A very interesting interview with Matt and Trey

So they dislike Family Guy because of the way they approach the creation of each South Park episode? Well, if making an episode from scratch less than a week before it airs is some big problem for Trey and Matt why don't they just, I don't know, approach it a different way? Not like they don't spend over 8 months of the year doing nothing when South Park isn't airing.

As much as I enjoy South Park (though I admit I'm getting burnt out on it, the occasional standout episode notwithstanding) I do have to roll my eyes at just about everything Trey Parker and Matt Stone have to say. If I could write an episode that's 22 minutes of Oprah's crotch - and get paid for it - I wouldn't be complaining about anything Family Guy does.
 
Here's one advantage South Park has over Family Guy:

If Trey and I like it, it stays in the show, and if we don?t, it?s not in the show. We never go, like, ?Well, I don?t really like this joke but 13-year-olds will.? We never leave jokes in there like that.

Meanwhile, Family Guy today gluts itself with homosexual toddlers and creepy pedophiles because that's what the majority of its audience wants. :shrug:
 
Matt and Trey come off as wannabes right now to me. They try so hard to be anti-Hollywood and punk, but they live that Hollywood lifestyle, it's hard to take them seriously.

But about the shows themselves, they've pretty much got the same brand of humor. They can both get pretty preachy when they want to, and they both use the same beat the dead baby/rape the dog/dark and just plain sick humor. I don't care if your writing the episode on the day it airs or 6 months from then, you pretty much get the same jokes. The only difference is that Family Guy relies on it more, while South Park doesn't need too.
 
Yeah...but...that doesn't really make sense.

If the Family Guy staff didn't like Stewie or Herbert they wouldn't use them as much as they do. And believe it or not the majority of Family Guy fans actually do find these characters to be very funny, although I will agree that they overuse Herbert from time to time. The FG staff just doesn't use these characters because they think that's what the audience wants. I'm positive characters are very popular among the staff of the show as well, which explains why they're used so much as opposed to, say, Meg, where it's obvious the writers don't like her and have no idea how to use her. So they either don't use her or they abuse her.

And Matt and Trey have been insanely guilty in the past of filling episodes with lots of garbage and nonsense. There are several episodes a season that are full of that sort of stuff because Parker and Stone will get down to the wire and have no clue where to go with an episode, or will just put anything into a show to finish the half season quotas. That's where you get stuff like "Di-Yikes!" which does nothing but copy a recently released movie. Or the previousy mentioned "A Million Little Fibers", which test the audience's patience with voice-overs over a static shot of Oprah's crotch. If Family Guy did something that asinine I'm sure the haters would be on the 'net within seconds complaining about how the show hasn't been good since season 3.

I don't get Trey and Matt. They have the kind of power and luxury with their show that most people dream of. They work on it - tops - four months out of the year. They have complete creative control over everything that goes into the show. They do practically all the voices. The show is in no danger of going anywhere and they both were sell outs from the moment the show got popular. And it's been going on like this for over a decade. South Park is the sort of show that can get away with anything it wants since whatever they do is labeled shocking or smart. And it's obvious Trey and Matt love the position they're in and just eat up the Hollywood life, regardless of how much they seem to complain about it. They're not above Seth McFarland or Family Guy, no matter much they'd like to me.

But Trey and Matt don't seem happy unless they're complaining about someone else's success. Yet when given the opportunity to do something besides/concurrent with South Park they cry and whine to the heavens that it's just too hard for them and that they'll never do it again. It gets old after a while.
 
I remember the reaction to that episode after it aired. People at my high school loved it and were mimicking scenes from the episode. I don't know how the internet reacted though.

I don't get why Matt and Trey make episodes a week before they air. I know they said in an interview that when they tried to make episodes during the summer, they felt that they made the worst episodes ever. Still, it couldn't have been that bad. You would think it would be easier on them to make episodes months ahead of schedule instead of being rushed to do them.

Although most of the episodes have made me laugh, so they must be doing something right.
 
Bless you DarthGonzo.

Everything you said about Trey and Matt is right on the money and perfectly shows why I can't really respect them anymore. Plus, they have this air of smug arrogance (you know, like what they accused liberals of having that one episode?) that they're better than you and everybody and everything you like but they don't.

The way they handled Issac Hayes leaving the show was so immature and unneccessary. I mean, you didn't see every female character on South Park shoot themselves in the head after Mary Kay Bergman killed herself, did you? Of course not. It would have been in bad taste for them to do so. They were equally upset about Issac Hayes leaving the show as well, but the death of Chef was done out of spite and immaturity as well as the need to create controversy.

The thing Trey and Matt hate about Seth McFarlane is because he is doing everything they did, working harder they they are, and getting more praise for it, not to mention he has a lot of animators supporting him. Trey and Matt come off as a bunch of whiny, immature brats mad that someone's actually doing better than they are.
 
LOL, Matt and Trey bashing is hilarious.

The way I see it. Doing the episodes right before they are set to air, that made the show fresher and topical. Since they can finish episodes in just days they can actually comment on things that were actually going on. Saddam Hussein popped up with his beard just days after his capture. There was imagery mimicking the Elian Gonzales home siege right after it happened. Family Guy is NEVER that quick or up to date or that biting and witty with their political satire and commentary.

Isaac Hayes situation was what exactly what should've happened in that episode. Trey Parker and Matt Stone were reflecting how upset they were about it, that Hayes had to leave because the Scientologists got (huffy) about it. The episode was not only hilarious and relevant but it was also heartbreaking. Also the death of Chef, its South Park, that's EXACTLY how it should've happened. There's a different between Mary Kay Bergman committing suicide, which I don't know any details on, then Isaac Hayes being forced off the show he's been a regular cast member of for the better part of a decade because of a "fruity, little club."

Unlike the Simpsons in a similar amount of time, South Park has managed to remain funny, fresh, and relevant.

South Park as seasons went on really got better as a show. Family Guy already feels like its waning. I've never really seen Family Guy really able to accomplish a character arc like South Park has for Mr. Garrison over the course of their show. Or really a character evolve the way Randy Marsh has. Randy Marsh's evolution has been one of the more recent gems of the series.
 
They said that? I don't see why, I mean this is summer right now. And up until the 7th season many episodes aired around this time or at least June or July and a lot of those have been great. Ever since the 7th season we have to wait like 6 months between the runs. Maybe doing episodes all year round probably burns them out.
 
Mary Kay killed herself. Isaac Hayes (allegedly) shot a temper tantrum and left the show. BIG difference there. I find it hard to believe they were 'equally upset' about a friend of theirs killing herself to a friend of theirs quitting a show because he got upset at a jab. Hell, they even had a tribute to her in the Christmas episode that year and even held off on recasting out of respect. Chef was already barely being used, there would have been no need to recast. It's unfortunate he was killed off, but that's direction they chose.

The hell? Maybe they just don't like Family Guy? Why is that so hard for people to imagine? I know plenty of people who have hated Family Guy years before Cartoon Wars ever came out for the exact reasons stated in it. I don't really know how you would say Seth is doing better than them considering South Park is still one of the best rated shows on TV after 10 years and they have friends all over the industry.
 
He's absolutely right about that; it's the same thing I've noticed every time a show is supposed to be "The New South Park." Most recently, Drawn Together.


Hold on, what makes you think Seth is working harder than they are? He voices a lot of characters but doesn't write most of the episodes, whereas Matt & Trey do most of the voices AND writing. I'm not saying that makes them better, but you can't say they're not working hard.


Who isn't?
 
Actually, one of the things I respect about Matt and Trey is their willingness to heap scorn upon both the left and right of America's political spectrum. Not that I necessarily agree with everything they say, but that's a rare thing in Hollywood.
 
Y'know I recently did a post bashing Family Guy for being soulless and a terrible show. But South Park is even more so. The fact that they think they are SO much better than Family Guy is kind of obnoxious. Because they aren't.
And that would be okay if they weren't so dead set on telling the audience week after week how much liberals suck. They used to be bi-partisan in their political bashing but in the past couple of years they use strawman arguments and right-wing talking points to say how horrible people like me are every single week even in shows that don't deal with politics otherwise. That's fine if they don't want me to watch and enjoy the show but it's kind of tiresome that after week after week of this when someone points out that they're full of crap they say we need to get a sense of humor.
 
The main thing that bothers me is their attitude towards Bush, that his opponents would have been just as wretched as he turned out to be if they were elected. Since the two of them are, I assume, rich, I doubt they're feeling the terrible economy that the average American has to endure.
 
Their attitude isn't that they necessarily like Bush though, so I'm not sure what your problem is. They basically compared him to a you know what and a you know what.

And quite obviously, look what happened. The majority of Americans did not take the viewpoint that Bush was worse than the other choices.

I've yet to see anything wrong with the political arguments made in the show.
 
And they were wrong.



Some are okay but others I find ignorant.

I don't care for Democrats either but not for the reasons Matt and Trey seem to. It's because, ever since they got into power, they've done squat to hold Bush accountable for his obviously impeachable crimes.
 
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