It should come as no surprise that an animated series as edgy and rich in history as South Park has more than its share of bizarre and interesting facts behind its production. Showrunners Matt Stone and Trey Parker have seen no shortage of crazy happenings, origin stories, and other strange circumstances when it comes to their zany cartoon.
Much like the frequent escapades of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny, there's been plenty of significant events and absurdities surrounding the show since its debut back in August of 1997. Over 20 seasons later, there's quite a significant pool of facts and trivia to draw from.
With this list, we'll take a look at 10 of the most interesting and obscure facts and trivia that even the most diehard fan likely hasn't heard about.
Frito-Lay Released Real Cheesy Poofs
South Park's iconic snack has actually made a couple of appearances in the 3-dimensional world of "the real."
As part of a collaborative effort from Comedy Central and Frito-Lay, a real version of Cartman's favorite snack was released for a time in 1998 at their website. These were again released as part of the 2011 "Year of the Fan" celebration at San Diego Comic Con, as well as for a two-week stint in September of that year at Walmart stores.
Though these were essentially rebranded Cheetos Puffs, but it still made for a neat little collectible, as the bag featured a design that resembled the cartoon version - rocket ship and all.
Kenny Has Bitten The Dust 126 Times
Poor Kenny has always seemed to be the whipping boy of showrunners Matt Stone and Trey Parker - at least in the show's early seasons. In fact, even though he's survived most of the later seasons of South Park, the orange coat-wearing character has met his demise a whopping 126 times in total.
This includes 97 times in the actual television series, 12 in the random assortment of SP shorts, and 14 in the video games. He also has something of a "cameo death" during the season 7-11 intro.
The Episode "It Hits The Fan" Utters The "S" Word 162 Times
Every now and then, there is an episode of a syndicated show that pushes boundaries and shines as historically significant; not just for said series, but for television as a whole. One could certainly make the case for the SP season 5 premiere, called "It Hits the Fan," having this significance.
It was marked at number 93 of TV Land's "Top 100 Most Unexpected Moments in TV History," and was played as one of Comedy Central's 2006 marathon of "10 South Parks That Changed the World." Did it ever!
The show hits the ground running, in typical raunchy SP fashion. It featured a doomsday plot that involves the word "sh*t," putting it in the exclusive company of being a TV show in 2001 that uttered the word uncensored. In fact, the word is spoken a whopping 162 times, while the amount of times the script mentions the word puts it at an even 200.
"Imaginationland" Was Almost The Second South Park Movie
Fans may remember this three-part trilogy of South Park as being particularly over-the-top and grandiose, with its battles between a slew of colorful, recognizable characters in TV, movies, and games. Those who have seen this animated bombast may not be surprised to find that "Imaginationland" was initally meant to be the second South Park movie.
Yet, the increased workload of making episodes, coupled with the fact that the showrunners felt the concept was derivative and "not big enough," meant this would instead be made into a three-parter for season 11.
The South Park Movie Almost Received An NC-17 Rating
Speaking of the South Park movie, the raunchy Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was apparently issued an "NC-17" rating upon its original submission to the MPAA. In an effort to mess with the ratings board, Matt Stone and Trey Parker resubmitted the film with increasingly lewd and over-the-top material. This, ironically, managed to get approved by the board and slapped with an "R" rating.
Still, the eventual "R" rating it garnered was not without regret, as Jack Valenti, then-president of the MPAA, voiced his regret that the film wasn't ultimately branded "NC-17." This likely would have doomed the movie to at least semi-obscurity, as films that get slapped with this dreaded rating tend to have a tough time in terms of marketing and exposure.
Each Episode Is Made From Scratch In Under A Week
The days of taking months, or even weeks to craft a South Park episode have long-since passed, it seems. In order to stay up-to-date with topical humor and keep the SP train rolling, the South Park Studios team usually works from Thursday to Wednesday of the following week to crank out an episode from start to finish. This frantic, streamlined process is chronicled in the documentary 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park.
In fact, a deadline has been missed only once, while the team lost power during production of "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers."
The Grueling Work Of Season 8
Stone and Parker had voiced their concern of "stretching themselves too thin" on multiple occasions. Such a scenario had come to fruition during the production of much of season 8, in which some weeks brought an insane 100 hours of work for the animators. This was because of Parker and Stone's combined work on the increasingly demanding show, in addition to filming their puppet film, Team America: World Police.
This hectic schedule culminated with the finale, which ironically turned out to be one of the highest-rated episodes, a twisted holiday romp called "Woodland Critter Christmas." According to Parker and Stone, the idea tank had gone completely empty at this point, leading to the rather wacky premise for the episode, which was rushed out in a matter of days.
"Make Love, Not Warcraft" Was Shot In A World Of Warcraft Server
Another fan-favorite episode, the World of Warcraft-themed "Make Love, Not Warcraft" was also produced under some unusual circumstances. Players of the game might find that the visuals look rather authentic. This is because the developers behind this MMORPG, Blizzard, had allowed the studio to actually film inside a public test server for the then-new WoW expansion, The Burning Crusade.
Coupled with the aid of software called "Machinima" to add animation detail, the showrunners were able to use the server to stage and shoot their episode.
Many Episodes Have A Hidden Alien
TV shows often have reoccurring themes or subtle elements injected for astute fans to pick out. While the big one for South Park was Kenny's frequent, episodic deaths, an even longer-running element is its Alien easter eggs. In a sort of "Where's Waldo" concept, the showrunners have hidden an Alien Visitor amongst various episodes of the show in some form or another.
These alien sightings range from brief appearances in the background - like being seen skiing in the episode "Asspen," to merely being shown on a poster.
While it's been rumored that an Alien makes an appearance in every episode, this is actually a myth. Regardless, it makes for a fun little search when watching, knowing there's a good chance one of these "mooing" Visitors is lurking somewhere.
Construction Paper Was Used In The Very Early Days Of The Show
Many diehard fans know of this crude animation's even cruder, humble origins being traced to the animated short, "The Spirit of Christmas," which was actually made as a Christmas card to a Fox executive.
On top of this, though - the brief, simple animation had been granted a meager $1,000 budget and was made with actual construction paper. Using the painstakingly slow process of assembling construction paper, which would be animated via stop-motion, Parker and Stone eventually finished it in December of '95, before signing on to turn this into South Park with "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" in '97.
In fact, that pilot episode had also mostly been made the old-fashioned way with construction paper, taking three-and-a-half months to finish, and eventually getting some digital touch-ups.