The Agency's Posts

Fast & Furious 6: High-speed series still thrills, critics say: Showing no signs of slowing down -- quite literally -- the "Fast & Furious"....
Read More>

Outside the Comfort Zone and Into Sketch Comedy: Amy Schumer, a breath of foul-mouthed fresh air as a stand-up comic, seems noticeably less....
Read More>

Don’t Bring Daddy to School for Vocation Day: ‘The Iceman,’ With Michael Shannon as Richard Kuklinski In “The Iceman”
Read More>

One Last Cringe for The Office Finale: LOS ANGELES — Sometime in Season 3 of “The Office,” its creator, Greg....
Read More>

Adult Head Games, Focused on a Child: Henry James’s short novel “What Maisie Knew” was suggested by a friend’s
Read More>

Bang, Boom: Terrorism as a Game: Right before I saw “Iron Man 3,” a publicist implored the several hundred attendees....
Read More>

Model Moves Bootcamp - May 11th: Get $100 discount for Model Moves Commercial Boot Camp on May 11th. Please join me, Shawn....
Read More>

Paladino Casting Workshop - How to Book the Job: ***HOW TO BOOK THE JOB** Do you have the passion, talent, and drive, but aren't....
Read More>

Iron Man 3: Don Cheadle and Avengers 2: Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes has been a minor, though important, character in the &ldq
Read More>

Tonys: That Hollywood-Broadway transition is harder than it looks: NEW YORK -- When Shia LaBeouf dropped out of the Broadway revival “Orphans” because....
Read More>

'Pain & Gain' is No. 1 in U.S.; 'Iron Man 3' opens huge abroad: Star power didn't do much to attract moviegoers to the multiplex this weekend, as two....
Read More>

Baz Luhrmann wants to 'reveal' more of 'The Great Gatsby': The Directors: The filmmaker is concerned with what's in the novel — and what isn't. He....
Read More>

‘Iron Man 3′: Tony Stark lives by his wits in Marvel’s latest: Robert Downey Jr. stood frozen in pain after leaping onto a platform of an oil tanker on the....
Read More>

'Pain & Gain' to strong-arm rivals at weekend box office: There will likely be less pain than gain for Paramount Pictures at the box office this....
Read More>
Critic's Notebook: Sweet (and sublimely sick) 16 for 'South Park'
Posted on: 03/16/12
Share/Save/Bookmark
 

Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone head into 'South Park's' 16th season with plenty of life left in mining wisdom from crude laughs.



 
"South Park," a cartoon that is and isn't about four little boys in a Rocky Mountain hamlet, begins its 16th season Wednesday on Comedy Central.

Sixteen years of "South Park — it began so long ago thatPatrick Duffy was the subject of a joke in its second episode — sounds even more amazing than 23 years of "The Simpsons,"given the younger show's habitual profanity, vulgarity and violence. But that is also obviously part of its appeal and, indeed, often its very point.

What's kept both these small-town allegorical comedies valuable and viable over their long runs are qualities they share: a disregard for empty authority, skepticism regarding beliefs not based in fact, an impatience with hypocrisy and cant, and the happy realization that the worst aspects of humans both as individuals and (especially) as institutions can be played for big laughs. And if "The Simpsons" is the warmer of the two series, that is all right with "South Park."

Eric Cartman (perennially enraged sociopathic conniver) speaks with a character clearly meant to be Bart Simpson (in "Cartoon Wars, Part II" Season 10):

Bart-like boy: "I'm a pretty bad kid."

Cartman: "What's the worst thing you've ever done?

"I stole the head off a statue once."

"Wow. That's pretty hard-core, jeez. That's like this one time, I didn't like this kid, so I ground his parents up into chili and fed it to him." (So he did, in "Scott Tenorman Must Die," from Season 5.)

With its famous six-day production process, "South Park" is also the more topical cartoon — in 2008, it aired an election-themed episode that quoted from President Obama's victory speech the day after he won. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone like to name names, of both people and the corporations who are now people too, the specificity of their targets prompting the disclaimer that opens every episode: "All characters and events in this show — even those based on real people — are entirely fictional."

Although it takes an army, running at a sprint, to bring "South Park" to life, to an extent rare for television it remains very much the work of its creators, who script, direct and produce the episodes and provide the voices for all the male main characters. It lends the show a consistent, which is not to say unevolving, vision.

And though its semi-homemade look — a computerized interpretation of the construction-paper/felt-board look of the pilot — has grown somewhat more refined in order to keep pace with (if always several steps behind) advances in TV technology, a kind of garage-rock/uncle's barn homeliness maintains. It is certainly not a show that feels worked over or which appears to suffer from second thoughts.

I was not a fan to begin with. It seemed to me at first that Parker and Stone were merely showing off, like children pulling down their pants or saying bad words at a grown-up party. (The pilot episode concerned alien anal probes and was full of bad words so, really, that was not too far off the mark.)

But eventually I began to see a method in its crudeness, and its excesses as the road to a palace of wisdom — that is, when it was not just pulling down its pants and saying bad words. (Comedy Central bleeps the conventionally most objectionable language, but almost every episode is available uncensored at the show's home page, http://www.southparkstudios.com.)

If "South Park" is vulgar partly to make a point about vulgarity, and provocative to make a point about the right to be provocative, it is also vulgar and provocative for the sake of being vulgar and provocative. At times, it's simply mean — calling Sarah Jessica Parker a "transvestite donkey witch," for example.

Anything less would be, in a way, disingenuous. The series' deep and shallow streams run side by side, as in the fifth-season episode "It Hits the Fan," in which a common slang word for feces is pronounced 162 times (an onscreen counter keeps track). There are myriad interlacing points made about language and society and media; but it's funny because they keep using that word.

The theme was revisited and elaborated upon last season in a pair of dark and moving episodes in which Stan, having turned 10, begins to lose his taste for life — he is diagnosed as suffering from "cynicism" — and, in a metaphor made brilliantly concrete, has begun to see the world and its products literally as excrement. "When all the things that made you laugh just make you sick, how do you go on when nothing makes you happy?" he wonders.

There is something quite breathtaking, and I mean this seriously, about the poignancy Parker and Stone achieve by filling the screen with pictures and sounds of defecation. Oddly, it feels like ... maturity.

The episodes that followed suggest that, like the death that used to regularly come to Kenny, Stan's affliction is not permanent. But it's clear that "South Park," which has been renewed through 2016, has territory left to explore and has not lost its capacity to $%@#$ with us.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com


COMMENTS
Be the first to post a comment!


Post A Comment:




  • It's 2020! Start booking roles in commercials, fashion, films, theater and more with The Agency Online!

  • NEW WORKSHOP with Barbara Barna & Sean De Simone!

    Hi Everyone and Happy Summer! Sean at Sean De Simone casting and Barbara Barna are teaming up for a super informative and fun Hosting for Home Shopping workshop. A great opportunity for established or experienced TV Hosts and Experts interested in learning how to get noticed and how to get in....
  • MASTERCLASS W. Robin Carus & David John Madore

    A Special Offer for the Agency Community, from one of our favorite NYC Casting Directors! EMAIL FacetheMusicWithUs@gmail.com Or Eventbrite To Sign Up! Class Size is Limited.
  • Don't Fall Into The Comparison Trap

    Hi Everyone! As the second installment in an ongoing series of features by the Agency's amazing community, here's some sage advice from our own Regina Rockensies; a humble (& awesome)veteran we've had the pleasure of working with for a long time. Have an excellent week! : ) - The Agency....
  • One Model's Agreement

    Hi Everyone! As the first piece in an ongoing series of original articles by the Agency community, here's a short reflection on some of the values of professional acting & modeling that we can all keep in mind for our next casting. Good luck on your castings &shoots this week! : ) -....




 
home       castings&news       privacy policy       terms and conditions      contact us      browser tips
Official PayPal Seal