and Stone said in a 2008 interview that a theatrically released sequel would most likely be what concludes the series. In 2011, when asked on the official South Park website whether a sequel would be made, they said "the first South Park movie was so potent, we're all still recovering from the blow. Unfortunately, at the current moment, there are no plans for a second South Park movie. But you never know what the future may bring, crazier things have happened..." In 2011, Time called South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut the sixth greatest animated feature of all time. In 2013, Warner Bros. relinquished to Paramount its rights to co-finance a potential future South Park film during their negotiations to co-finance the Christopher Nolan science fiction film Interstellar. Previous efforts to create a second South Park film were complicated due to both studios retaining certain rights to the property.
Paramount+ specials On August 5, 2021, it was announced that 14 new original movies based on the series were green-lit at Paramount+, with two new movies being released yearly starting in 2021. Parker and Stone would later state that the projects would not be feature films, and that it was ViacomCBS who decided to advertise them as movies. Subsequent advertising and branding in press releases from Paramount+ frequently use the term "exclusive event" instead, indicating that these are more properly classified as television specials.
Shorts and sketches As a tribute to the Dead Parrot sketch, a short that features Cartman attempting to return a dead Kenny to a shop run by Kyle aired during a 1999 BBC television special commemorating the 30th anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus. South Park parodied Scientology in a short that aired as part of the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. The short was entitled "The Gauntlet" and also poked fun at John Travolta, a Scientologist. The four main characters were featured in the documentary film The Aristocrats, listening to Cartman tell his version of the film's titular joke. Short clips of Cartman introducing the starting lineup for the University of Colorado (Parker and Stone's alma mater) football team were featured during ABC's coverage of the 2007 matchup between the University of Colorado and the University of Nebraska. In 2008, Parker, as Cartman, gave answers to a Proust Questionnaire conducted by Julie Rovner of NPR. The Snakes & Arrows Tour for Rush in 2007 used an intro from Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny preceding "Tom Sawyer". As Parker, Stone and producer Frank Agnone are Los Angeles Kings fans, special South Park pre-game videos have been featured at Kings home games at Staples Center, and the club even sent the Stanley Cup to visit South Park Studios after winning the 2012 Stanley Cup Final. Parker and Stone have also created Denver Broncos and Denver Nuggets-themed shorts, featuring Cartman, for home games at Pepsi Center.
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