South Park season 10

IGN Exclusive Interview: South Park's Matt Stone

The South Park creator speaks about season 10, DVD's, future movie projects and World of Warcraft.



October 3, 2006 - In the past year, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker proved they were still a force to be reckoned with, as the long running show found itself at the center of controversy once again, in several different scenarios. From Tom Cruise and Scientology to mixing Family Guy and Mohammed, South Park got a lot of press all of the sudden.
This fall sees the return of new episodes of South Park, along with the release of a retrospective DVD, on which Stone and Parker have picked their favorite episodes. In addition, it was recently announced that Stone would produce and Parker would direct two new feature films for Paramount; the rubber monster movie Giant Monster Attack Japan! and a teen comedy called My All-American. As season 10 prepares to have its fall launch, I spoke with Matt Stone for an exclusive chat with IGN to discuss South Park and all that it has resulted in.

IGN TV: On the new DVD you are including the original short with the characters, "The Spirit of Christmas." What is it like looking back on that now?

Stone: Well it looks so crappy, it looks so junky, that you are almost like "Wow what was the big deal about that?" More than anything, I think, "Wow, that junky little thing, that started all this?"

IGN TV: What were your thoughts when you made that? Did you know that you wanted to put those characters into a series?

Stone: Oh no, we had no idea. When we made that it was to make a friend a Christmas card, and maybe we could make a couple of dollars out of it maybe. But really that was it, just a five minute little thing and we didn't think anything about it, we didn't put our names on it. Only after it started becoming a hit, so to speak, we started talking about maybe we could make a TV show out of that, but it wasn't before.

IGN TV: Is it strange for you then to think, looking at that short, that the characters are so iconic now; that there are toys of them all?

Stone: Yeah, totally yeah, the whole thing is a huge trip. It is kind of like we were doing "The Spirit of Christmas" and now I am sitting here talking to you, and I really don't know what happened. It is like a big acid trip between the two [events].

IGN TV: After it took off in its first year, there certainly was a lot of attention on the show, but did you imagine it would have such a long life?

Stone: No, you have to be insane to think that you could have a TV show that could last ten years, because it is so rare. There was huge victory in just getting a pilot deal; just that idea, "Oh my god, we are making [episodes] for a real TV station, and if we do a good enough job we'll go on TV," and then to get picked up for six episodes, that was ultimate victory, like we're going to do something that is actually going to go on TV. And I think most people who work at Comedy Central or Cartoon Network would agree that's the ultimate victory. It is like football with coaches, like, "We're only going to think about the next game." It is really true, all you think is, "Okay, we have to make a good next episode." You don't think, "Okay, in ten years what should we be doing?", because you'll never get there if you think about that. All you've got to do is think about the next one.

IGN TV: Before last year the show had still been a hit, but it had been relatively quiet in the media for South Park for awhile, and then last year there were so many different controversies and a lot of attention paid to the show again. Were you guys surprised to find yourself in the center of all that?

Stone: Yeah we were totally surprised, we didn't expect that at all.

(see the rest of the interview in http://tv.ign.com/articles/736/736965p1.html)