Trey Parker and Matt Stone: Playboy Interview 

It started without much fanfare on a Wednesday night in August 1997. A new animated series debuted on Comedy Central—but this was animation that gloried in its crudeness, animation created not with computer programs but with construction paper, scissors and glue. On the screen, four primitive creations—third graders, they were supposed to be—stood around a bus stop talking. One of them called another a dildo. When somebody asked, "What's a dildo?" a kid in an orange parka explained—but his parka was pulled so tightly around his face that you couldn't understand a word he said. When the most obnoxious of the four (Eric Cartman, a hefty kid who insists, "I'm not fat, I'm big-boned!") told about a dream he'd had of alien visitors, the other kids decided that aliens had abducted Cartman and given him an anal probe—or as one of them delicately explained it, "Aliens stuck stuff up your ass!"

That was the beginning of South Park, and the beginning of an un expected ride that has been by turns gratifying, infuriating and remunerative beyond the wildest imaginings of the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. A five-minute animated short they created as a lark turned into an unlikely television show; that show turned into a huge hit, and one of those pop-culture litmus tests that come along only every few years.

In South Park, the kids have foul mouths but (mostly) good hearts as they try to cope with the outlandish, the insane and the offensive. The show slams celebrities and celebrity, it pushes every hot button it can, and it borrows from the cut-and-paste animation style of Monty Python's Terry Gilliam to be as profoundly low-tech as possible. (Computers now do the work, but Parker and Stone are determined not to alter the show's crappy look.) South Park also happens to be as hilarious a half hour as can be found on television, and it has put Comedy Central on the map and made stars out of Parker and Stone—who reaffirmed their clout with last summer's movie South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut. They also became two of the first film-makers to sign lucrative Internet contracts. Their new deal with Shockwave.com gave them a large equity stake in the company.

In all matters South Park, the two men are inseparable. But there are differences: Parker who turned 30 last October is the tall blond one who does the voices of Cartman, Stan and Mr. Garrison, among others; Stone, 29, is even taller, the afroed one whose voices include Kyle and Kenny. Parker is the inveterate filmmaker who has been heading for a showbiz career since he was in high school; Stone is the buddy who's gotten sidetracked, swept up by and sucked into his pal's passions.

They both grew up in Colorado, in the suburbs near Denver. Parker was raised in Conifer, a mountain community outside Denver; Stone was born in Texas but raised in Littleton. Parker made movies on the weekends from the time he was 14, was active in his school's choir and theater department, and wrote and recorded an album of funny rock songs while in high school. Stone, meanwhile, was a math prodigy of sorts in grade school and high school.

The two met in film class at the University of Colorado. Students were required to work on one another's projects. Invariably, Parker and Stone would gravitate toward each other and spend the time doing funny voices and talking about future projects. While in school, they made a full-length musical about Colorado pioneer Alfred Packer who was convicted of cannibalism; Parker wrote, directed and starred in Cannibal: The Musical while Stone produced it. They figured they'd sell the video rights to the movie (which is completely amateurish, surprisingly charming and funny, and stupid in just about equal measure) for $1 million or so, pocket the $900,000 profit and wake another movie. Instead, they found themselves with a little industry heat after some guerrilla screenings of the film at the Sundance Film Festival, so they came to Los Angeles and in short order acquired a lawyer, an agent and a script deal with high-powered producer Scott Rudin. The next couple of years consisted of lots of promises but little else. One fan, then-20th Century Fox executive Brian Graden, threw them $1200 to make a video Christmas card he planned to send to friends and business associates.

Besides featuring a battle between Santa Claus and Jesus for dominion over Christmas, the video introduced the animation style and main characters that would become South Park. Graden thought the hysterical but scatological piece was too rude to send to business associates, but he mailed it to a few friends, and bootleg copies started showing up all across Hollywood. On the basis of the video, Parker and Stone made a pilot episode for Comedy Central: when the network waft fled, they went off to make Orgazmo, about a Mormon porn star. While they were shooting that movie, South Park was picked up.

Throughout the fall and winter of 1997- 1998, the buzz grew. So did the ratings: One week South Park would be Comedy Central's highest-rated show of the week, the next it'd be the highest-rated show in the network's history, the next week it'd be the highest-rated show on basic cable, then it would beat one of the broadcast network's Wednesday night offerings—and so on.

The perks, they learned, were great. Parker and Stone went to the 1998 Super Bowl courtesy of Comedy Central and watched their beloved Denver Broncos win. They also met idols like Elton John, Robert Smith of the Cure, and the members of Monty Python. During a party at the Playboy Mansion to celebrate the release of Orgazmo, Metallica played for them in a tent set up on the grounds.

The growth couldn't continue, and it didn't. Ratings began to slip in the 1998—1999 season, while many critics dismissed the show as a fad that had run its course. It didn't help that Parker's and Stone's major—studio acting debuts in Basketball (which they'd agreed to do figuring that South Park would long since have been canceled) were widely panned and that the film did little business. It got to the point they say, where the summer movie previews all said essentially the same thing: "Star Wars Episode One: The Force is with it! The Spy Who Shagged Me: It's shagadelic! The South Park movie: who cares?"

But when the dust had cleared, South Park: Bigger; Longer and Uncut opened to much bigger business than expected, and to far better reviews. The New York Film Critics Circle voted it the year's best animated film, the LA Film Critics Association gave Parker and composer Marc Shaiman an award for the year's best score, and no less an authority than Stephen Sondheim sent Parker a letter congratulating him on creating the best musical in years. (This from a work whose songs include the deliriously obscene "Uncle Fucka," the inspirational "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" and the Oscar-nominated "Blame Canada.")

Previously sure that they'd be thrown out of Hollywood after making the movie, Parker and Stone were instead reinvigorated by the reception. They took a short break, then threw themselves back into South Park episodes, hoping to make the new season their best yet. And after years of dividing their time between television, movies and music (they've made three South Park-related albums, and they have their own band, DVDA), they've focused their efforts on the television show.

To catch up with the overworked bad boys, we sent freelance writer Steve Pond, who first interviewed Parker and Stone for Playboy during the initial season of South Park. His report:

"From the start, Parker and Stone displayed their usual disregard for the niceties of showbiz etiquette. They gleefully showed off the bad scripts and pathetic pitch letters that had been sent their way, tried to give me gifts that had been presented to them by Comedy Central and never let diplomacy get in the way of a good anecdote. And when an assistant asked if they wanted lunch before we sat down for one of our sessions, they opted for takeout from two joints that don't register on the list of Hollywood power dining spots: Trey asked for an Enchirito from Taco Bell while Matt requested an In-N-Out burger.

"We conducted the interviews in their office at the South Park headquarters, a brick building in an office complex on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Inside, the walls are painted in a Polynesian jungle decor, cardboard cutouts of the South Park characters hang over the cubicles, and the office that Parker and Stone share is an actual hut—a one-room structure in a corner of the warehouse with stucco walls, a thatched roof and bam boo window frames. Amid a haphazard jumble of South Park merchandise, musical instruments and other paraphernalia of the creative life, the two gleefully profane (but decidedly moral) provocateurs go about the business of upsetting as many applecarts as they possibly can."