DAY 10- The Slaying of the First Born

Yesterday I was in my iCar listening to my iPod on iShuffle and the song, "Happy Working Song" from the film, "Enchanted" came on. My sister had put it on my iPod and it is a cute song. It's Amy Adams singing happily about cleaning up the apartment. It has a nice orchestral arrangement with flutes, violins and other sprightly instruments. It has lyrics like "come little friends while we all come together and sing a happy song. "A nice listening experience. The next song that came on was "Uncle Fucka" from "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut." A similarly jaunty, orchestral piece, but with lyrics like "you're a cock sucking ass licking uncle fucker." Talk about juxtaposition.

When this film came out in 1999, it didn't do THAT well at the box office (it was made for $20 mil, it made around $50 mil so I guess it was an underwhelming hit) because people were kind of over South Park. It was daring and rebellious and filthy when it came out in 1997 (or when I was in 4th grade) but in 1999, people didn't think it could make the successful jump to big screen. And kids who watched it on TV couldn't get a ticket to a rated R movie.

Who would have guessed that a) South Park the show would still be big, if not HUGE ten years later in 2008 and b) that the South Park movie would stand the test of time and still be as funny and awesome as it was when it first came out. No one.

I think you can attribute South Park's awesome longevity to three things. First, South Park is not stagnant. The show takes a few days to produce an episode and so can keep up to date on current events. Second, Trey Parker is brilliant and doesn't give a shit about anyone. He gets smarter every year, makes fun of celebrities (Bono--YEA YEA YEA YEA YEA YEA...), politicians (why should I choose between a douche bag and turd sandwich?), political correctness (people that annoy you--n_ggers), the Internet (how are we going to know what is going on without it!), trends (guitar queer-o) etc. and does not resort to "Cartman gets anal-probed" episodes anymore. Plus he realized that people are over the shock of hearing children curse and so pushing the envelope in terms of raunchiness isn't going to keep him on the air forever. Third, Cartman and Randy Marsh are fucking brilliant characters. Cartman is the encapsulation of all that is evil, manipulative and not right with the world, and so everything he does can be seen as what the writers think are wrong. But at the same time, you love Cartman and so you never get sick of him doing awful things. Randy is the encapsulation of everything that is dumb and American, and the writers can keep using him to act stupidly, and thoughtlessly be a "proud American" no matter what that entails. We love Randy because we love watching people making fun of us and "holding up a mirror on society" so to speak. Am I comparing South Park to Moliere? Yes, and I don't think its that big of a stretch.

In terms of the movie, because of the plot (making fun of Canada never gets old), its hilarity (Kyle's mom's a bitch and she's just a dirty bitch!) and the fact that it is a musical (and a great one at that), new audiences and sets of kids keep discovering it every year. South Park right now probably its biggest audience of all time. It has the college/post college kids who grew up on it, it has the middle schoolers/younger kids who watch it on syndication, and it has the adults who are finally appreciating its satirical prowess. Plus, it has finally gotten over the stigma that it is bad for children. Right now there are kids going, "when are they going to make a South Park movie?" And there is one! Plus, the movie was a re-watchability factor off the charts. I guarantee that if you watch it now, you will still very much enjoy it and see new things.

So, GO FORWARD South Park. Continue to make us laugh and expose society's hypocrisies. I'll be watching.

PS. Trey Parker and Matt Stone definitely have George Carlin to thank for paving the way for their type of comedy. George's raunchiness, use of language, knack for exposing hypocrisy and stupidity, and hatred for bullshit in all of its forms was unique and revolutionary. Without him, shows like South Park would not accepted in society today. RIP George.One more thing--Hollywood right now has a movie coming out called "The Six Wives of Henry LeFay" and a TV show coming out called, "The Six Ex-Wives of Henry Tate." Isn't Hollywood stupid?

Until Tomorrow-