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.
Hot topics abound in 'South Park', and not just the shop. Credit: Comedy Partners
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 .
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About Last Night...
episode • South Park • animated • 21m
MA15+
episode • South Park • animated • 21m
MA15+
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 , “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.
The best example, to my mind, is season five’s “Scott Tenorman Must Die”, widely regarded as .
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Scott Tenorman Must Die
episode • South Park • animated • 21m
M
episode • South Park • animated • 21m
M
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.
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South Park
