South Park
Cartman Gets An Anal Probe: orginally transmitted August 13, 1997
Written by: Matt Stone and Tray Parker
History
Trey Parker and Matt Stone met in a film class and created an animated short called Jesus vs. Frosty. The low-budget crudely made film featured prototypes of the main characters of South Park, these four bring a murderous snowman to life with a magic hat.
In 1995, FOX executive Brian Graden saw the film, and commissioned Parker and Stone to create a second short film that he could send to his friends as a video Christmas card. Titled Jesus vs. Santa, it resembled the style of the later series more closely. The video was popular and was widely shared, both by duplication and over the Internet. This led to talks to create a series, first with FOX, then with Comedy Central. The pilot episode required three months to produce using construction paper and traditional cut-out animation techniques.
Story
We open with Cartman, Stan , Kyle and Kenny waiting for the bus to school, Kyle’s baby brother Ike has followed them and after some random violence where Ike is kicked into a mail box the story continues.
Cartman yawns and tells the gang about his dream where aliens come into his room, drag him on to their ship and want to operate on him. The other guys tell him it really was aliens “they abduct people and mutilate cows”. Cartman insists it is just a dream and not real.
Chef pulls up and asks the kids if they saw the alien spaceship, the guys all tell him how Cartman has and that he was taken on board the ship. Chef goes on to ask if he had an anal prob. The kids all torment Cartman, making fun of the way he was walking.
On the school bus Kyle worries that his baby brother is still hanging around and not going home, but before he can do anything about Ike is picked up two aliens.
*Although not massively fleshed out we have met our 4 main characters and the story has been set with the stakes laid out.
Meanwhile Officer Barbrady is investing cattle mutilation, but declares that it is nothing out of the ordinary as “cattle turn themselves inside out all the time”. Aliens try to tempt the cows, but end up spooking them, Barbrady promises to get the cows back.
*A sub plot in introduced that ties in with the main story.
At school Mr Garrison with the aid of hand puppet Mr Hat teaches the children about Christopher Columbus. Kyle continues to worry about his baby brother, he tries to get out of class, but is not allowed. Cartman then lets of a fart so powerful that flames come out his arse.
At lunch Cartman continues to fart flames while Stan eyes up Wendy she gives him a note, but all he can do in response is vomit.
When they tell Chef about Kyle’s brother being taken by aliens, Chef tells them they need to get out of school and find him. Cartman farts again, but this time a one eyed alien robot comes out his arse and starts looking around. While Cartman still denies the probing Chef pulls the fire alarm and allows the kids to escape.
The alien space ship arrives and shoots a laser at the kids hitting Kenny allowing for the recurring joke of the series “they killed Kenny” , “you bastards”. The spaceship flies off and Cartman still refuses the existence of the aliens and his anal probe. While the rats feed on Kenny’s corpse, Cartman returns home while Stan and Kyle go to meet Wendy. After explaining about his brother being taken by aliens Wendy suggests that they should use Cartman as bate to tempt the aliens.
Back home Cartman is relaxing in front of the TV with a pie and the gang show up, take him outsideand tie him to a tree. Cartman still refuses to believe anything has gone in his ass a fact he still maintains after farting out an 80 foot satellite dish.
The aliens land, Kyle asks the aliens nicely in heartfelt cheesy speech to return his brother, but when they ignore him he dives into a tirade of swears.
The cows that Officer Barbrady has been chasing all over town turn up and the aliens start to communicate telling them that they are the smartest creatures on the planet. When the cows ask about the mutilation, the aliens confess that it was the fault of a new guy who apologises.
Ike escapes from the spaceship and Stan is finally able to talk to Wendy without throwing up which leaves us on a happy ending… except Kenny is dead.
Retooling
The pilot was made by Matt and Trey with construction paper, when the show went to series the similar look was created by computer. This form of animation has sped up the animation process so instead of a show taking 6-12 months to complete they can now turn out a show in days so they can respond to current news stories.
The writing gets much tighter following the pilot and it is not quite so reliant on gross out humour although it is still a factor. As the show matured it moved away from the gross out humour and into satire, it is this spin that has gave the show a big second wind that will keep it on the air at least until 2011.
This review was based on the broadcast pilot which was edited down. The original pilot revealed that Cartman had many brothers and sisters, this was dropped in the final show and instead he was an only child.
Conclusion
The South Park pilot is interesting because it doesn’t feel like pilot. We are thrown right into the world and given a story to follow. Unlike other shows that will introduce a new character to the scene and use him to get out all the exposition of who everyone is and how things work. It is really only the quality of the animation that makes this episode stand out as a pilot. Although future episodes would have a much larger scope, this episode focuses very much on the kids, in the future we will meet and get to know all their parents, but it is only Cartman’s mother who we actually meet.
A growing trend among shows is to have a continuing storyline that makes it hard to broadcast out of order, but South Park always work as stand alone episodes which is something broadcasters love.
All pilots should be able to stand up in their won right, South Park goes further allowing it to be broadcast at any time.
