South Park is rude, crude, gleefully offensive… and brilliantly written
'South Park'. Credit: Comedy Partners When critical ink gets spilled about South Park , Matt Stone and Trey Parker's 30-year animated opus about… well, whatever sparks their interest any given week, it's more often than not due to whatever the latest controversy is. Since its humble birth as a crude animated short way back in 1992, South Park has delighted in the slaughter of countless sacred cows, and the series' refusal to treat any subject as untouchable has upset just about every demographic at one point of another. That's part of South Park 's appeal, and the chief reason for its frequent condemnation – as a viewer, sooner or later some tenet you hold as untouchable is in for a kicking. Even cast members aren't immune – the late Isaac Hayes, who voiced fan fave character Chef, infamously quit the show after the 2005 season nine episode 'Trapped in the Closet' mercilessly lampooned Scientology, Hayes' religion (Hayes' son, Isaac Hayes III, denies this). Undeterred, Parker and Stone doubled down in the season 10 premiere, 'The Return of Chef', brutally killing off the character and employing snippets of dialogue Hayes had already recorded to bring the character to (temporary) life.
But what's particularly impressive about South Park is that it's incredibly well-written, despite the show's extremely fast turnaround. Episodes are typically smashed out in a week, and sometimes as quickly as four days – a speed of production at least in part due to not being hampered by studio approval. Even now, 26 seasons deep, South Park remains an auteur piece, although Parker shoulders the bulk of the creative duties while Stone focuses on business matters. Working with a small team of staff writers, the pair work to insanely tight deadlines in order to keep the show fresh, which means that South Park is often satirising an event or phenomenon before the cultural consensus has had time to firm up. The final episode of season seven, "It's Christmas in Canada", nodded to the capture of Saddam Hussein a mere three days after the dictator was pulled from his spider-hole. Season 12's "About Last Night..." deals with Barack Obama's election victory, airing less than a day after he was declared the winner. The only time the team have ever missed a production deadline was due to a power failure . Nonetheless, the nut and bolts writing of South Park cleaves to an impressively high standard. With its endless wilfully offensive jokes and trademark lowbrow surrealism, to the casual viewer South Park might seem like a scattershot blast of puerile profanity, concerned only with tearing through the boundaries of good taste, but in terms of structure it's quietly brilliant. Each scene works as a self-contained comedy sketch, but it's what happens in the margins that makes the whole thing keep rolling. Parker and Stone adhere to a structural practice they call 'Therefore or but' and the deceptively simple rule is that either of those words must logically fit in between each scene. It sounds like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how many writers drop the ball in this regard. As Stone noted when the pair addressed a New York University film class in 2011 , 'If the words 'and then…' belong between those beats, you're f***ed.' It's all about causality. This happens, therefore this happens next. Or this happens, but this happens next, changing the outcome. It's a writing fundamental that stops any given episode from just being a collection of loosely connected vignettes; each scene flows from what has gone before. Cartman is humiliated by Scott, therefore he tries to train a pony to bite off Scott's penis. But this proves to be a difficult task and Cartman is frustrated. But he is advised to uncover Scott's weaknesses and exploit them. Therefore , he tries to use Scott's fandom of Radiohead to publicly shame him. But Scott turns the tables on Cartman by releasing an embarrassing video of him. Therefore … well, it gets more complicated from there, and in deference to anyone who hasn't seen the episode, I'll just say that it goes to some wild and deeply disturbing places. But 'wild and deeply disturbing' is par for the course when it comes to South Park – what makes it work is its structural underpinnings. For a series often criticised for being loud, obnoxious, and offensive, it's quietly brilliant. Seasons 1-15 of South Park are streaming at SBS On demand, but don't delay, they're only there until 30 June.
Share this with family and friends
SBS's award winning companion podcast. Join host Yumi Stynes for Seen, a new SBS podcast about cultural creatives who have risen to excellence despite a role-model vacuum.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
2 days ago
- Perth Now
Funk rock revolutionary Sly Stone dies at 82
Sly Stone, the revolutionary musician and dynamic showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and '70s and beyond with such hits as Everyday People, Stand! and Family Affair, has died at age 82. Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, had been in poor health in recent years. His publicist Carleen Donovan said he died in Los Angeles surrounded by family after contending with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments. Formed in 1966-67, Sly and the Family Stone was the first major group to include Black and white men and women, and embodied a time when anything seemed possible — riots and assassinations, communes and love-ins. The music was a blowout of frantic horns, rapid-fire guitar and locomotive rhythms, a melting pot of jazz, psychedelic rock, doo-wop, soul and the early grooves of funk. Stone's group began as a Bay Area sextet featuring Sly on keyboards, Larry Graham on bass; Sly's brother, Freddie, on guitar; sister Rose on vocals; Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini horns and Greg Errico on drums. They debuted with the album A Whole New Thing and earned the title with their breakthrough single, Dance to the Music. It hit the top 10 in April 1968, the week the Rev. Martin Luther King was murdered, and helped launch an era when the polish of Motown and the understatement of Stax suddenly seemed of another time. Led by Sly Stone, with his leather jumpsuits and goggle shades, mile-wide grin and mile-high Afro, the band dazzled in 1969 at the Woodstock festival and set a new pace on the radio. Everyday People, I Wanna Take You Higher and other songs were anthems of community, non-conformity and a brash and hopeful spirit, built around such catchphrases as 'different strokes for different folks.'The group released five top 10 singles, three of them hitting No. 1, and three million-selling albums: Stand!, There's a Riot Goin' On and Greatest Hits. Sly's influence has endured for decades. The top funk artist of the 1970s, Parliament-Funkadelic creator George Clinton, was a Stone disciple. Prince, Rick James and the Black-Eyed Peas were among the many performers from the 1980s and after influenced by Sly, and countless rap artists have sampled his riffs, from the Beastie Boys to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. A 2005 tribute record included Maroon 5, John Legend and the Roots. By the early '70s, Stone himself was beginning a descent from which he never recovered, driven by the pressures of fame and the added burden of Black fame. His record company was anxious for more hits, while the Black Panthers were pressing him to drop the white members from his group. After moving from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in 1970, he became increasingly hooked on cocaine and erratic in his behaviour. By the end of the decade, Sly and the Family Stone had broken up and Sly was releasing solo records. Most of the news he made over the following decades was of drug busts, financial troubles and mishaps on stage. Sly and the Family Stone was inducted into the Rock & Roll of Fame in 1993 and honoured in 2006 at the Grammy Awards, but Sly released just one album after the early '80s, I'm Back! Family & Friends, much of it updated recordings of his old hits.
West Australian
2 days ago
- West Australian
Funk rock revolutionary Sly Stone dies at 82
Sly Stone, the revolutionary musician and dynamic showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and '70s and beyond with such hits as Everyday People, Stand! and Family Affair, has died at age 82. Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, had been in poor health in recent years. His publicist Carleen Donovan said he died in Los Angeles surrounded by family after contending with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments. Formed in 1966-67, Sly and the Family Stone was the first major group to include Black and white men and women, and embodied a time when anything seemed possible — riots and assassinations, communes and love-ins. The music was a blowout of frantic horns, rapid-fire guitar and locomotive rhythms, a melting pot of jazz, psychedelic rock, doo-wop, soul and the early grooves of funk. Stone's group began as a Bay Area sextet featuring Sly on keyboards, Larry Graham on bass; Sly's brother, Freddie, on guitar; sister Rose on vocals; Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini horns and Greg Errico on drums. They debuted with the album A Whole New Thing and earned the title with their breakthrough single, Dance to the Music. It hit the top 10 in April 1968, the week the Rev. Martin Luther King was murdered, and helped launch an era when the polish of Motown and the understatement of Stax suddenly seemed of another time. Led by Sly Stone, with his leather jumpsuits and goggle shades, mile-wide grin and mile-high Afro, the band dazzled in 1969 at the Woodstock festival and set a new pace on the radio. Everyday People, I Wanna Take You Higher and other songs were anthems of community, non-conformity and a brash and hopeful spirit, built around such catchphrases as 'different strokes for different folks.'The group released five top 10 singles, three of them hitting No. 1, and three million-selling albums: Stand!, There's a Riot Goin' On and Greatest Hits. Sly's influence has endured for decades. The top funk artist of the 1970s, Parliament-Funkadelic creator George Clinton, was a Stone disciple. Prince, Rick James and the Black-Eyed Peas were among the many performers from the 1980s and after influenced by Sly, and countless rap artists have sampled his riffs, from the Beastie Boys to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. A 2005 tribute record included Maroon 5, John Legend and the Roots. By the early '70s, Stone himself was beginning a descent from which he never recovered, driven by the pressures of fame and the added burden of Black fame. His record company was anxious for more hits, while the Black Panthers were pressing him to drop the white members from his group. After moving from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in 1970, he became increasingly hooked on cocaine and erratic in his behaviour. By the end of the decade, Sly and the Family Stone had broken up and Sly was releasing solo records. Most of the news he made over the following decades was of drug busts, financial troubles and mishaps on stage. Sly and the Family Stone was inducted into the Rock & Roll of Fame in 1993 and honoured in 2006 at the Grammy Awards, but Sly released just one album after the early '80s, I'm Back! Family & Friends, much of it updated recordings of his old hits.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Sly Stone, leader of funk revolutionaries Sly and the Family Stone, dies at 82
New York: Sly Stone, the revolutionary musician and dynamic showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and '70s and beyond with such hits as Everyday People, Stand! and Family Affair, has died. He was 82 Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, had been in poor health in recent years. His publicist Carleen Donovan said on Monday that Stone died in Los Angeles, surrounded by family after contending with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments. Formed in 1966-67, Sly and the Family Stone was the first major group to include Black and white men and women, and well embodied a time when anything seemed possible – riots and assassinations, communes and love-ins. The singers screeched, chanted, crooned and hollered. The music was a blowout of frantic horns, rapid-fire guitar and locomotive rhythms, a melting pot of jazz, psychedelic rock, doo-wop, soul and the early grooves of funk. Sly's time on top was brief, roughly from 1968 to 1971, but profound. No band better captured the gravity-defying euphoria of the Woodstock era or more bravely addressed the crash that followed. From early songs as rousing as their titles – I Want To Take You Higher and Stand! — to the sober aftermath of Family Affair and Runnin' Away, Sly and the Family Stone spoke for a generation whether or not it liked what they had to say. Stone's group began as a Bay Area sextet featuring Sly on keyboards, Larry Graham on bass; Sly's brother, Freddie, on guitar; sister Rose on vocals; Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini horns and Greg Errico on drums. They debuted with the album A Whole New Thing and earned the title with their breakthrough single, Dance to the Music. It hit the top 10 in April 1968, the week the Rev. Martin Luther King was murdered, and helped launch an era when the polish of Motown suddenly seemed of another time.
