Matt Stone and Trey Parker are walking a tightrope. The moral majority dislikes their show South Park for its profanity and perceived immorality. Yet those who actually watch South Park know its morals - the highly offensive Eric Cartman notwithstanding - are quite sound. What's more, the pair's sustained success means the safety net of independent film-making and life on the subversive fringe is wearing thin. They are being forced increasingly into the mainstream.

Their deepest, darkest fear? Turning into "everything we used to hate", Parker says with a laugh. "That's what the Academy Awards was about." (Stone and Parker famously turned up to last year's Academy Awards in dresses: Stone, the cotton pink Ralph Lauren gown Gwyneth Paltrow wore the year before; Parker, the green Versace number worn by Jennifer Lopez at that year's Grammys.)

"We were nominated, but how could we go to this thing which stands for everything we're against?" continues Parker. "How could we turn up there in tuxedos? We would have officially become everything we used to hate. We had to go, we were nominated, so we thought let's go in dresses, because then you're going but you're also saying, 'F--- you and f--- this whole thing'."

Stone is more philosophical about their progression over the years. "It's evolution," he says. "We all get older and there is nothing sadder than a 45-year-old punk rocker still trying to punk out.

"We're much more black of heart," he adds, laughing. "We were 22 when we started, and now we're 30, and if anyone hadn't changed since then it would be a little weird ... We're getting older and some day we're both going to have wives and kids and, you know, we're not going to be as rough-edged."

South Park, as fans will know, is the story of life in a small Colorado town as seen through the eyes of four fourth-graders at the local elementary school: arch-troublemaker Eric, dependable Stan (who throws up every time Wendy Testeburger speaks to him), pampered Jewish kid Kyle (whose mother is the subject of one of the show's most famous songs, Kyle's Mom's a Bitch) and poor white-trash Kenny, who dies in almost every episode.

As South Park grows up - the fifth season begins this week on SBS - middle-age spread looms large on the horizon. The Simpsons passed that mark long ago, but it has recycled its writing staff every few years to keep the show consistent, if not always fresh.

Parker and Stone write and voice all the South Park episodes themselves, which has forged an unusually close relationship between the show and its creators.

"For some reason, South Park has always been compared more to a band than to other animated shows," Parker says. "And you can see our minds and our opinions changing from the show - you can see the show evolve and change as two guys get older - and that's really cool. When we watch the shows now from when we were 27, we're just like, 'Whoa, that's what we thought was funny?' Even politically, you go, 'We thought of that?'"

South Park has plenty of detractors, offended by its profanity and provocative subject matter. At the same time, it manages to get away with a lot, due to the undeniable appeal of the central characters. "All of our rudeness is tempered with, 'Aw, aren't those cute little kids,' and their naivete," explains Parker. "Eric Cartman can get away with saying things that an adult couldn't because he's this little fat kid."

Parker and Stone are at pains to point out that their show is not amoral. South Park's morality, they say, is about taking issue with those who take issue.

"When all is said and done, Matt and I are fairly good people," says Parker. "We're trying to point out how stupid a lot of things are, and how stupid a lot of arguments are, and how stupid it is when people take sides on issues.

"By making a little construction-paper cartoon about their huge issues, we're kind of laughing at both sides. Often we don't take a side, because the bottom line is, let's just have a good time."

The show has a "moral consistency", says Stone: "If you f--- somebody over you usually lose out, so when people say the show has no moral ground, I always think that is kind of odd because if you watch it, it does."

Parker will go so far as to defend Eric Cartman, who masterminded, among other things, the infamous tooth fairy racket. Parker points out that even Eric "has his little moments where he can't help but help somebody. In a way he's our little Archie Bunker, where you know that even he doesn't believe half the shit he is saying".

That said, Parker and Stone promise Cartman's profanity will reach new lows in the fifth series, prompting this exchange:

Parker: "He is such a little shithead, but now he's a full-fledged shithead."

Stone: "He turns from selfish and shitty to just plain evil."

Parker: "He's getting worse as he gets older."

Stone: "You're seeing the birth of a new Hitler."

In fact, the real loser in South Park is not morality, it is celebrity, and America's obsession with it.

"We are deconstructing the way that Americans hold their celebrities as royalty," says Parker. "And how so many celebrities even perpetuate that. People like Barbra Streisand will go speak at Harvard about political issues. Shut the f--- up, what the f--- do you know - but because I've been in movies and I sing, I therefore know more about this than you.

"It isn't making fun of certain celebrities, it is making fun of the whole idea of celebrity. If someone makes money being an actor, that's good for them, but they're a big f---ing douche," Parker continues. "You're doing a job that half the people in the world can do, and if someone says, 'I just want to be an actor, it's my dream', you know what, it's everyone's dream to do nothing for money and be rich and famous for two days' work a month. When we got to Hollywood that's what pissed us off, and that's where all of that comes from."

"We wanted to make money for nothing," quips Stone.

Parker and Stone met while studying film at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where they collaborated on their first comedy short, Jesus vs Frosty, a stop-frame animation using coloured construction paper.

The short was the creative genesis of their construction paper "technique", and was used again on a video Christmas card commissioned by FoxLab executive Brian Graden. Titled The Spirit of Christmas, it features four little boys from South Park, Colorado, searching for the true meaning of Christmas.

Graden intended the video to be simply a Christmas card for his friends, but it quickly became the most popular bootleg in circulation in Los Angeles and an unintentional South Park pilot. When the US cable channel Comedy Central saw it, Parker and Stone were signed to produce a series.

The pair's strongest influences come from live action, rather than animation. "Monty Python," says Parker, "because that was our religion as kids. It's not only an influence, it is our sense of humour. Obviously there were other influences, but that is the one grounding thing. When Matt and I met each other, it was the reason we hit it off."

Surviving in the animation world post-Simpsons is tough. Many have come to pull the sword from the stone - Beavis & Butthead, Family Guy, Ren & Stimpy and King of the Hill among them - but few enjoy a long reign on the throne.

While the success of The Simpsons is unquestionable (Parker describes it as "probably the show ... it is genius, it has highly influenced us and everyone"), South Park has attracted more attention than most of its peers.

"What we're proud of is that our show has its own tone," Parker says. "South Park, like The Simpsons, is a show you can flick through and in an instant you know it's South Park, purely by how it looks.

"I think we've defined our own look, because we do the show like no-one else does a show. There are so many cartoons that look like each other; you can't tell one from the other."

The trick, Parker says, is to try not to be like The Simpsons. "You don't know how many times in a writers' meeting, someone says, 'They did that on The Simpsons', and you go, 'Goddamn it, they've done everything'. They've just done so many shows.

"We've tried to do South Park differently, but it ends up not being the same show. We could just oversee things and get a staff of writers, but, again, that's not what this show is. This show is still two guys cutting up construction paper in the closet. It's a much bigger version of that, but at its heart it's still that show."

Much bigger is putting it mildly. South Park is a colossus - arguably the most successful show ever produced by Comedy Central. It has played in cinemas (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut), and spin-off CDs line record store shelves: Chef Aid: The South Park Album, the Bigger, Longer & Uncut soundtrack, Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics and Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld.

Parker and Stone maintain a firm grip on the South Park reins, although they have been sidelined from time to time by live-action excursions into film (including Orgazmo and BASEketball) and television (this year's That's My Bush).

Just one question remains: can television's most successful double act evolve into two one-man shows?

"Can Eddie Van Halen still play guitar without David Lee Roth?" asks Parker. "Yes. Were they still successful without David Lee Roth? Yes, but they weren't f---in' Van Halen. I think Matt is capable of doing amazing shit, and I think I am, too, but whatever those things are, they aren't South Park."

Stone thinks for a moment before adding, "There might be an organic carrot farm up in Idaho ..."

[ source: SMH ]