The PopWatch Interview: Controversy on 'South Park,' what-what-what?!?
Mar 2, 2007, 11:46 AM | by Mandi Bierly
Categories: Television
South Park returns March 7 for an 11th season on Comedy Central, and though we don't need to tell you that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone still deliver after all these years, the fact that EW has dubbed their premiere our "Must Watch of the Week" — without actually knowing what it's about — does kinda say it.
What speaks even louder: Neither the duo nor the network will be revealing the plot of the episode before it debuts, period. "If it got out what it was," Parker says, "someone would try to stop us from doing it before it got on the air." Impending controversy? Hooray!
Here's what they did tell us during our recent chat:
- They've got so many good ideas, it's hard to pick what the first one should be. Seriously, Stone said, "Please write that we've got so many good ideas, it's hard to pick what the first one should be." And apparently, he's not joking. As of Monday, the duo was still deciding which of two top-secret ideas should air first. (Yes, that means at least one other episode this season will be making "someone" pissy.) Parker credits their wealth of story lines to a particularly fruitful February writers' retreat in "geriatric" Palm Springs, where distractions were limited. "Yeah," Stone says, "we got to go places where it's not that fun to be."
- Starting this season, episodes will be available uncensored on iTunes.
Stone: "Oh, that's something that we can talk about."
EW: "That's cool, but can you tell us anything about the premiere?"
Parker: "Honestly, when you see it, you're gonna be like, 'I see why they couldn't tell me.' Unless, we end up not going with that one because it doesn't work, and we go with something else." [Laughter]
Stone: "You suck so bad."
- Norman Lear officiated Parker's Jan. 2006 wedding in Hawaii.
Parker: "Yeah, it was pretty great. Like, I couldn't imagine how else I
would get married. I wasn't going to have some Catholic priest come
down. And it just came out. I told Norman I was getting married, and he
was like, 'Oh, well, I'm ordained. I can marry you.' He had married
like four other couples or something like that. My wife didn't know who
he was, so it was fine with her. She's Japanese, so it was basically a
Shinto-slash-Norman Lear wedding. It was nice and simple and short and
intimate."
EW: "Did you ever think you'd be doing an interview about
your wedding?"
Parker: "No. No."
EW: "This is what happens, gentlemen,
when you won't tell me a plot of a single episode."
[Laughter. Silence]
Stone: "You wanna tell her about 24?"
- One of the first seven episodes will be a parody of 24. "Basically, we've spent the last month watching like three or four episodes a day, studying what they do," Parker says. "We're fans of the show, and we're really impressed with the writing, but as soon as you have Cartman saying the same stuff, it's pretty damn funny."
- They're not planning on touching the Anna Nicole Smith media frenzy. For now.
Parker: "It's not to say it's not gonna end up in week 4 or 5, but so
far, we just don't really have a take on it. Like things have happened
in this off season that we really did get worked up about, and the Anna
Nicole thing is like, we really just don't care."
EW: "So what worked
you up?"
Parker: "Oh, you'll see." [Laughter] "Oh boy, you'll see."
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