This section presents editorial views and aspects of various types of topics.

Trey Parker - A Peek Inside a Mastermind?!

By Dan Scully

Censorship. A word that affects our everyday lives. The higher powers that be believe that they can protect us from sex, violence, and naughty language. Many American's believe in this horrid act. A big loud "lick my balls" goes to them. But as for the rest of us, we don't need to be protected. Fighting for our cause is one man, with a crack team of cronies, who through pushing the limit makes a complete ass out of censors. That man, who sits on a pedestal of fart jokes and four letter words, is Trey Parker.

Upon hearing the name, one immediately thinks of South Park, the hilarious Comedy Central Cartoon which spawned butt-loads of toys and a critically acclaimed (can you believe it?!) feature length film. South Park, clearly Parker's greatest achievement, was preceded, however, by loads of hilarious yet unrecognized pieces of art.

Parker found his calling at an early age in an elementary school talent show in which he played a dentist brutally slaughtering his patients, in a gory and offensive skit.  Immediately, he was faced with suspension, unless he apologized to the whole school and explained to them that the dentist is not a scary person, nor does he routinely slaughter patients. In order to please his parent's a young Trey apologized and maintained his status as a student.

Trey matured (a lightly used term, of course) into a college student. Trey attended a college in Colorado, where he met Matt Stone (co creator, writer, and voice actor for South Park).

During college, Trey Parker created a pseudo-trailer for 'Alferd Packer: The Musical.' Alferd Packer is the only man ever convicted of cannibalism and also doubles as the bogeyman of Colorado (Eat your veggies or Alferd Packer will eat you MWAHAHAHAHA).

This trailer became a favorite among... uh Colorado-ans everywhere, thus inspiring Trey Parker to do a full length feature film. Parker spent most of his time writing and composing for the film, which got him in lot's of trouble at school. Soon enough, Spring Break arrived, and a rigid shooting schedule began.

Fast forward a few months to find the completed film a local hit. Only one problem, no companies wanted to release the film. That is until Lloyd Kaufman's "Troma Team" came along. Troma is known for creating excessively odd and violent cinema and putting them on totally loaded DVD's.

The soon retitled Cannibal! The Musical begins as a convicted Alferd Packer (Trey Parker, credited as Juan Schwartz) begins to tell his story of a doomed group of coal miners looking for gold. The story progresses as a forbidden love develops. Hilarious songs, situations, and violence ensues as the reels roll.*

After the sleeper hit made it's run around America, Trey and Matt made an animated Christmas card featuring the future characters of South Park. This video began to circulate through Hollywood grabbing the attention of many many respectable companies. More on that in a few paragraphs.

While the Spirit of Christmas video circulated, Trey wrote a script for an action comedy, Orgazmo. Parker gathered friends and called in favors to film the hilarious Kung Fu movie parody. The hilarious film made fun of karate fighting, the porn industry (using male asses to cover up what could've been some great gratuitous female nudity), and, yes, pop tarts. Of course, our friends at the MPAA did not take kindly to the use of 'cock rockets' and 'orgazmorators' and granted it an NC-17 rating (an unrated version is available.) The film however, did merit a cult following for Parker, paving the way for larger projects. Plus, listen to the theme song from the movie played by DVDA (This term is explained in full detail in the flick), Trey's band.

By now, many offers were being made for a TV show based on the aforementioned Christmas animation. In the end, Comedy Central picked up the show, creating a solid series with a huge following.

After South Park became an influential force of entertainment, Trey went to star in BASEketball a hilarious goofball comedy in the style of Hot Shots and Airplane (ya! I read the box! But still it was awesome!) Even though Trey had minimal input into the script, he managed to project his acting skills, ignored from the overlooked Orgazmo, to a large audience.

Eventually a South Park movie was made, but this was your average TV spin-off movie.  This was South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, a solid, hilarious, critically acclaimed, offensive, gory, perverted, action-comedy-musical, musical, that somehow eluded an NC-17 rating. The soundtrack for this movie was also critically acclaimed featuring songs from the movie, and artists interpretations of each song as well, one of these being performed also by DVDA, and another being nominated for a Grammy.

From here, many fans of South Park were found, and many older fans had their fan hood rejuvenated. This however was not enough for Trey Parker.

A mere 2 years after the films release, Trey promised that he was going to delve into the world of sitcoms with 'Family First,' a sitcom based on the life of whoever would win the presidential election of 2000.

Well as luck would have it, the election was fucked up beyond repair (if I have to explain this to you, you probably have been living on a hole in the ground of a cave on a moon circling around Jupiter, and I should hurt you for being so naive!), thus delaying the release of Family First. Eventually, George W. Bush won the election (fair and square might I add!), morphing the title from Family First to That's my Bush! The show opened to rave reviews from critics, and mediocre reviews from fans (C'mon people the show is so friggin' genius! Give it a shot. It's amazing!) The show is a perfect parody of the American Sitcom, straight down to the canned laughter.

From bashing the MPAA, common values, and Phil Collins, to wearing an evening gown to the Grammy's and saying 'shit' 162 times in just one episode of South Park, Trey Parker is truly a hero in the fight against authority and censorship.

For more info check out this bio page i found Trey Parker and Matt Stone Fan Page - Bios Trey Parker, you are the wind beneath our wings.

Oh yeah, and despite what many people think, neither Trey Parker nor Matt Stone are gay. And for the record I'm not either, even though my dad thinks I am.

END

*= Excerpt from My review of Cannibal! The Musical in the DVD reviews section. Shut up, I'm lazy.

[Top] | [Features]