Trey Parker, Matt Stone & Dian Bachar.

[Sunni]

I think we're alone. Just like I am with anime.

[Sunni]

Trey Parkers birthday today. He's 36. Here's something special to celebrate.


Biography
Randolph Severn Parker the third (hence the nickname) was born and raised in Conifer, Colorado. He is the youngest child of Randy and Sharon and has an older sister Shelley. Parker attended West Jefferson Junior High and Evergreen High in Colorado, where he was voted class clown.

Parker went to Berklee College of Music in Boston before transferring to the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he met Matt Stone. He was majoring in music, and with a goal to someday score films, and took classes to learn more about the film process. He made several animated shorts including "American History" which won a Student Academy Award, and "The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs Frosty" with Stone.

Parker's first film was a feature length film about Alfred Packer, a Colorado miner who was the only person convicted of cannibalism in America. A trailer was shot over the summer, and was used to help raise enough funds to shoot the film. Alferd Packer, The Musical (it was renamed Cannibal! The Musical when picked up in 1996 for distribution by Troma) began filming during spring break in 1993. Family, friends and fellow students all took part in the film. Students who participated received intern credit, except for Parker, who was kicked out of the university due to excessive absences from working on the film.

Parker's college film caught the eye of Brian Graden, a then FoxLab executive. In 1995, Graden commissioned Trey and Matt to create a video Christmas card based on their animated college short. "The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Santa" was the result -- a five minute short that featured an uncensored Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick watching Jesus and Santa battle it out for ownership of the Yule holiday. One of the recipients of the video (rumored to be George Clooney) made several hundred copies, and the animation became a must-see passed around Hollywood and the internet.

That same year, Parker created a pilot for FoxLab called "Time Warped" -- a "musical romp through time" featuring a story about Aaron and Moses. FoxLab felt the idea would work better as a children's show so a new pilot, "Rom & Jul" was made for FoxKids -- a Romeo and Juliet-esque story about a Homo erectus and Australopithecus who fall in love despite the conflict between their species. FoxKids passed on the show.

Parker wrote, directed and starred in his second feature film Orgazmo in 1997, about a wholesome Mormon who becomes a celebrity in Los Angeles' adult film world. Due to the NC-17 rating given by the MPAA, it did not have a wide release.

Parker and Stone were hired by Comedy Central to create a show based on the animated characters they created in college. Though it didn't test well with audiences, Comedy Central decided to pick it up for six episodes anyway. South Park made its debut on August 13, 1997, and has since gone on to be the highest rated original series in the network's history.

In 1998, Parker starred with Stone and Dian Bachar in BASEketball, directed by David Zucker of Airplane! and Naked Gun fame. The story follows a group of friends who take their homemade game from neighborhood driveways to the professional sports world.

In the summer of 1999, Parker and Stone released their critically acclaimed feature length film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which was, naturally, a musical. "Blame Canada," a song written by Parker and Marc Shaiman, was nominated for Best Song at the Academy Awards. The award was lost to Phil Collins, which was spoofed in a later episode of South Park.

After a contract renegotiation in 2000, three more seasons were added to South Park and Parker and Stone had a deal to create a live action sitcom. In 2001, That's My Bush! premiered -- a sitcom that portrayed the Commander in Chief as the lovable main character. It was not brought back for a second season due to its high costs (reportedly $700,000 per episode) and meager ratings. Another contract negotiation in 2003 picked up South Park for a ninth season, with an option to pick up a tenth.

Team America: World Police, the most recent creation from the duo, is a puppet movie about a special police force dedicated to saving the world from terrorists, and was released in October 2004.

Parker and his creative partner, Matt Stone, have received criticism and acclaim from both sides of the political spectrum, making them hard to pin down politically, except that they display irreverence for almost any authority figure. The term South Park Republican has been coined to refer to those who claim that South Park reflects a Republican, although non-traditional, viewpoint. Historically, though, Parker has described himself as "middle-ground", and he is a registered member of the United States Libertarian Party.

Parker resides in the Los Angeles area and is currently on hiatus from South Park, which resumes its ninth season on Comedy Central on October 19, 2005.

On September 9, 2005 Comedy Central struck a deal with Parker and Stone for three more seasons of the show. The network has committed to 42 episodes (including those of the second half of season 9), or three more seasons, of South Park over the next three years, which means that the show will run till 2009. Parker and Stone will continue to write, direct and edit every episode of the show. The order brings the series total to 182 episodes. A sanitized version of the South Park bowed in syndication on September 19.

Miscellaneous Facts
Has blue eyes
Is left-handed
Loves musicals
Stands 6'1
Talented pianist
Denver Broncos fan
Has a cat named Jake
Lived in Japan for a period.
Speaks fluent Japanese.
Registered Libertarian
Member of the band DVDA
A big fan of The Cure.
Also credited as Juan Schwartz
Has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do
Owns additional homes in Seattle, WA and Kappa, HI
Lived in Tennessee and Wyoming for a short time as a child
Formerly engaged to Liane Adamo, dated Cannibal! The Musical co-star Toddy Walters, and has been linked with actress Lisa Faulkner and model/actress Nichole Robinson.
As of 2005, engaged to Emma Sugiyama
Named for the River Severn in Shrewsbury, England, UK.

[Sunni]

And here's an interview from the 19th of this month on Kevin and Bean. It's awsome.
http://kevinnbean.com/knb/10_19.wma

[Sunni]

Here's something super awsome I found on SouthParkStudios. Anne Garefino is keeping a South Park blog. Hope Matt and/or Trey do one.

Anne Garefino, Executive Producer:
Hi:

It

[Sunni]

I wanna know what they play. Fighting, racing, RPG? Also, I wonder if they're into new stuff (X-BOX, PS2) or they're oldschoolers like me (NES, SNES, Sega Genesis).

[Sunni]

I can afford everything too, but I prefer consols before Nintendo 64. I think everything after 64 are only good for one thing- making consols and games pre-64 cheaper.

[stealth]

southhhhhhhhhhhhhhh parrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk

[Sunni]

No, he wants to be popular. Only Matt n Trey fans allowed in here people. To be accepted in here, you'll have to answer a bunch of Matt n Trey questions by me, Sarah and J Shady.

[AspirinE]

No, he wants to be popular. Only Matt n Trey fans allowed in here people. To be accepted in here, you'll have to answer a bunch of Matt n Trey questions by me, Sarah and J Shady.

U just bound ur thread to loneliness

[niknacks]

whats ur favorite south park episode. My personal favorite is Scott Ternerman must die, "i love to taste your sweet sarrow" (cartman) or something along those lines, while he is licking his tears, after he fed him his parents.
I pretty much modle eric cartman in everyway possible and one day hope to be as great a man as he is.




My noodle is cockadoodle, my clocks coo coo, iv got screws loose

[j_shady]

^^^ yeah that was a good episode..mine, hmm so many to chose from but i like the one w/ Robert Smith from The Cure and the Sticky Situation episode. oh the Japanese animation episode, i felt bad for Butters when Kenny threw the ninja star at him....they totally forgot that it was all fake, i was like OH SHIT

[Sunni]

My favourite episodes are the ones that Matt and Trey get from real situations (Jared Has Aides, I'm a Little Bit Country, Goobacks, Douche and Turd, Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset). And more that I can think of right now.

[niknacks]

yea i agree at the shit that relate to the real world are funny, when u think they cant push the envolope ne further they due. Did u see the new episode, (hiricane katrina) that shit was fucked up yet hilarious all at the same time. Goo backs is another great one "they took are jobs"

[Sunni]

You talking about Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow? Yeah, that's a great one. Do you guys think that Park is going downhill like The Simpsons in season 8 and 9? I don't, I think it's getting better than ever.

[Sunni]

This is the best thing you guys will read all week.



Trey Parker has a confession to make. "I've started confiding in people, other artists mostly, that I hate making 'South Park' and I always have," he said during a recent visit to New York. He continued: "It's super stressful. I'm always miserable. I want to kill myself every week."

Mr. Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of "South Park," will have that problem for at least the next three years. Over the summer, they signed an agreement with Comedy Central to produce the animated series about four foulmouthed Colorado boys through the end of 2008. (The monetary terms of the deal have not been released.) But the show's enduring success does not mean that making "South Park" has become any easier for its two creators, who met in college at the University of Colorado. Between them, Mr. Stone, 34, and Mr. Parker, 36, write, direct and edit each episode, and they give their voices to most of the main characters. The second half of Season 9 begins tonight at 10. (Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker produce seven episodes in the spring and seven in the fall.)

"South Park" has evolved from a cranky, obscene voice of 1990's slacker culture to a high-profile entertainment brand, in large part because it provides a continuous running commentary on current events. Eight years of tackling up-to-the-minute issues like the search for Osama bin Laden, the controversy over Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" and the right-to-die questions raised by the court battle over Terri Schiavo have elevated Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone to a position as opinion arbiters: viewers count on divisive, newsworthy topics getting the "South Park" treatment.

Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker bristle at these expectations. "Now it's like, 'What's "South Park" going to do this week about Hurricane Katrina?' " Mr. Stone said. "I don't know what we're going to do. We should do an episode about how the town can't wait to see this show and what they're going to do about Hurricane Katrina." (They may complain, but they can't help themselves: on tonight's episode, a beaver dam breaks, causing a flood in a neighboring town. Assigning blame becomes the top priority.)

Animated series are not known for their timeliness, but "South Park" is different. When the show began in 1997, Mr. Parker, Mr. Stone and their staff would spend two weeks on an episode. Now they create each one, from start to finish, in six days, handing it over to Comedy Central on the morning of the broadcast. The process evolved from what Mr. Stone called "sheer procrastination" and Mr. Parker called "laziness."

Doug Herzog, Comedy Central's president, said: "For Matt and Trey, life is still a term paper. They put it under the professor's door at 11:59."

This crunch is what allows "South Park" to comment in real time on zeitgeist themes, from news headlines to video-game releases, but it's a harried process. Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker begin the Thursday-to-Wednesday week in the writers' room, where they throw around ideas. When they hit on ones that might work, Mr. Parker writes individual scenes so that the animators can begin creating the actual episode. As days pass, those scenes add up to 21 minutes with, eventually, a beginning, an end and a plot. As for how they arrive at an episode's larger narrative, Mr. Parker described the different approaches: "Do we come at it from, 'Remember this from third grade'? Do we come at it from, 'This happened on the news'?"

Sometimes an idea is character-driven. "Like, 'We need a Kyle story, there hasn't been much Kyle this season,' " Mr. Parker said. Those episodes, where the boys are just boys, are Mr. Stone's and Mr. Parker's favorite ones. "It feels very 'Peanuts,' " Mr. Parker said.

With three more years of "South Park" to go, its creators are trying to figure out what they will do after the show ends. They will soon be starting their own production company - probably, they said, with Paramount, for whom they made last year's "Team America: World Police."

"We need to get into producing at some point if we're actually going to have careers in our 40's," Mr. Parker said. "It's really scary, because one of the things we make fun of so much is the Steven Spielbergs, where it's like, 'Dude, stop.' "

What kinds of movies would they want to produce? "We don't know yet," Mr. Stone said. "You don't want to make your 'War of the Worlds.' "

Speaking of movies, will there ever be a sequel to 1999's "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut"? After making a face when asked, Mr. Stone said, "If we came up with a good idea, we'd do it." But with dozens of episodes to plot, they said, thinking of a good story to put aside for a film is difficult. Particularly when they prefer doing the show, anyway. "We're so satisfied with 'South Park,' " Mr. Parker said. "We don't feel the need to do another movie."

The series continues to be Comedy Central's highest-rated show, delivering an average of 2.6 million viewers each week. The eight years' worth of episodes repeat well, also, and Seasons 1 through 6 have sold a total of more than 3.5 million units on DVD.

Mr. Herzog, in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles office, called the show the "center of our prime-time effort." "It remains the heart of the network, along with 'The Daily Show,' " he said.

Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone will not say with certainty that "South Park" will end after the current contract expires. Mr. Parker said: "If somebody actually came to me and said, 'O.K., this is it: write your last "South Park" episodes,' I'd be like, 'No, no, no.' We've worked so hard on 'South Park,' making it what it is. How can we give that up?"

Mr. Herzog said Comedy Central would be willing to extend the show's run into infinity. "If they want to do it, we want to do it," he said. "I say to them face to face that I don't see any reason why 'South Park' can't be on forever."