South Park | |
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Genre | Animated sitcom |
Created by |
Trey Parker Matt Stone |
Developed by | Brian Graden |
Voices of |
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Theme music composer | Primus |
Composer(s) |
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Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 20 |
No. of episodes | 277 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Trey Parker Matt Stone Brian Graden Deborah Liebling Frank C. Agnone II Bruce Howell Anne Garefino |
Running time | 22 minutes |
Production company(s) |
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Distributor |
Comedy Central Productions Paramount Television Syndication: Debmar-Mercury 20th Television Home Video: Paramount Home Media Distribution Warner Home Video |
Release | |
Original network | Comedy Central |
Picture format |
Original broadcasts: 480i (4:3 SDTV) (1997–2008) 1080i (16:9 HDTV) (2009–present) Re-rendered episodes: 1080i (16:9 HDTV) (Seasons 1–12) |
Original release | August 13, 1997 | – present
Chronology | |
Preceded by | The Spirit of Christmas |
External links | |
Website |
South Park is an American adult animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for the Comedy Central television network. The show revolves around four boys—Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick—and their bizarre adventures in and around the titular Colorado town. Much like The Simpsons, South Park uses a very large ensemble cast of recurring characters and became infamous for its profanity and dark, surreal humor that satirizes a wide range of topics towards a mature audience.
Parker and Stone developed the show from The Spirit of Christmas, two consecutive animated shorts created in 1992 and 1995. The latter became one of the first Internet viral videos, ultimately leading to South Park's production. It debuted in August 1997 with great success, consistently earning the highest ratings of any basic cable program. Subsequent ratings have varied but it remains one of Comedy Central's highest rated shows, and is slated to air in new episodes through 2019.
The pilot episode was produced using cutout animation, leading to all subsequent episodes being produced with computer animation that emulated the cutout technique. Parker and Stone perform most of the voice acting for the show's male characters. Since 2000, each episode has typically been written and produced in the week preceding its broadcast, with Parker serving as the primary writer and director. There have been a total of 277 episodes over the course of the show's 20 seasons.