Matt Stone and Trey Parker don't hate Hollywood, even though they blow up and kill most of today's liberal actors in their puppet movie "Team America: World Police." The guys who masterminded Comedy Central's animated foul-mouthed fourth graders of "South Park" say they don't even consider themselves political.

"I didn't vote in the last election," says Stone, the curly-haired one. "This time, I think we're going to vote for the opposites."

Parker deadpans, "They're both such turds, it's just really hard. We hope that one of them would do something to make us go, 'Oh, okay, he's sweet.' "

Yet, their movie of marionettes makes a definite political statement. It stars a team of action heroes who consider themselves World Police and stop terrorists while destroying some of the world's cultural icons along the way. The story opens with Team America stopping a band of terrorists in a park outside the Eiffel Tower, and as shocked French people watch, the Americans proceed to knock the tower into the Arc de Triomphe and blow up the Louvre Museum. The team then convince a Broadway actor to help them track down terrorists.

Although they spoof how American military might seem a bit overwhelming, Stone and Parker aren't anti-military. In fact, they've written a rallying cry song "America, fuck yeah!" for the film that they hope U.S. soldiers will use in Iraq.

"Yeah, I hope so, I was trying to write the classic anthem," says Trey, who won an Oscar nomination for best song for their movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut." "I know that bands will be playing it. It's a pretty fun song to sing actually."

The guys actually set out to make a "Thunderbirds" movie this time, after becoming fans of the 1960's British puppet TV show which came out on DVD recently. They thought it looked cool, but the stories sucked. "Those scripts are the worst things ever written, they're just terrible," Parker says.

Then, they read the "Day After Tomorrow" script and thought that would be a great story for the "Thunderbirds" cast, but they discovered that Universal was letting "Star Trek: Next Generation's" Number One Jonathan Frakes direct a live action version of "Thunderbirds." They knew they'd have to come up with something original. So, they they came up with a story which spoofs Michael Bay movies "Pearl Harbor" and "Armageddon" and lambasts Ben Affleck who stars in both.

"That movie so misses the point about what Pearl Harbor meant to America so f---ing badly, it's almost insane," Stone says. "You can actually take the event of Pearl Harbor out of the movie and it doesn't change anything in the movie. It's just a horrible, horrible movie."

So horrible, that in a love ballad, a guy sings about his lost love and how he misses her almost as much as "Pearl Harbor sucked."

Some of Hollywood is mad at the guys, who invited Zap2it.com on the set when they were blowing up Mount Rushmore and killing off some of the Hollywood elite who weren't aware they were in the film. Liv Tyler, Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Moore and their friend Matt Damon are some of the stars turned into puppets without their knowledge. They even pick on George Clooney, who first got them their big break by passing their animated Christmas card to all his high-powered friends which turned them into pop culture icons. And Sean Penn sent an angry letter to the guys.

"It's obvious that what he's really pissed off about is we made him into a puppet and had him eaten by a panther," Parker says. (The panther is actually played by a normal-sized black cat.)

"There're Democrats who say vote or die, Republicans are recruiting in church drives and both are looking for uninformed voters who vote basically on emotion to try to get them on their side," Stone says. "I just don't think that's a very civically responsible thing to do."

The ratings board didn't think the guys were doing civically responsible things when they insisted that a puppet sex scene be trimmed because it was simply getting too graphic. The non-anatomical naked puppets had a sex scene that went on twice as long, with some fluids being squirted out, that the MPAA made them cut, but the guys say it will all be on their DVD.

"Those scenes will be in the foreign markets, too," adds Parker. "That would just point out that America is the only country that can't see the whole puppet sex scene."

Working with marionettes became much more laborious than they expected, so they plan on never doing another one, and the guys aren't sure if this film will be eligible as a Best Animated picture because they missed the new Oscar category for the "South Park" film by one year.

An Academy official tells Zap2it they'd have to determine the eligibility if the film is submitted in the category, but Parker says, "The definition of animation is bringing something dead to life, and we did that, so we think it'd be ridiculous if it wasn't eligible."

With jokes about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and lots of sex jokes, the guys don't think their R-rated movie should be see by anyone younger than 14. "I think 14 is the cut-off, I think 14 and above is okay."

And, they don't recommend the film to anyone who will be offended if they see their likenesses get blown up horribly. (Moore's head, by the way, is stuffed with ham and baloney before it is exploded.)

And yet, some of Hollywood embrace and even seek out the "South Park" guys. Alec Baldwin, who leads the F.A.G. (Film Actor's Guild) in the movie and allies with the North Korean dictator, found out he was being depicted in the film. The actor begged to be his own voice in the film.

"Yeah, he did call," Stone confirms. "He called really early on."

But they didn't let him do his own voice, Parker explains. "No, we found a guy who did it better."

"Team America, World Police" opens nationwide on Friday, Oct. 15.

[ source: ZAP2IT ]