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South Park debuted back in August 1997 with zero chill. Trey Parker and Matt Stone let loose a cartoon for Comedy Central, and TV has never really recovered. It revolves around the misadventures of four foul-mouthed boys—Stan Marsh, Kylae Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick– getting into the dumbest, weirdest situations in a Colorado town. And it’s not just fart jokes (though there are plenty). They somehow keep the show fresh, roasting everything from politics to Hollywood.
South Park’s animation is simple. It started out looking like a construction paper scrap glued together, reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s work for Monty Python. Eventually, they ditched the scissors for some computer software, but kept that same vibe. The real genius is that janky style lets Trey Parker and Matt Stone pull out episodes at high speed. Sometimes they’re writing, drawing, and pushing it on-air all in the same week. No wonder they’re always roasting whatever just happened in the news.
Everything kicked off with these two little shorts, both called The Spirit of Christmas. Parker and Stone created them back in the early ‘90s. These things blew up, and thanks to all that chaos, the TV show happened. The first episode was Cartman Gets an Anal Probe. Instantly, you get this mix of poop jokes, total disrespect for anything sacred, and a surprising amount of social commentary.
With this, South Park flipped the script for Comedy Central. Before those foul-mouthed kids rolled into town, hardly anyone even knew the channel existed. Soon after, everybody was quoting Cartman, and Comedy Central’s numbers just exploded. We’re talking from a measly 9 million homes to a jaw-dropping 50 million households watching within a year.
Notably, the show has racked up five Emmys and a Peabody Award. And let’s not forget the movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which came out in 1999, and it still holds up. By July 2025, they rolled into season 27.
South Park is the class clown of TV, poking fun at literally everything, and somehow still standing after all these years. We have rounded up ten distinctive facts about South Park, each illustrating why this cartoon is far from ordinary television.
South Park was born from one of the first viral internet videos
Way before South Park blew up on TV, Parker and Stone were just two guys making little cartoons in their free time. They cranked out two versions of The Spirit of Christmas—one in 1992, then a revamped one in 1995. The second one tore through early internet circles like wildfire. It was one of those OG viral videos back when “going viral” wasn’t even a thing people said.
The buzz got so out of hand that Comedy Central had to notice, and South Park got greenlit. What’s crazy is that the show’s whole origin story is tangled up in internet chaos. Parker and Stone were ahead of the curve, making content that blew up online before most people even understood how to send an email.
The pilot episode was laboriously created using actual paper cutouts
Trey Parker and Matt Stone went full old-school with the first South Park episode—Cartman Gets an Anal Probe. It was created by cutting up construction paper and rearranging the pieces, much like what Terry Gilliam did during the Monty Python era. They literally fiddled with every single frame by hand, and it took them months.
Eventually, they wised up and ditched the scissors and glue for digital animation. But they still made it look all jittery and low-budget, just like the original. Only now, instead of months, they’re hitting whole episodes in a week.
The main characters are based on real people
Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny didn’t just pop out of thin air. Parker and Stone pretty much raided their own lives for material. Stan is straight-up Trey Parker in cartoon form. Kyle is Matt Stone with a bigger hat. Cartman is a mashup of some high school guy nobody liked and Trey’s ex, Liane (Cartman’s mom’s name is not a coincidence).
Kenny is inspired by a childhood friend of Parker’s, known for wearing a parka so tightly his speech was muffled. A university dining hall employee inspired Chef. Butters is Eric Stough, their animation director, just with a way more tragic haircut.
The show is a roast of everyone Parker and Stone have ever met, with a little extra weirdness sprinkled in. That’s probably why it rings so true.
South Park holds the Guinness World Record for most swearing in an animated series
No surprise here, but the show lives to break every rule in the book. Turns out, it's not just your imagination: Guinness gave it the record for the most swear words ever crammed into an animated show.
Kenny McCormick’s death became an iconic running gag
Kenny McCormick’s whole shtick at the start was that he had only died. Over and over. Like, you couldn’t sneeze without Kenny getting squished, exploded, or straight-up obliterated in some ridiculous way. Then, he’s back in the next episode, no questions asked. Not a single soul in town bats an eye.
And, of course, you’ve got Stan and Kyle shouting that classic, “Oh my God, they killed Kenny!” every time. We can’t even count how many times that got yelled.
These days, he’s not exactly dropping like flies every episode. They chilled out on the whole Kenny-must-die routine after season five.
Multiple celebrities have made guest appearances, but often in unflattering roles
The show doesn’t just roast celebrities, they straight up throw them into the deep fryer and see what sizzles. While other cartoons might butter up their famous guests, South Park made George Clooney voice Sparky, Stan’s dog. And Clooney actually loved it. It’s like a running dare to see who’s got a sense of humor.
Nothing sums it up better than that Trapped in the Closet episode where they just go nuclear on Tom Cruise and Scientology. The fallout was lawsuits, headlines, and chaos. But the show pokes the bear and then giggles while it chases you.
The show’s animation process allows for unmatched topicality
Most cartoons take ages to crank out, months just to get from script to screen. But South Park flipped the script when they went digital. They could complete a whole episode in literally six days. That means they can drop jokes about whatever happened last week—or yesterday.
Nobody else in TV animation does it like this. That’s why the show always feels plugged in. It’s their secret sauce for staying relevant, year after year.
South Park has spurred real-world phenomena and inspired copycat businesses
The episodes have sometimes blurred the line between parody and reality. Take that Medicinal Fried Chicken episode, which sounds ridiculous. But it’s riffing off a real story from LA. Somebody took an old KFC joint and turned it into a legit weed dispensary called Kind For Cures. Now, the business proudly displays South Park references in its décor as a badge of honor.
The show frequently satirizes its own network and corporate entities
Parker and Stone just don’t care who they roast; nobody’s safe. They’ll drag American culture through the mud, sure, but they’ll also take wild swings at Comedy Central (their own bosses) and those massive media empires pulling the strings. South Park’s gone after everything, from Viacom’s money-hungry shenanigans to the absurd streaming turf wars—HBO Max fighting Paramount+.
They turn all that corporate silliness into straight-up hilarious storylines.
South Park is consistently recognized as one of the greatest and most influential TV shows ever
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Say what you want about South Park, but pretending it hasn’t warped the comedy landscape would just be delusional. The show keeps popping up on “best ever” lists, like in TV Guide, where it snagged #10 for greatest TV cartoons back in 2013. And don’t forget, their movie actually got an Oscar nod for Best Original Song.
Awards are cool and all, but what blows our mind is how the show just keeps chugging along, pulling in viewers year after year, across every possible platform. It’s kind of the troublemaker that all the other troublemakers look up to.
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