The first season of the animated television series South Park lasted 13 episodes from August 13, 1997 to February 25, 1998 on the American Comedy Central network. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrote most of the episodes this season; And Sterling, Philip Stark and David Goodman are credited with writing five episodes. The narrative revolves around four children - Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick - and their unusual experiences in the mountain town of titular.
South Park comes from the 1992 animated Parker and Stone, Jesus vs. Frosty . The low-budget film, roughly featured prototypes of South Park's main character and followed in 1995 by another short film, Jesus vs. Santa . The latter became popular and widely shared via the Internet, leading to talks to the series with representatives of Fox Network and Comedy Central. It debuted with the latter by running six initial episodes; because of its success, an additional seven episodes were quickly produced. The full season was released on DVD in November 2002.
The first season was a ranking success for Comedy Central. Nielsen ratings rose from 1.3 to 6.4 from the first to tenth episodes. Several episodes received award nominations, including for the 1998 Emmy Award in "Extraordinary Animation Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)" and GLAAD Awards in the "Extraordinary TV - Individual Episode" category for the episode of Big Gay Al's Big Gay Riding the boat ". During the season, South Park won the CableACE award for "Best Animated Series" and was nominated for Annie's 1998 Award in "Extraordinary Achievement in Animated Primetime or End-of-Night Television".
The event was a financial success of Comedy Central and helped the network transform into "the power of the cable industry almost overnight". Nonetheless, critics give seasonally diverse reviews. The parents of the Television Council rate it so offensive that "it should not be done": "it does not just push the envelope; it knocks it off the table", while other critics think of it as "coming very close" to becoming a "perfect" television series.
Video South Park (season 1)
Episode
Maps South Park (season 1)
Development
The idea for South Park originated in 1992 when creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone met in film classes as students at the University of Colorado. They discussed a three minute short film making involving a boy who befriended a piece of shit that spoke of Mr. Hankey. Although such shorts were never made, Parker and Stone created a short Christmas-related animation commonly known as "Jesus vs. Frosty". Grainy animations, low budgets featuring prototypes for main South Park characters, including Cartman, Stan, and Kyle. Fox Broadcasting Company executive Brian Graden watched the film and in 1995 commissioned Parker and Stone for $ 1,200 to make the second short film he could send to his friends as a Christmas video card. Titled The Spirit of Christmas , but also known as "Jesus vs. Santa", in short is similar to the style of the next series that is closer. In 1997,
The video "Jesus vs. Santa" is widely copied and shared via the Internet. George Clooney is reported to have made 300 copies for his friends, and the short film was considered the first viral video. When the shorts began to arouse interest for a possible television series, Parker and Stone concocted the idea of ​​a South Park-like show with four child characters but planned to call it "The Mr.". Hankey Show featuring a bench named Mr. Hankey as the main protagonist. They propose that idea, but Brian Graden rejects it and says, according to Stone, "I do not put dirt in my network." Parker and Stone adapted their original idea to a show that revolved around four children in South Park town, dropping Mr. Hankey as the protagonist but plans to use future characters in small supporting roles.
Later, Doug Herzog of Comedy Central saw Jesus vs. Santa short and regarded it as "really the funniest thing he has ever seen," and asked Parker and Stone to develop a show for his network. During the negotiations, Parker and Stone put forward the idea of ​​the episode. Hankey, with Parker claiming to have asked "one thing we should know before we really go any further: how do you feel about talking about poo?" The network's executives accepted the idea, which would be one of the main reasons Parker and Stone decided to join the channel. The first episode of the series, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", debuted at Comedy Central on August 13, 1997, while Mr. Hankey made his debut a few months later in the ninth episode, "Mr. Hankey, Christmas Poo".
Pilot episodes received poor results from the test audience. Parker later admitted that regarding the language, he and Stone felt the pressure to turn on their two previous shorts and "try to push something... maybe farther than it should be." Instead, they allow the next episode to "become more natural", focusing more on making fun of taboo topics "without just wasting a lot of dirty words there." After the bad results from trial audiences, Comedy Central executives are not sure if they want to order additional episodes after "Cartman Gets Anal Probe". However, when the breakthrough began to appear on the Internet about two original shorts, the network assigned Parker and Stone to write one more episode without doing the full series until they saw the script. While working on the 1997 film Orgazmo, Parker and Stone wrote the script for what would later become the episode "Weight 4000". This duo is trying to give Comedy Central executives the idea of ​​how the circuit is and how each episode can be different from the others. The network liked the script, and when Parker and Stone refused to write another script before signing at least six episodes, the executives agreed to commit to the series.
Comedy Central initially only booked six of these episodes, but when the show proved successful, they asked for an additional seven, which had to be made by Parker and Stone quickly. "Pinkeye", the first of these new episodes, will air on October 29, 1997, just two and a half months after the premiere. There were three episodes of the holiday - "Pinkeye", "Starvin 'Marvin" and "Mr. Hankey, Christmas Poo" - which aired at three-week intervals, while the remaining four aired in February 1998.
"Cartman Gets Anal Probe" is the only animated episode almost entirely with traditional cutting paper, stop-motion animation technique. All subsequent episodes will be fully computer animated using Power Animator or Maya. In the eighth episode, "Damien", many of the drawing and animation responsibilities are handled by Parker and Stone who are now delegated to the animator team. This will be the only episode apart from "Cartman Gets Anal Probe" to receive TV-14 (not suitable for children under the age of 14) ratings instead of regular TV-MA shows (not suitable for under age 17). Parker and Stone praised the fourth episode, "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", helping to boost ratings during the early part of the season. They felt that the first special Christmas special event, "Mr. Hankey, Poo Natal", took South Park to a new level of popularity, and Parker said the episode "just skipped everything."
Reception
Ratings
South Park first season is a successful ranking for Comedy Central. "Cartman Gets Anal Probes" earned a Nielsen 1.3 rating, translated to 980,000 viewers, which was considered high for the cable program in the United States at the time. This increased slightly by the third episode, "Volcano", and in the sixth episode, "Death", the show has reached rank 1.7. The ratings continue to increase rapidly since then, to 3.8 ("Pinkeye"), 4.8 ("Starvin 'Marvin'"), 5.4 ("Mr. Hankey, Poo Natal"), 6.4 (" Damien "), and 6.9 (" Mecha-Streisand ") respectively. This corresponds to an increase to 5.4 million viewers in 3.2 million households. The end of the season, "Cartman Mom is a Dirty Whore", received Nielsen's rating in the 8.0 range and gained over 300,000 audiences when first aired in Canada in August 1998.
South Park became one of the first TV series to be booted over the internet, just like the previous The Spirit of Christmas . College students digitize many episodes of the first season and stream them online for friends who can not receive Comedy Central.
Criticism
Despite high ratings, reviews from television critics for the season are mixed. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times have three articles that mention the show, usually in terms of "class-based sense arguments." "Cartman Gets Anal Probe", the first episode of the series, received generally negative reviews after airing. Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Parents Television Council, gave an unfavorable review of the episode, stating that the event was "very offensive that it should not have been made, not just pushing the envelope, it hit." from the table. Bruce Fretts of Entertainment Weekly thinks badly of writing and character, railing that "if only a joke of fresh children like their mouths" and that "it might help if South Park's children have a personality, but they are as one dimensional as the cut-and-paste animation event. "Calling the series" sophomoric, gross, and unfunny, "Hal Boedeker from Orlando Sentinel predicted that the episode made" a bad impression so it was difficult to get at a strange wavelength. "Tom Shales from The Washington Post considers that "most of the premonition's premonition of humor is self-awareness and self-congratulation in its dishonesty: flatulence jokes, repeated use of the word dildo (in literal as well as condescending), and general air of dangerous discomfort. "
When "Weight Gain 4000" aired, many writers in the mainstream media still debated the longevity and overall quality of South Park. With the series still in its early stages, the episodes continue to surprise a lot because characters often use dirty words. Nevertheless, some reviewers feel "Weight 4000" is a significant improvement over "Cartman Gets Anal Probe" and feels that it's going in a more satirical direction. Some media described the fifth episode of the season, "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig", as one of the most popular early episodes. Tom Carson of Newsday said it was the most embarrassing episode of South Park until "Mr. Hankey, Poo Natal" aired three months later. Many reviewers also say that this title shows the rudeness and originality of South Park .
Because of the impact, South Park made the cover of Rolling Stone in February 1998, and Newsweek in March 1998. It has been discussed in five articles < i> New York Times in 1998. Franck Rich of the New York Times mentions the ability of the event to engage political topics with far more success than any other (more vividly political) event "and considers that the show" openly containing faith, family, and death too "and" incorrectly or politically incorrectly; it's on a completely different post-ideological comic map. In 2002, Jeremy Conrad of IGN wrote in a DVD review that it rarely happens when the "perfect" television season, but "South Park's first season comes very close" and that "almost every single episode in the set these three-discs are classic and each is still so cute even after so many spectacles over the years. "
In 2008, scholar Stephen Groening argued that the show appeared as part of a reaction to the cultural wars of the 1980s and 1990s in the United States, where issues such as Murphy Brown's mother, Tinky Winky's sexuality, and The Simpsons 'family values ​​are widely debated. Cultural warfare, and political truth in particular, are driven by the belief that relativism becomes more relevant to everyday life. Groening explains that South Park "makes a name for itself as rude, abusive, vulgar, offensive, and potentially dangerous". Critics argue that Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny are bad examples for children while their supporters celebrate freedom of speech.
Impact on Comedy Central
In 2006, Devin Leonard of Fortune assumed that the launch of South Park changed Comedy Central from a "not-so-funny" network to "the power of the cable industry almost overnight." the show finally surprised everyone involved. At that time, the cable network had a low distribution of only 21 million subscribers. Comedy Central marketed the show aggressively before its launch, charging it as "that's why they created V-chips." The resulting buzz caused the network to earn about $ 30 million in sales of its own T-shirt before the first episode even aired.
South Park soon became one of the most popular shows on cable television, averaging consistently between 3.5 and 5.5 million viewers. Tele-Communications Inc. based in Denver, the largest US cable operator at the time, had just lowered Comedy Central, but when South Park debuted, the Denver paper and radio stations criticized operators for not bringing hit shows from two makers local film - Parker and Stone. Doug Herzog, president of Comedy Central at the time, said the public "went crazy" because the network received about ten million new subscriptions through Tele-Communications Inc. alone, "which at that time was unheard of."
As an affiliate of the MTV Network until then, Comedy Central decided, partly because of the success of South Park , having its own independent sales department. By the end of 1998, Comedy Central had sold more than $ 150 million of merchandise for the show, including T-shirts and dolls. Over the next few years, Comedy Central's audience soared mainly because of South Park , adding 3 million new subscribers in the first half of 1998 alone and allowing networks to sign international agreements with networks in several countries.
Awards
Some episodes of the first season received nominations for several entertainment awards. The fourth episode of the season "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1998 in the category "Extraordinary Style Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)" but lost to The Simpsons Titans ". The same episode was also nominated for the GLAAD Award in the "Extraordinary TV - Individual Episode" category but lost to the other episode of The Simpsons, Homer's Phobia. "Volcano", the third episode of the season, was nominated for an Environmental Media Award in the category of "Episodic TV Comedy" but eventually lost to another episode of The Simpsons, "The Old Man & the Lisa".
During the first season series, South Park won the CableACE Award for "Best Animated Program or Series" and was nominated for Annie Award in the "Extraordinary Achievement category in the Prime Lite Night Television Program". In 1998, two show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker won the "Nova Award" awarded by Producers Guild of America for the most promising producer on television.
Media release
Six episodes - "Cartman Gets Anal Probe", "Volcano", "Weight Loss 4000", "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", "Elephants Make Love for Pigs" and "Death" - released in three VHS set at 5 May 1998 marks the first time South Park was made available on video. The first DVD release came later that year, when the first thirteen episodes were released by Warner Home Video on October 27th at the compilation compilation of South Park, Volume 1 , Volume 2 and Volume 3 . The last episode of the season "Cartman Mom Is a Dirty Slut" was released at South Park, Volume 4 on December 14, 1999.
South Park - The Complete First Season was originally released by Warner Home Video as a US 3-disc 1 DVD box on 12 November 2002 and received an MA rating. This season was re-released on June 29, 2005 by Paramount Home Entertainment. The DVD release featured bonus material such as introductions for each episode, two Christmas songs by Eric Cartman and Ned, a short clip featuring Jay Leno and another clip where four boys were present at the 1997 CableACE Awards. Trey Parker and Matt Stone generate comments for each episode but have them drawn altogether when they find the comment to be edited. Instead, the comments were released unedited by Comedy Central on a set of five CDs. In October 2005, South Park: Complete Series 1 was released in Australia and with a rating of 15 in region 2. "Mr. Hankey, Poo Natal" was released again on November 13, 2005 on a DVD compilation Time Christmas at South Park .
Distribution licenses for the first six episodes of season South Park ("Volcano", "Elephant Make Love on Pig", "Pinkeye", "Damien", "Starvin 'Marvin" and "Mecha-Streisand") purchased in 2000 by a Pittsburgh-based company, and the SightSound.com website. This site makes available episodes for download for $ 2.50 for a two-day copy and for $ 4.95 for a permanent copy. This was one of the first experiments with a downloadable video video, making South Park one of the first legally available shows on the Internet. In March 2008, Comedy Central made the first season episode and almost all other episodes of South Park were available for legal streaming on the South Park Studios website from within the US, and later from Canada and the UK..
References
External links
- South Park Studios - official website with complete streaming video episodes.
- The Comedy Network - complete episode for Canada
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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