Trey and Matt want to take themselves seriously, at times. And it seems many of their fans do, as well. But they can't manage it. The pair always have at the ready an infantile stimulus when the writer's block sets in. There is always the self-referential 'Terrance and Phillip' cartoon within the cartoon, but which unlike the Itchy and Scratchy complaint by the Simpson's writers, is not here presented as something to be avoided. They play with their feces, in a somewhat recurring family of characters which literally were anthropomorphized excrement, with mouths so they could talk, which some felt was the 'shark-jumping' moment for the show. Other characters attempt to defecate out of their mouths, perhaps a not so vague self-reference to the sort of thing coming from the writers. That's pretty much the level of the show, South Park. It just never escapes that, from mockery in 'Bloody Mary' to the offensive vulgarity mumbled by the Kenny character, right past the censors. It's shock value for its own sake, in the guise of an almost Peanuts-world of wide-eyed, round-headed toddlers.
The one thing on which they have prided themselves is timeliness. With their cutout animation, now computer driven though it may be, and requiring really just a sequence of lip movements and eye expressions, they have occasionally been able to make some vaguely incoherent comment on current issues, within days, or hours, of the event. But there are no real details. There is at best just outright misrepresentation of events. They end up wanting to say - that's . . stuff. It's just all . . stuff. Stuff it will be. And golly can't we all just get along? Profound. And then they'll vomit, engage in sex talk, Kenny says something, or else they'll show something concerning the toilet bowl. It's also how religions are boiled down, as well - can't we all just get along - Islam and Judaism are basically just the same anyhow, etc. Why can't everyone just live in peace, and misrepresent each other's religion? It's all a joke, anyway. That's the 'serious-side' of South Park. That's the cutting-edge wisdom on current events.
Without that, what might make the show interesting are the trials and tribs of the five or six or more main characters. The infantilism and scatological humor, forced onto a make-believe world of children by aging adults, does make the thing seem creepy. But if you ignore that context, and helped by the fact that these are wide-eyed 'Charlie-Brown' characters, and not the more thuggish and creepy incarnations to be found if they were drawn in more lifelike fashion, as suggested by some artwork at the wikipedia site on this from one of the latest episodes, then there remains Eric Cartman, who might have been better given the name, Stan. He's a wily survivor. He's absurdly bright. He's an 8-year old child, and so self-absorbed. He despises the PC of his Colorado world, but only from the selfish point of view of a brat, essentially. And as the episodes ticked by, Trey and Matt made him so loathsome that any earlier sympathies might have been destroyed. He transforms from indifferent friend into a dangerous enemy. In the early years, Cartman might save the day. He might coin a catch phrase. He might be adorable and pitied, even, as his erstwhile girlfriend says they may only be friends, as little Eric shuffles off screen right. Again, this is helped by the babyish talk, the attempts to be cute with little catch-phrases, and again the round-headed, wide-eyed appearance of his cutout. I think the writers imagine Cartman to be much more along the lines of, Chucky, the doll from the horror films. Cartman's friends/enemies are Stan Marsh and Kyle Brof-something, themselves best friends, who also struggle to survive the adult recklessness in this Colorado, but without quite Cartman's skill (these two never get their own amusement park, or lead the town in a Dixiecrat recreation of the Civil War - but Cartman does, etc). Even more oppressed is little Butters, last name Stotch (as in . . ), who is both friend and object of ridicule, a happy-go-lucky and supremely honest 'dweeb', discovering in his own 'Butters Show' episode that his father is a bath-house frequenting homosexual and his mother's means of coping with that was to attempt to drown little Butters in her car (failing at it, obviously).
And that leads to this odd thread in that Trey and Matt keep trying to come out of the closet, it seems, by premising more than a few episodes upon some homosexual subplot. Either Kyle's Dad masturbates with another father, or the soul of Saddam Hussein is 'doing it' with Satan himself, in hell, there's Butter's Dad, or a 'gay guy' mysteriously appears and disappears, or the freakish puppet-toting teacher, Garrison, has to discover his own homosexuality, all the while the kids deride this and that by calling it, gay. Quite a conflicted group of writers, at the very least.
And the last oddity in this dancing cutout cartoon is named, Kenny. He is supposed to be a poorly adjusted 'redneck', basically, who mumbles epithets that the censors aren't supposed to get. But the gimmick is, or was, that Kenny is killed. He dies in every episode, or at least did in the early years. Then he'd return in the next episode, and be killed once more (typically by being crushed).
In sum, the boys/characters are the show, and are genuinely engaging for a time, inspiring parodies and the like, but then fall off into nothingness, and depravity. People prefer Charlie Brown - not a drunken Chucky, cursing and defecating. The very people who should not view this, young children, can be the very ones to whom it appeals. So the reevaluation, or antithesis, phase for people first seeing this show must be rough. Popular for the first few months. Then suddenly no one wants to talk about it.
The one thing on which they have prided themselves is timeliness. With their cutout animation, now computer driven though it may be, and requiring really just a sequence of lip movements and eye expressions, they have occasionally been able to make some vaguely incoherent comment on current issues, within days, or hours, of the event. But there are no real details. There is at best just outright misrepresentation of events. They end up wanting to say - that's . . stuff. It's just all . . stuff. Stuff it will be. And golly can't we all just get along? Profound. And then they'll vomit, engage in sex talk, Kenny says something, or else they'll show something concerning the toilet bowl. It's also how religions are boiled down, as well - can't we all just get along - Islam and Judaism are basically just the same anyhow, etc. Why can't everyone just live in peace, and misrepresent each other's religion? It's all a joke, anyway. That's the 'serious-side' of South Park. That's the cutting-edge wisdom on current events.
Without that, what might make the show interesting are the trials and tribs of the five or six or more main characters. The infantilism and scatological humor, forced onto a make-believe world of children by aging adults, does make the thing seem creepy. But if you ignore that context, and helped by the fact that these are wide-eyed 'Charlie-Brown' characters, and not the more thuggish and creepy incarnations to be found if they were drawn in more lifelike fashion, as suggested by some artwork at the wikipedia site on this from one of the latest episodes, then there remains Eric Cartman, who might have been better given the name, Stan. He's a wily survivor. He's absurdly bright. He's an 8-year old child, and so self-absorbed. He despises the PC of his Colorado world, but only from the selfish point of view of a brat, essentially. And as the episodes ticked by, Trey and Matt made him so loathsome that any earlier sympathies might have been destroyed. He transforms from indifferent friend into a dangerous enemy. In the early years, Cartman might save the day. He might coin a catch phrase. He might be adorable and pitied, even, as his erstwhile girlfriend says they may only be friends, as little Eric shuffles off screen right. Again, this is helped by the babyish talk, the attempts to be cute with little catch-phrases, and again the round-headed, wide-eyed appearance of his cutout. I think the writers imagine Cartman to be much more along the lines of, Chucky, the doll from the horror films. Cartman's friends/enemies are Stan Marsh and Kyle Brof-something, themselves best friends, who also struggle to survive the adult recklessness in this Colorado, but without quite Cartman's skill (these two never get their own amusement park, or lead the town in a Dixiecrat recreation of the Civil War - but Cartman does, etc). Even more oppressed is little Butters, last name Stotch (as in . . ), who is both friend and object of ridicule, a happy-go-lucky and supremely honest 'dweeb', discovering in his own 'Butters Show' episode that his father is a bath-house frequenting homosexual and his mother's means of coping with that was to attempt to drown little Butters in her car (failing at it, obviously).
And that leads to this odd thread in that Trey and Matt keep trying to come out of the closet, it seems, by premising more than a few episodes upon some homosexual subplot. Either Kyle's Dad masturbates with another father, or the soul of Saddam Hussein is 'doing it' with Satan himself, in hell, there's Butter's Dad, or a 'gay guy' mysteriously appears and disappears, or the freakish puppet-toting teacher, Garrison, has to discover his own homosexuality, all the while the kids deride this and that by calling it, gay. Quite a conflicted group of writers, at the very least.
And the last oddity in this dancing cutout cartoon is named, Kenny. He is supposed to be a poorly adjusted 'redneck', basically, who mumbles epithets that the censors aren't supposed to get. But the gimmick is, or was, that Kenny is killed. He dies in every episode, or at least did in the early years. Then he'd return in the next episode, and be killed once more (typically by being crushed).
In sum, the boys/characters are the show, and are genuinely engaging for a time, inspiring parodies and the like, but then fall off into nothingness, and depravity. People prefer Charlie Brown - not a drunken Chucky, cursing and defecating. The very people who should not view this, young children, can be the very ones to whom it appeals. So the reevaluation, or antithesis, phase for people first seeing this show must be rough. Popular for the first few months. Then suddenly no one wants to talk about it.