The Bill Simmons Podcast - 'South Park,' Competing With 'SNL,' and the Future of Comedy With Matt Stone and Trey Parker

Episode Date: May 3, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by 'South Park' cocreators Matt Stone and Trey Parker to discuss writing the show during the 2016 election (6:00), their show's similarities with 'SNL' (13:00), the NYT's 'Ghostbusters' review (19:00), the difference between humor and trolling (28:00), Bill Hader's increased involvement with the show (35:00), streaming 'South Park' (43:00), having creative free rein (47:00), the rivalry between Butters and Cartman (51:00), the sheer amount of powerful companies in the tech industry (55:00), beefing with Sean Penn (1:01:00), their desire to do another movie (1:06:00), and what's next on Season 21 of 'South Park.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We won for best sports podcast and the people's choice for sports podcast. So thank you for that. We're going to talk to Matt and Trey. We taped this, I think two weeks ago and, um, choice for a sports podcast. So thank you for that. We're going to talk to Matt and Trey. We taped this, I think two weeks ago and it's a really good one. I've had Matt on the podcast before, but not them together. So here it is finally, Matt and Trey. All right, we're taping this sometime in April. Matt Stone, Trey Parker. Matt and I have done a pod before. Yes, we did one at your house.

Which I think was like five, six years ago at my house back in the days before I even had a little. In your dining room, yeah. It was like a little office. You loved it though. I did. I mean, I liked it. It kind of seemed like, you know,

it was early in your podcasting career. It was. And it definitely, and maybe I'll regret saying this even right now, but I don't know trey and i are used to doing press and you can hear when we go and do something that's like a live tv or something yeah we we've got our little stupid stick down so much it's like trey goes first and then i go and then he cracks a joke or i go first then he goes then you know what i mean right

and we know how to talk in sound bites. Like seven minute interviews. Oh, like 45 second interviews. Or if you know, you know that you can, they're going to use only 15 seconds. So we talk in these 15 second cheesy things just because we've been doing it for so long and we're just want to get out of there. But I think the podcast with you is the first time I like just sitting down and it felt really weird and natural, weird and. I felt like it was like a religious experience for you. Yeah.

I was like, wow. I was like, oh my God. That wasn't painful like i've never liked an interview before being honest for once yeah the first time i met you guys you were at jimmy kimmel show i was writing for him it was like oh three it was a couple months in lorenzo lamas was on jeff ross was on that's right yeah and lorenzo lamas was at the height of his Are You Hot or Not fame. The second round of Lamas fame. And you guys just started fucking with him. I think you farted at him. I farted at him.

You farted at him? And he got pissed off. Yeah, he actually kind of wanted to fight you. Yeah. He seriously wanted to throw down. It's on YouTube, but it's magnificent. Those are the days. We've grown up quite a bit since then.

Let's talk about uh well i mean this seat that last season you're writing the season season 20 and then things start changing on the fly as you're writing it and yet you're you can sort of tell watching it you're trapped to the story arc that you think is going to have this conclusion then all of a sudden we have a different president it started the season before that because we we did a show where it was sort of about trump when he was just sort of like throwing his name around as someone did to get it was in the republican primary and yeah and it was just basically like okay well we should we should do this while it's happening before he goes away and and so we did our whole trump show and we thought okay well we're done

with that you know and then you know we go into this season and it was just like, oh man, okay, this is still going on. And since we had made one of our characters basically Trump, we had to keep servicing that. And we wanted him to be back and be a school teacher again, but unfortunately, the American public wanted him to be president. So when do you start writing that season? At that point, do you know that he's going to be the candidate we we did oh yeah we didn't start writing season 20 until august oh or yeah yeah yeah so yeah oh yeah no it was it was on by then and like trace said and we did actually one of our probably darkest and most like i don't know what would you call it um uh you know one of our darker episodes uh about trump basically in september 2015 and at the time we were a little like

you know you get caught with wanting to make fun of something that's actually happening and then with that guy like giving him the fucking pleasure of it that you just don't want to do that so we got kind of eventually we just did it and we did it in september 2015 and like trace said that became garrison became our trump and we thought we could just kind of but that season that season was really like about the political correctness and yeah yeah trump's like this side plot it was like a little side plot but it trapped like trace said it trapped us in this internal logic where garrison was trump yeah and then we felt this we had loyalty to that yeah so. So then we showed up in August and right by then, yeah, he was the candidate and it was on the conventions that already happened. Yeah.

And so we started writing. And so we had been kicking. So that was happening. And we'd been kicking around this idea for a couple of years with Vernon Chapman and Bill Hader about doing something about a troll uh internet troll just then a guy and the the concept was a guy who's kind of like tom hanks you know uh and then he goes downstairs and turns into a troll then he comes upstairs and he's tom hanks and he goes you know he's like actually a good family man but what who is this guy like why would you be a so we had that idea and then trump came along so we kind of had to we started talking

about all these these uh hold on freeze that for a second so the internet troll idea how does that happen because i i've seen i've been lucky enough to be in that room it's not many people no so how do you get fixated on that and like oh we're gonna blow that out and this is what we should do i mean it was a while ago we started talking about trolling i think and yeah and it was really about like but it was also about just you know in being a troll and and like in the sense of just being a provocateur yeah and that's why we really like the idea of that like this guy really took himself seriously as a troll in terms of an artist and like no i'm i'm actually doing something that's important for society and whatever it's kind of like us you know talking about ourselves and like you know trying to justify what we do and uh and and then that all

sort of started relating to trump too you know because it was just like and and you know a few months ago we started we did some interviews where we said um you know we're we're just not going to make fun of there's you can't make fun of trump like it's its own comp he's doing his own comedy there's like we can't we can't top his comedy and. Like it's its own comp. He's doing his own comedy. There's like, we can't, we can't top his comedy. And people took it to mean, you know, people, some people thought that we,

we met like, you know, we're going to back off of him because of other reasons. But it, it really was just, you know, whether it's a troll or us or, or,

uh, Trump it's, it's, you know, pushing buttons and making people have this big reaction. There is some value to that. There, it is, you know, it is interesting, but I don't think as a president, it's, it's the best thing to have. I think it should be done by comedians, you know, and, and but you know, that's sort of what we were kind of saying was kind of

like, leave the comedy to us, you know, like you don't yeah we tried we tried to we talked about the season sort of being why we're different than trolls and i and it was i think it was part of it was was was like watching the world change in a way when this is like everyone's talked about this this is not an original thought but that 2016 is the day that the year the trolls came off the comment sections into the world right yeah and so And we felt that too at the time. And it was kind of important to us to say, well, what's different about what we do? Because there's a spectrum here of comedy and meanness and taking the piss out of people. And I think that Trey and I, it was interesting because Trey and I, we wanted to justify our existence. But there's also, I see in a lot of internet culture and trolls,

like I, there is something, there's something, um, I, I, I, I recognize a piece of myself in that.

And I recognize a piece of peace, the pushing buttons part, the part, like Trey said, like part of comedy and part of, especially where we started is flipping off the principle, you know, it's like just flipping or,

or saying something that shouldn't be said. And then you can, you know, get yourself out of it. Like great, great, great comedy can do that, right? Yeah. Like I just watched the Dave Chappelle special last night on Netflix. He does that multiple times where he drives into like territory. You're like, oof.

And, you know, it's just pushing. He's using provocation. Louis C.K. likes to do it too. He's using provocation for an artistic reason, right? And so we started, they started season 20 20 like we have to separate ourselves from that but we also recognize that like there's a common thread here which is like you know you don't want you don't want trey and i you don't want cartman jumping out of frame even as much as cartman represents some id portion of us it's like and that's funny we can all laugh but like that guy you don't want that guy running actually like running for president or or running your new or actually

you're listening him for news right right or you're listening you know so it was it was it was a crazy it was the first time last last season was the first time i can say that i came in i don't want to try to kind of but i mean as we start talking it was the first season I came in and I was like pessimistic about the world. I think it was the first time. Oh, wow. Yeah. Even in August. Because in August, nobody thought Trump was going to win.

Yeah. And I mean, I got convinced of that too later. But I was just, I was so depressed about the whole rise and about on what it said about our other country and our country's political processes. Even to get to that point seemed to me like, and I mean mean there's a lot to talk about unpacked there but just in general it just depressed me like oh shit we may not make it like this this fucking thing may just fall apart you know it was interesting because the year before you guys were kind of invigorated by that season 19 and the whole pc subplot because it was something that stuck in your craw and you felt like very few people could go there. And you guys did the whole season.

Well, but it was also easy because it was about us. It was about, okay, where do we fit in now? Right. And, you know, actually the whole way that season started was we got together in the room after, you know, our break. And we got in saying, man, things feel different now. You know, it's like i don't think we could make fun of caitlin jenner i think we would get i think we'd be done if if we did that and we're like yeah like that's just like like well and then we started saying well

that's messed up like like that we really for the first time felt like man we can't do that we will get in way too big a trouble so of course like we always concession for you guys yeah no no but like we always do then we started going okay well how could we do it and and uh you know it was just what was funny to me was what was funny to us was um that that it was right at the time when all the stuff about her killing someone in a car had just happened and how that was just all being completely like, it was like, you couldn't even say that. It's like, you couldn't even say, well, she did kill someone in a car.

It was like, oh dude, you, you hate, you know, you hate anyone that's not just totally male or female. You know what I mean? Like, and so so so it started going okay well we can't make fun of her but let's maybe we make fun of the fact that we can't make fun of her and that started that first episode and then by episode two we had her just running over people yeah we gained the confidence found somehow deep down found the confidence yeah to do it yeah but that that was also season 19 was invigorating because we found this real sweet spot for us of serialization

which was serialized but not too much because we don't we can't plan out enough ahead yeah and we just had a really great time keeping the stuff from last week that we liked getting new stuff and kind of rolling together and being really free form about it and then in season 20 that's where we decided like well let's take this another step and we have this kind of idea about a troll what if we what if we really tease that out over a whole season and um and i'll say i was number one i was totally in favor of that i thought it would be awesome and we wanted to be i mean and i have to like i'll admit that like what we talked about like well this is season 20 like let's do something extra special. You know what I mean?

And something that will set it apart. So all those years, all those years you'd never thought about, you'd never really thought about serialization until the last couple. No, because we had never, I mean, part of, part of the beauty of it and part of what I'm excited to get back to probably next season is, you know, South Park is really a thing where we show up on Thursday morning and we go, okay, what are we doing this week? Yeah. You know, and it's, and it's, and the energy of that is, is a huge thing. It's, it's really more like it's a, it's a Saturday Night Live schedule that we kind of have, you know, we all get in the room

knowing that in a week there's going to be a show on the air and we've got nothing right now, you know? So it's, it's, it's really like the energy of kind of like the things we're interested in that week and you know it just it it really it just suits us and it just is what South Park is and so for us there was a lot of times where last season trying having this thing where we knew where we were going we thought it was going to be great we're like oh my god the season's like for the first time we know what we know what happens in show seven you know for to some degree but it actually it was way harder than any it was the hardest season we've ever done yeah it was one of the reasons is because it locked us into a certain tone so we couldn't do like a really goofy absurdist surreal show there's certain comedic tones and we get a switch so some shows are doing

a different tone and then we're kind of locked into a certain tone and that kind of drug us down because we just wanted to get out of it, I think. You know, we just were like, okay, let's just forget about this, but we had bought off on it. You guys kind of sound half demoralized about it. It was demoralizing.

And I think part of it, you can watch the, if you watch the season, if you get that far, like season, and I think you just said show seven i think that was this the night of the election and us like everybody else like we had a whole sweet show figured out with hillary clinton winning and then we had to like at 8 p.m la time look at we're like holy we have to go and we had to rip the whole thing apart put the whole thing back together and it's it wobbles it's not how much time did you have at that point six hours like no i yeah with 12 i mean to fit by the time we worked to like but i mean to

get everything in for animation yeah trace right we just ripped it apart and just like this thing and it was hard to rip up half of it or two-thirds of it or how much was it probably two-thirds of it or just keep scenes the day before the night of night of no the night of like eight i'm sorry we had the whole show done i read that and i never totally believed it i always figured you had like that i mean when i say it's a standardized schedule it really it really is because we you know tuesday for us um since the show airs on wednesday tuesday is our big it's the day that everything gets finalized and not even you know on Monday there's half a show we don't even know we don't know what the ending is we don't know what the

beginning you know we we there's you know people that watched the South Park on Monday night would be completely astounded that there of how little there is you know and what we actually do on Tuesday is insane and so we actually um and so it was Tuesday night of the election. Yeah, but that was like Tuesday, like 10 o'clock. Yeah. I think it was about eight or nine.

Eight or nine you knew. Eight or nine. We're like, and we were texting people on the East coast who seemed like they knew. And we were like, fuck. And so we had a bunch of, you know,

first of all, we were saying, look, let's just, let's just be black for 30 minutes, you know, and just be like, that's kind of our statement. You know, it was just like, we have, we messed saying, look, let's just be black for 30 minutes. Just be like, that's kind of our statement. It's just like, we messed up.

We messed up. We have nothing to say. Because what's so funny is that we'd been through so many election years with the show. We've been doing the show for 20 years. So we've been through a ton of elections. And we've done other election shows where we called who was going to win it. And it's very easy. All we would do is go to see what the Vegas odds were, right? Like Vegas knows.

We just bet with the majority. You know, and Vegas was giving, you know, with Obama, Vegas was giving, you know, 10 to 1 odds. We're like, okay, well, let's just do an Obama show. And with this, too, they were giving Hillary, you know, 8 to 1. Vegas has 8 to 1. Come on, 8 to 1. We're good.

It's true, but I have a math degree, and so I know why that's flawed. Well, yeah yeah because you're trying to hedge both sides my friend because you just got to roll the dice just because it you know one of the times it'll come up the other right you know we bet we had a parlay from august of the pats when in the afc east oh wow parlayed with hillary clinton which i was very proud of because i like when it's team human beings sports real life yeah yeah yeah and we had all these opportunities to go against it because at you know after the after the grabbing by the pussy that whole disaster yeah that was the day he was like he was like eight to one underdog at that point for like a week i never

i honestly we were like no do we hedge non-ascot we don't honestly i swear to you i the two best sleep nights of sleep i've gotten in the last year were the night after the grabbing by the pussy thing so i was like oh good i just went to bed yeah it's over yeah and then after the second debate i was like oh it was like that was a different day i think and i was like they're right around each other yeah and i was like so that's what it means like i actually i stressed out a bunch early and then i got and then i got complacent in the last like month because i mean when we started that when like month. I think everybody did. Yeah, everybody did. When we started the season, it was very much like, well, we can't avoid this thing that's happening.

You know, we got to put that front and center, Trump and that kind of stuff. But then by, like Trey said, we like everybody else. We're like, look at the odds. Look at Vegas is saying, you know what I mean? So we just made a call. And you can feel that. That's what I'm saying. You can feel that that's where the season kind of like something happened and you know and then from then on we never kind of catch our catch our we never quite got it back in order and i think part of it is because just

the there are these like low-lying assumptions for comedy because we have a lot of stuff going on we started a lot of stuff in the season like men versus women jj abrams and american decadence and all these big themes and all of a sudden it was like oh we were on the others maybe these are the opposite of what we thought or you know what i mean um in the hillary clinton episode that we were going to air i don't remember it but i'm it was pretty much like okay she wins but shit still sucks because yeah you know what i mean this it's still not good just because that happened um so it's like yeah then we had then what i'm saying is like then i'm looking at myself that night going well this is way fucking worse like what you know what i mean and that's what i'm talking about about that responsibility for that we started feeling like what's different than what's different

than what where we different than a troll or where we different than somebody you know what i mean because what would the thing we were making fun of even though i think we had done it we had already done our piece about trump it felt like and we were trying to service that during the show we were also making fun of something else that ended up losing you know what i mean yeah in the election and so then you're like oh man i sure like making fun of those people you know what i I mean? But now they lost in this election. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Let's take a quick break to talk about SoFi. If you've worked hard to get the career you want, SoFi is here to offer easy savings on the student loans that helped you get there. If you've taken out student loans to invest in yourself and your career,

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So when you started season 20, you were giving it to Hillary too, which I thought was interesting. I mean, the Hillary proxy, like that, you know, most people are like Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And a lot of people weren't really tweaking Hillary as much because, you know, everybody who's in this position.

What was funny was that, that we, where we were going with the whole thing, because it was all really about how the girls have been slighted. And, and for us us you know girls have been marginalized in south park too just because yeah we do all the voices and it's hard for us to even get you know to have people come in at three in the morning and change all the lines like we do but um you know what's we were heading down this whole path of here's this big boy girl war going on and everyone thinks okay well hooray hillary's going to be president and that means that bill clinton is the first gentleman you know what i

mean and it was just like that that to us was just like the most ironic coolest thing to focus on was that like okay there you go you went he's he's officially the first gentleman how do you feel girls you know and and uh and and that's where the whole season was going and that's what really got you know torn apart at the rate because not only did we you know we had to we had to have garrett we couldn't have garrison was supposed to come back and just start teaching again and and all this stuff and we were now just we were locked in you know there was this other there was like what really fueled the season two which is fine just remember this was really,

as I came in completely worked up about two film reviews. One was the star Wars force awakens. Is that what it is? Yeah. Right. Force awakens review in the New York times, which was good, positive review and the ghostbusters reboot review in the New York times.

So this is like the dumbest, smallest thing to get mad about in the whole world. But I just, this is what really fueled the entire season more than anything. It was like, you know, cause like we started like, it's just to go back to the,

like the, the, where we started, it was filmmaking. Right. And so we, like Trey and I started, like we drove with our friends to Sundance.

Like we started as independent filmmakers and that combined with just a general sense of like, you say you don't care about reviews but like when you do a film or like the musical a book of mormon when you spend that many years on something and then you have some you know hallowed journal give it a good review i don't care yeah it's like i do care about that right and i've had good versions of that and bad versions of that right and so there's just this to just read a good it was in the both of them were in the new york times and both of them were good and that just started us up again not it's

kind of about the movies but also about what's wrong with what's wrong like we've like the and i'm talking about the elite i'm talking about the tastemakers i'm talking about the people who should know better i'm talking being a snob here when i say the new star wars movie does not get a good review in the new york times in my world that just does not happen that's not a grown-up movie that gets grown-up reviews and a grown-up thing right and i like and i like the movie i thought amazing acting and i don't want to sit here and bad mouth that but this is like lab grown meat you know what i mean this is a secondary derivative of something that was from 40 years ago in fact in a lot of ways it's like the same movie as 40 years ago and then with ghostbusters it was like

here's this pretty shitty movie well again with a lot of talented people which makes it even worse not better it's not more excusable that it has talented people it's worse and then the review in the new york times for that was women funny. What is it? Girls rule women are funny. Something, get over it. And so that's where the Cartman's, you know, so just get over it. And this is the New York Times now. So this is where our critical, this is why Trump,

that was basically, and it wasn't so much J.J. Abrams is responsible for Trump. It was the same soft-headed thinking that would like, that's our highest level of film reviewers start to play this little game this jockeying game about like oh but there's women in it and so it's part of this other thing it's like dude that's a ghostbusters that's a shitty ghostbusters remake that doesn't get a good review like what is wrong with this world and that was like and then we just were like and then just because it's our show and we can do it we said

then trump and there we go equals trump and so it's our show and we can do it, we said, then Trump. And there we go. Equals Trump. And so we're going to make that. We're going to cross this. How many, how many plots over the last 20 years came from one of you two just walking into the room and being fired up about something? Is that 90%? Oh, those are the best ones. And then it's the dumbest thing, you know? Yeah.

It's like my wife gets mad when I don't put the seat down. Oh man, that makes me mad. And we're going to go. That's what was so funny was all the Trump shit that was going on. And we're actually having the whole election year and everything, but really weekly. What we're talking about is going, yeah,

dude, fuck star Wars, man. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's worth.

So yeah, to me, I just, I kept equating it to the happy days reunion special where it's just like, they would do that reunion thing where they get all the people back and they kind of do a half-assed story but it's all just about having people walk on a camera and having everyone clap for everything and that's exactly how the new star wars felt it was just a reunion special it was just a big like remember this remember that remember this that was where remember berries came from was remember this yeah you know isn't that great

that's remembering that the cousin of that is and i still support snl and i'm glad it exists i i hate that they've embraced celebrities to the point where if they if they're really killing somebody on the show like whether it's celebrity or politician or whoever like sarah palin's the best example of it right like they're just mocking her mocking her mocking her but then it always gets to the point where she comes on she comes on yeah and then it's and it's like never the same after that. No. I don't know how.

Well, and it's interesting. That works with satire. You know, and I think, I think it's actually, I think they're doing better than ever because of it. But, you know, it's like now every week I'm seeing a headline about how SNL ripped on the Trump administration this week. Yeah. And they've become that show.

Yeah. They've become, and that was the big, the part of the bummer for us about the season was we never intended we didn't want to make it a big trump thing and we thought it we kept thinking it was going to go away and um we didn't want to get caught up in and and just being a political show because there's plenty of good political comedy out there that we like to do we like to dabble in that and do that one week. But then the next week we want to do fart jokes, you know, and whatever. And it's just like we we love to like Matt was saying, you know, really change tones. And and it's interesting because now people are really expecting us, you know, that, OK,

well, let's see how you how you deal with Trump, you know, this this coming season. And it's like there was no other president And it's like, there was no other president where it's like, no one ever said, oh, the new season's coming. How are you going to deal with Obama in this season? You know, it just, it was never, we're not that show and we never were. It's just that somehow it's,

and I think because SNL now is just becoming known for that and that that's what gets picked up every week. It's hard. What do you do if you're them? You know what I mean it's hard it's a yeah i what do you do if you're them you know what i mean i was very very glad for you well i'm glad that we are just doing the bill simmons podcast today like we're not putting anything on the air right now yeah and at the end of the last season i we needed to go i was we were both like so exhausted and had nothing to say we're just like i don't know like we got to go away so i i don't envy people that had to

like through that kind of tumult try to you know comedy people when i know where their heads are at try to go on and be funny like see right now it'd be tough i actually think it's hard i think it's kind of comedy killing see like people come up to us all the time like oh man you got so much good material and i'm like i don't think it's that great of material it is the material you can't i mean it's just hard you can't it's just the material material. It is the material. You can't, I mean, it's just hard. You can't satirize it. It's just the material. You know what I mean? He's taken a little something, which is like, that was in the button pushing.

Yeah. It's like, he takes that from you first, and then you can make fun of that, but it's like, well, fuck. I mean, what do you do? You know, you want to push the button. The comedian pushes the buttons. That's the natural order of things, you know?

It's like what he does with the handshakes. He pulls you through. When he pulls, he handshake, he pulls the person toward him, and they're off balance. That's basically what he does with the handshakes when he pulls the handshake he pulls the person toward him and they're off balance yeah that's basically what he's done to comedians but i would argue like what you're saying before about how you know like the professionals sometimes you need the professionals over like all the amateurs like this is the time when we would need the professionals more than anybody to try to make sense of what's going on and yeah humor into it but that's right for us the that there is this thing of like you're supposed that's why we were

trying at the end of the season to say we're we're funny that's the only difference really between us and trolls is like that's because you got to be actually funny and that just boils down that's just a skill you have to this is a totally again snobby but there's no we couldn't figure out what the other what we're at the end of the day what the other thingby, but there's no, we couldn't figure out what the other, what were the end of the day, what the other thing is. I mean, there's just a, there's a difference between creating there just as a difference between

creating a, a box to see, you know, to go up on stage with a mic on stage and do something then to perform it right in real life. And think that like, this is something like some of Andy Kaufman, but like many times over, you know? So like this is happening now with a few of those like hulk

hogan did it alex jones did it the other day in a lawsuit where they're actually in lawsuits where they're being sued as people say no no that's a character hulk hogan is different than hulk hogan you know what i mean and this starts this kind of you can see this happening with everyone being a star and being their own you know there's me and then there's real me and you're just it feels like we just recognize that the bit of it that's like the comedy provocateur that's that and we've like luckily channeled it into this thing that hopefully isn't you know bad or whatever but you can see that happening where now it's like what who that's what's hard about the comedy of it is because people are taking it and living it in the in the last 20 years can you remember somebody who almost couldn't be parodied because

he was a parody because i feel that way when i watch snl everybody loves the alec baldwin things to me it's like i can't almost tell the difference between him and Trump. No, and it's not. Yeah, that's why. But not in a fun way. It's just like this is kind of what I'm watching anyway. If you have like a little monkey and it's running himself into the wall over and over and you're like, well, that's funny. But how am I going to make fun of the monkey running himself into the wall? I can discuss the monkey running himself into the wall. I can like copy the monkey running the wall.

But nothing's funnier than the monkey just running himself into the wall. Or if I flip off the principal and the principal flips me off back, like that's really funny, but I don't really don't know where to go from there. You know what I mean? I moon him and he moons me back. Like if he moons first, like,

oh fuck, like that's not where you want. That's that guy's shouldn't be the principal. What were your options that night? So it's like Tuesday night, eight o'clock. And you know, you have to blow up that,

that election show. What was on the table that you didn't do? Go Black was what we talked about. Did you think about election? Airing the show as is and just being like, you know. Yeah, here it is. It's a document, you know, for history. We talked about that.

We called Doug Herzog. And, you know, he was at the Daily. We called him and said, you know, Doug with some version of like, we can't get the show done. It's just really screwed up and sorry. And he was like, I forget what he said exactly because he talked to Ann, but he said, I'm at The Daily Show, everyone's crying,

I'll call you back, you know, or something like that. It was like, I mean, his world was like, everyone was coming to him saying, we can't do this tonight. Well, and that's another piece of this too, is you have to figure out what a funny alternative is, but everybody's like shell-shocked. And then we had to show up Thursday

morning and start another one. No time to process. Yeah, and we were going to do a little under-construction shot, just a screen grab of just like, we're working on the show. Be back soon. We thought that would be funny. Technical difficulties.

Comedic difficulties. But then it was like we just got to the dry erase board and just started erasing shit and filling in and going how can we line this all up to make it make sense and we you know i think by around 9 30 or 10 we kind of had it figured out sort of that's like okay well this would make sense and um you know it was interesting what doug said too was that and he wasn't even necessarily really again he's like i think he was would have been okay with us just going black but the thing that it was also i think nice for at least real diehard south park fans to see that everything was still,

you know, everyone was so shell shocked by that. And it was like, you didn't want to see that the world had changed. You wanted to be like, okay, this horrible thing has happened and he's been elected president. South Park still on the air, the moon,

the sun's still rising. You know what I mean? Like water's still clear. Like you, you just wanted to like, feel like things were going to be. Yeah. Other people had to get up and go to work. It just was like, how self-indulgent to be like i don't know what to do

you know that felt like lame you know so we is that so could you have done that with the technology you had from like 97 to 2003 no no no what's like the first year you could have pulled off it all night i made a show yeah four or five years ago we got up we can basically change it goes as fast as we can now i'd say i mean you know within reason but yeah we can do quite a bit now what's the most ridiculous thing about how you did it the show 97 that you can't believe you did it that way now god we wrote it we had to write ahead of time so show would be in production for you had emails back then at least. Did we have that? Kind of. Yeah, we had these giant computers that cost so much money that sucked super bad and everything took super long. Well, and if we wanted a crowd shot, you know, it's like, okay, this big thing happens in the middle of town and all the townspeople are there. That meant five people, right?

Because each character is a piece of geometry that the computer had to think about. And so a crowd shot couldn't, you know, you see those early shows and it's always like six people going like this. You know, the whole town. Yeah. No, it can do a lot. It can go fast now. Yeah. Yeah. And that's all digital.

Everything like. Yeah. All digital. Yeah. Everything's like in some computer. Everything's in one building and goes, everything's done in one building start to finish. All the sound, all the recording, all the animation, all the post, everything.

And the process has stayed pretty much the same since day one. You have your trusted little inner circle. You go have a retreat, bat around ideas. I mean, even that's kind of not even the real, like sometimes, and we talked about doing it last year. Last two years we didn't do it. We just started. We just got into the building 10 days before the first movie.

What dumb little movie thing are you mad about? That's how it usually starts. What's going on in the world that we really need to discuss. And it's like, Star Wars wasn't that good. And everyone thinks everyone's talking that it was amazing. And it was, it just wasn't that good. And that's, that's really what we were trying to base the entire season around. And it is crazy how long we talked about that.

But, you know, it really is a show up Thursday, throw some things at the board, you know, and maybe by Friday you start to see a little bit of animation, hopefully. And it's such a sculpting show. You know, it's never a show that it's like, okay, we're start here. We go there, we go here, we go here. It's always like, here's a really funny scene. I don't know if that's the beginning of the show. I don't know if that's the middle. I don't know if that's the end,

but here's a funny thing and here's a funny thing and here's a funny thing. And then we'll start to mold it and go, Oh, this is Kyle's story. This is Kyle's the one who's we're tracking here and it's his emotion. That's going to take us through the show. And then by Sunday,ay is when it really starts to become you know a show um and then tuesday is all about rescuing it and trying to get something compromising you know compromising falling in love with it falling out of love with it and you know that whole cutting stuff do you and you must have some inherent thing in your head for exactly how long like that what is that well it's 20 commercials that's 22 22 minutes is that? Well, it's 22.

With commercials, it's 22. 22 minutes and 15 seconds. Yeah. And it's right there on the app. I can write a column now where I almost know exactly how many words it is by that. I don't even have to look at the thing. Yeah. And you kind of know too.

Like a scene is basically a minute long, which means two pages, which I know like, okay, if I've handed off two pages and I know that that's about a minute long scene. And South Park is really made up of minute long scenes. And then a few here and there, a few two and three minute long scenes, but not many. And Vernon's been in the inner circle the longest? Yeah, totally. I mean, a lot of the times this whole season was just you and me and Vernon Chapman. And then Bill Hader's been joining us when he can he's also you know just so busy

um yeah that's a problem because he's just doing stuff he's just like making movies yeah yeah i mean both both vernon and bill are really just really busy guys they have their own stuff going so when we can all get together that's super fun and then every once in a while we have someone come in for a little guest like right with us for a week kind of thing but just usually it's just me trey and vernon yeah and hater seems like he likes coming back just because he like keeps his chops fresh or something oh i don't know we just laugh a bunch when i mean yeah and it's great i mean he just loves it it's it's fun it's a fun place to be on thursday yeah yeah and and friday friday can be kind of fun too it's just that when it actually becomes like oh fuck okay we got saturday sunday yeah that's that's not so fun but i remember you

you came in that you know the show i think it was the first it was the first episode of season 19 right and we were doing that to him we were doing a lot of my hands we were doing the cartman tom brady stuff now you feel bad because he was exonerated. Right? He should go back. He should change that. No, you guys both. Change that in the stream. Trey and Bill had a nice argument about that that day.

Yeah, I was right. Trey lost the argument. No. I was right. There's no evidence whatsoever, and you besmirched a great man. He's the greatest quarterback of all time. He's a dirty line cheater. He's a dirty line cheater.

No evidence whatsoever. Deflate gave bummed out Trey as much as anything I've ever seen. Just kind of like that thing of like, just like, you know, the Statue of Liberty of football, just crying. You're just like, there's something just like, you just see this loss of innocence with Trey. But then what happened with the Peyton Manning, the HGH, but it was really for his wife that none of that stuff bothered you?

No, that was all a lie. Trace of Broncos fan. That's the way it works, yeah. Quick break to talk about Mother's Day. Sending flowers, such a great way to tell your mom, your wife, or whoever that you care on Mother's Day. So it stinks whenever those flower companies or stores don't care about you, like when you're stuck with hidden fees that leave you with a bigger bill than you expected, or you sent flowers

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that he was in trouble that week you know and that kind of stuff it was pretty awesome and it was but it was like i didn't know how they did that or whatever you actually do it and i did it yeah so if you if you look up the bronco the nfl films you know broncos winning super bowl winning season it's it's i'm narrating you should have made up names so and so so soso. So you narrate the Broncos Super Bowl video, and then you besmirch the great Tom Brady. I think you should be villain number one. He's a liar and a cheater.

No, but it was pretty. I mean, I even have to admit that that last Super Bowl, watching that and watching them come out I even have to admit that, that, you know, what that last super bowl watching, watching that and watching them come out and, and just, and just being like, like they must've lied and cheated on levels that we, we can't even think like we're not even aware of, like to be able to,

to have that kind of comeback. It was like, man, you're, you're just lying and cheating on another level. That's just like, you know, so I've watched that game a few times and it it's it as his history will remember it as as an incredible loss as much as an incredible

win like when you really watch it to blow a 25 point lead in basically a quarter and a half is yeah almost impossible yeah yeah like the atlanta just lost they just kept like pounding pounding like just go let's not stop being aggressive and all that stuff and it was just it was the one thing you couldn't do they actually should have been passive yeah and not done it but anyway yeah i think i think the brady case is unassailable brady manning is not an argument anymore no that could be season 21 right there that was season 21 you know what I'm really bad about? Just walk into the room and start screaming about it. So what happens with season 21?

We don't know. I mean, I think, like you heard Trey say, we definitely are. You just wait it out. Yeah, and I think we're not coming in with any big serialized thing, but we'll do what we did in season 19, which was fun, which was try to do a great episode and then let anything that's cool live and we call it serialized it's like live it's like serialized light or something like sort of serialized sort of night but it's also funny because it's it's like you know and

even my family members you know are just like wow you know waiting to see what trump's gonna do and like i said it's like you know that's never what the show was about. And for me, I'm excited to get back to Cartman dressing up like a robot and messing with rudders. Like to me, that's the shit that I really like doing. And, you know, we're known as being a satirical and political show, but the truth is on any given season, we might have one big political show.

Yeah. You know, and the rest is all you know queef sisters and stuff like that yeah i could tell you my nine-year-old son isn't watching for the politics yeah yeah for sure and and i'm sure he's watching we aren't either and that's why he's watching half because it's funny as hell and half because he shouldn't be watching yeah when you're a little kid that's you want to watch the show when your parents come in they're like why are you watching that yeah and then that's it that's like the forbidden well that's what we find them all out at this there were so many times this last season that we'd be we were sitting there in the editing room watching this political stuff and

all i wanted was to get back to queef sisters i just wanted a couple queefs and looking out the window longingly don't you think that a lot of kids don't you think there's this like rite of passage now which is probably other shows not just south park but now that the internet more as i'm talking about is that now it's like okay you can watch south park and that turns into 270 shows and sit there and just mainline them yeah over and over i think there's this like a lot of kids do that where they just get and they just watch 70 in a row or something like that so south park's really if this is a video game it's probably the final level for the parents i to get to south park you mean

yeah you gotta go through some of the some of the low level maybe not as pushing the envelope shows and then you get there but uh it's so far we'll see how it goes because it's so far for my daughter it's worked pretty well because she she's three and a half, and she does Ike's voice. And Ike was pretty fell out this season. But she knows that the only reason you swear is to make money. She's basically like, you can't say those words unless it's to make money. And she totally gets that. See, Trump gets that too.

That's what we're saying. See, that's fine if it's part of a TV show. My whole philosophy with comedy is I'd rather start way earlier than too late. Yeah. You know? And it's like, I want my kids to have a sense of humor and I want them to watch this stuff.

And I think the difference between when you guys, I mean, there's so many differences between season one and season 20, but the fact that people can just catch up on 20 seasons like this is insane. It's crazy. Think about that. Like even in what? 2003.

Yeah. You guys have what you're seven years in. Yeah. There's no way people could have watched any of them unless comedy central is running a marathon. And it's after being, because it's been so long, it's been 20 years.

It's like, there are literally shows that we'll sit down and watch and do not remember at all. And we've written and directed every episode ourselves. But it's just like, we will seriously sit there and watch it and be like, whoa, that's not cool. That's not cool. You know, and it's interesting because it, and we actually get in trouble now because it's been 20 years that we,

we'll actually sit there in the room and come up with this great idea for a show and be like, oh my God, this sounds familiar. I think the Simpsons did this. And then we're like, no, no, no, no, we did it. And like, we'll literally have ideas now that we're like, oh, we can't do that. We did that 15 years ago.

And so it's getting hard. Or three months ago. It's just, yeah, it is hard to find is there stuff you did like especially in the first 10 years that you're like oh my god we could there's no way in hell we could do that now no i think it's just the other way yes the other way around where it's just like oh my you know the first few years are just embarrassing to watch you know and being like because i think the movie the south park movie is where we really learned to write you know and before that what year was that 99 99 yeah and we learned to write in 99 yeah we

learned to write 99 yeah it's kind of couldn't do it until then um so when did it hit its stride then you think oh i think like season six six seven eight nine and i think that's probably where most people think you both said season six yeah season yeah i was gonna say not the first few but then there's like we moved we our offices moved from one building to another building and the first episode we did was called good times with weapons where we did this anime thing with right uh and it was sort of the i don't know that whole season was really good yeah i mean people that's like the simpsons hit like about a groove about then too didn't they It was another like the best. You get this kind of like that.

I think that's where you hit a groove. And then we hit another like, and then we kind of have to start playing like bring back sports like an old, you know, kind of like go outside and get our outside shot going a little bit different. We'll check our game. Does some of it have to do with how much other stuff you're doing at the same time too? It does. It does that.

But also, i don't know no i mean a little bit but like we did book of mormon just kind of in the off seasons a lot of it has to do with like just getting old and what we talk about is being parents more than kids because we both have kids now and being middle-aged like the shit we're bitching about is middle-aged stuff and so the parents and especially like randy that trey plays they've there's a lot of shows now about the parents about randy yeah it's Trey plays, there's a lot of shows now about the parents. About Randy, yeah. It's funny because-

And something we realized this year is there's no teenagers in South Park. There's no like, we have kids, we have kids, and we have adults. We don't have any teens or 20-somethings. There's just kids and then their parents. That's the whole thing. And when, you know, the first seasons of South Park, it's me doing an impersonation of my dad, who's Randy. And now it's just me.

I just talk, and that's just Randy's voice. Because it's just like, it's so much fun. I so much more now, when we started the show, I related Stan, and I was supposed to be Stan, and Matt was supposed to be Kyle. And now I just completely relate to Randy. And it's just like, that's why he keeps coming in every episode.

It's like, well, what's Randy going to do? Well, we just say, yeah, that's good. We have a grandpa in there, too yeah yeah grandpa characters on their grandpas when you get older that could be dangerous for comedy but for this show it sounds like it flipped it kind of flipped it in a way that was good if you want to keep the show going yeah it's like you have to it has to be you know we've we've never tried to kind of say okay well what do people want to, you know, we've, we've never tried to kind of say, okay, well, what do people want to see? You know, it's always been about our little group and, and the six people that are sitting in the, in the editing room watching it like that. It's all about making

that group laugh. Yeah. And so and, and that entire group has gotten older. So, so, you know, this shit that makes them laugh is all more family stuff than it is you know did you think about getting like some somebody who's like 25 in that room you know well it was definitely you know when you watch like how the simpsons have done it and they've you know they just bring in new right they bring in a whole new people that that run the show and that uh and it's just like to us like south park wasn't that and because we like to equate every every season to like an album and every show is a song on the album it's like we we like to be able to look back and say oh here's where we were at in our lives

right and um so for better for worse you know i don't think we'd ever do that the simpsons i didn't mean like that canned it off i meant just get just a new energy in in the room i just don't think we'd ever do the Simpsons sort of thing. I didn't mean like hand it off. I meant just get some new energy in the room. I just don't think they'd laugh at the same shit. Although we still just laugh at Queef Sisters. As long as it's a Queef Sisters test we give them. Yeah, yeah. You bring in like some 24-year-old, he's just on his device the whole time.

He's not really interacting with you guys. You're just like that. I mean, we do like the last two seasons with the PC principal season and then with season 20, you know, the feeling of getting old is definitely worked into both of those things of like, well, we might as well, you know, like the PC principal thing is like, that's us. He's bitching at the town saying, look at you, look at this. was so old and so like like even last year when we we did season 19 there was a big whole foods thing because it became like our grocery store is like doesn't resemble any grocery store that i've been in in 10 years because we've been on tv for so long and even the serialization thing is like it's only because we started tv in 97 which there was no serialization you just had sitcom

yeah so it's just like grappling with getting old and then even in season 20 it's just talking about like well here we are bitching about how there's no good artwork being made and here we're in our 20th season like we're still sticking around more with you i know is this us too you know so like i like that part of it um it seems to make the show better like in the last few years just acknowledging our old old you know what i mean right when did you guys feel like you got to the point i think you and i talked about this on our last podcast when certain creative people reach a point where you can just get away with more you know and i think you guys are definitely there howard stern's definitely there like chapelle so weird no two netflix specials chapelle said

stuff and that that just most people wouldn't be able to say. You couldn't say unless you were him. Yeah. He's earned it. Yeah. You know, I mean, maybe we've earned it or not, but like he's like Chappelle's earned it. Like, you know, you do,

and you get grandfathered in to whatever generation, you know, you just like we get our, we have our 90s generation grandfather clause, I think. Yeah. You earn it. You're around long enough. It was just funny it was it was i remember you know i think early 2000s you know reading about certain people that were getting in trouble for things we they said and i'm like wow we said that like two years ago and and and you know it

just became a thing where it's like to say for someone to come out and say hey i was really offended by this thing i saw in South Park, just doesn't... It's a weird thing to say. Right away, you're like, well, shut up. You know what I mean? Of course, that's the point. What's funny is Barkley used to be in this group, but I feel like people have turned on Barkley in the last year.

Now they get mad when he says stuff. Yeah. And he gets in trouble five times a year. The PC principal thing, though, too, is we really felt like it was going to turn on. And we still feel like it might. Yeah we're still waiting oh it has and it has and we just yeah we try to ignore it but yeah i'm sure if you look somewhere it's turned on us no i don't think it's turned on you or like those guys can't say that i think you you do have a

little bit of liberty no we definitely have stuff there's no question but i just i still think there's a there's another wave coming of these young kids coming out of college now that are going to be like, fuck you, you can't say that. Right. But you said South Park wasn't a political show, and I agree with you. But it's an American show, and it kind of reflects whatever is going on in America at the time,

which I think is what makes it special. So I would say, even though you're not a political show america is really fucking strange right now yeah which creatively is a good thing for you guys once you once you kind of pull out of it and just kind of look at it levitating above and trying to figure out what to do i would say that's creatively gonna be it is and it's just like the problem is we can get we can get too hung up in that. Because the truth is when South Park works its best, we think and we feel, is when

Cartman and Butters have a problem they're dealing with. You know what I mean? It's still very character driven. And I feel like we've got some great characters that really when it is just an emotional problem that everyone can relate to. And especially a problem of like, oh yeah, I remember that about being a kid.

And, and that's, what's nice and still universal at least is that, you know, it's hard for it, you know, it was always about us remembering our childhoods that brought up a lot of these stories about, and now kids today live in such a completely different world. But, you know. Yeah, we're having a hard time telling even like stories of like even cell phones have changed the way people like. I mean, this is not super original either, but we're having a hard time in the in the writer's room. Tell a story in the age of cell phones. If you put a cell phone in the kid's hand, like, well, that's how they would do that now. Right.

And even writing dramatic scenes is like if you walk around outside, you'll see these people like everyone's just looking at their phone and some of those people are actually going through incredibly incredible they're learning their mom's cancer diagnosis is x or they're getting broken up with or something really profound and the in this entire you know what that scene should be in a movie when you learn about your mom's cancer diagnosis and it shouldn't be looking at a screen but that's actually where it's happening yeah today and so it's like we're like what that in in trying to like have the show age but not too much and keep these dramatic things it's just it's a it's a trip and that's where like a lot of the shows so we had a whole season like two seasons ago everything was about tech and it wasn't that we tried to do that it's that we

couldn't think of anything else that was possibly going on um but i what i was what i was trying to answer was it what you asked was it is it's sometimes you got to find the balance between trying to do something big thematically and but also don't get too high on that like you know what i mean too too up your own ass about it too because you can smell that coming from a mile away so we always try to do like okay that's really like i'm mad about ghostbusters now let's tease that out to a giant theme but at least part most of the show that's that that that stuff is just us is what we're actually thinking about you know i feel like i would walk into the room if i was part of the inner circle complaining about all the people on social media who are telling me sending links and telling me what to what to read and how to feel about all

this stuff I've muted almost everybody on Twitter Facebook all that stuff who who throws the politics stuff I mean because it's like I can't take it anymore yeah you can't live your life no yeah no I just like I have all my I know where to find news like I do this for a living I know where to find news. Like I do this for a living. I know where to find things. I don't really need help on my Facebook feed. I don't need to be lectured or preached to. Yeah. You know, I know how I feel. Yeah, yeah.

It's, I forget where, maybe it was SNL. I forget where it was, but somebody had a joke about, you know, oh, I never, never realized that this was bad until this mom and my parent support group told me you know right and it's like oh thank you thank you for shedding some light on this issue for me three in the afternoon on my facebook feed i don't know i can't imagine i don't i don't have an online life like that at all i don't like i i have email and that's it i have email and text and i'm buried and i and buried in emails and texts. Emails and texts are enough.

It's great. I like Facebook cause I look looking at pictures of my friend's kids. Yeah. Yeah. That's keeping up with that. I think Facebook. Yeah. Yeah.

That's really, that's really about it. I don't understand how people keep up with all that stuff. I like people that do Twitter and Facebook and everything. I just like, I said, I'm just, well, the thing that our generation like you know the younger generation can do the four things at once which i'm always envious of yeah they they can have people can i have all these people in the ringer i've talked about this on a pod before like they can listen to a podcast and edit stories at the same time they're two completely different things somebody's talking in their ear they're listening they listening to this podcast right now,

but they're also editing a story and then they're on email and they're doing all these things. And like, I think our generation, it's like impossible. We can do one, maybe two things. Yeah. And that's it.

But this next one, and then there's even a difference between like, I would say 29 to 31 but then like 23 to 26 like this guy where who's that people he's editing something right now he's writing a novel right now so you're mixing an album country yeah um but the younger ones who just grew up with like they never knew life without email anything yeah they always were distracted like i flew today i flew cross country with my kids i mean think about what flying cross country with your kids was like 20 years ago without ipads without ipads without on demand yeah just pressing

a button and a movie comes up and that's what everybody's used to now so to your point like yeah how do you capture that in an elementary school cartoon setting i don't know it's just super boring this is super boring you look at people just look at screens and that's where actually everything's happening it's not in the physical world yeah that should have been your episode with season 20 it was a challenge because that was part of in talking about trolling in this internet troll so much of that's happening online yeah but you're trying to just show the story that's just the guy having fun with it walking out of his basement yeah yeah no and i think like vernon said this thing and i don't know if it was his or he got but this is really vernon chapman said

this thing when i was talking to him a couple weeks ago because you know that we in season 20 we came up we come up with our little thing that we want to say a little theme or a little story and we start hacking a little trail through the jungle like we're hacking through it and finding our way and then like a a paver just came and paved past us you know what i mean and so this whole idea of troll of trolling originally when we started season 20 was about the the the difference between anonymity and privacy that like part of the thing all these trolls hide behind and part of the bad amount of discourse online is people's anonymity right that they can just you know when you're basically anonymous you'll say whatever you want right that's cool in 97 we was yeah yeah this is great

it was cool and then it took over the world and then it just came out into the real physical universe that's where it felt like oh wow we were even talking about something smaller it was so crazy you know? I don't understand like how, I don't understand personally how people can balance all that stuff, just personally, because I can't. But also I feel like the people that came up with Twitter and Facebook

and not even that they're bad people, but they're dealing with a biblical amount of power and they're absolutely in over their heads. And, you know, I don't think they're bad i don't think they set out to control the world but like i wouldn't want that it's like that's an aversion of the nuclear suitcase like i would not want to be in the facebook algorithm how do you go to work if you work in the facebook algorithm place you know what i mean not think like hope i don't tweak something that like you know what i mean like sets off of this in this country. And you know what I mean?

And that stuff's so really powerful. It's amazing. One last break to talk about Lyft. If you are looking for a ride share option that will get you there safely and with a smile on your face with Lyft, you can get a ride in minutes for less than the cost of a cab.

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Download the free Lyft app today. Enter promo code Bill Simmons in the payment section. Three free rides up to $10 each. L-Y-F-T. Download the app. Try it out right now. Back to Matt and Trey. One of the things I check every day

because I've been trying not to get inundated by stuff is on your Apple phone or your iPad, if you just swipe to the left, it's got like the top four news stories. Right. I don't know how they pick them, but it's a nice reflection of whatever's happening. Right.

There's always a Trump story. Like we're taping this in the third week, April, but you know, the shooter, the guy, the shooter in Cleveland was on the loose. Like that guy had a story and it,

and it somehow picks the four, but I realized like whoever's picking that has an immense amount of power over my life. Yeah. See, I just tried it, and mine says couldn't load stories. Oh, you probably turned it off. I've turned it off, obviously. I'm going to look at it right now. So I'm not bothered.

But yeah, like Zuckerberg, they had this Facebook thing today, and they asked him about the guy who killed somebody and showed it on facebook and he's like yeah you know this gave what what kind of answer he's gonna give yeah we're gonna try to fix that like that's terrible we don't want people using our platform i think that here how do you how do you fix that if people could go live or put videos up yeah right now the stories are uh three killed in a shooting spree in fresno that That's terrible. It's just the stuff you need to know. Trump military strike, Russian bombers fly near Alaska, and then Hillary Clinton only has herself to blame for 2016 loss. Yep.

Just the stuff you need to know. Fair reflection. I was wondering who to blame. Oh, good. I looked at my iPad. Now I know it's me. Who's in 20 years who is the maddest at you guys? In 20 years?

In the last 20 years. Oh. Sean Penn. Sean Penn got really, really mad at us. Sean Penn? Yeah. Like we made fun of him in Team America and we made fun of him in something else

and he just got super duper mad at us. Like he'll fight you, right? Sean Penn. He wrote us a letter. He'll get in a fight with you, yeah. Yeah. He wrote you a letter? Yeah, he wrote us a letter

but it was so lame because he wrote us a letter but then he also, what, he gave the letter to like- He faxed it to us and he fa didn't it was so lame because he he wrote us a letter but then he also what he gave the letter to like he faxed he faxed it to he faxed it to us and he faxed it was fax by the way okay so there you go he faxed it to me or somebody faxed it to me it was like and i called you and i was reading i was like dude john penn wrote us a letter this is exactly what happened and then i was and then i was like check it out and i started reading it aloud to you and then we started we're like this sounds like an open letter like this doesn't sound like he didn't and of course he'd sent it to uh you know what i mean he had sent it to holly reporter but i was like and we're like oh my god he sent us a letter and then i was reading

he didn't send us yeah sent it to us you know but what was funny was that and apparently it was right after he'd seen the trailer for team america where he just knew that he was a puppet in team america but he hadn't seen the movie yet so he didn't know that all all sean penn ever says in team america is i've been to iraq i've been to iraq i've been to iraq right and and in the letter he writes i've been to iraq and it just made us laugh so fucking hard yeah i'm trying to think if anybody else got mad at us no you must have run into some of these people that you've tweaked yeah well i mean and that's what you know early on and especially like right after the south park movie yeah we made fun of aldwin we had to we stood behind him at the tony's or something yeah but we you know he was awkward but he was nice we used to get invited to hollywood parties and like the the vanity fair oscars party and all that we'd

get invited to all that and we don't get invited to anything anymore i i know if we we went the last we went to one of those vanity fair the the oscar party we went a couple years in a row because just the everybody there you just know like it's incredible this this the star power there yeah we just sit in the middle of the room and have our drinks and stuff and then we went one year and there was like just a like we just had something there was like a just a circle around us that no one was getting near us. Like we had, we had some, we realized we had pissed enough.

Eric Idle came over and talked to us. I think that was about it. And we're like, I think we've, I think we got to go. I think people don't want to, it just felt like that, you know,

felt like, Oh, it's probably the best thing for the show. Right. To be a little bit on the outside. Well, that's the thing about SNL that you're talking about. And it's hard because you don't,

when you hear, when you feel comedy is being chummy, it like super weak that's what i'm saying comedy always has like a good comedy has like some kind of honesty and a lot of time meanness to it like just mean you know right it just is and you know and so like best moments has been there's been a mean edge to some of the sketches that and like really good comedy that people can make it and make it likeable and stuff, but it's about, you don't want to feel that they're friends

with the person they're making fun of. That's not fun. But SNL, they're different. They have to be that way. You know what I mean? I respect the hell out of them. Even to go on, to do what we do,

which is basically what they do, and then at the end of our week, go live on television, that sounds crazy to me you know as you guys got older is it weird that you didn't change the process really is it because you're more you're just comfortable with it or do you need the energy of any every possible minute we have it's just like everything just gets you know it used to be that like on sunday i remember it was like on sunday if we didn't have 13 minutes of show we were screwed yeah right or actually no it was like 18 we had to have like on sunday we have to have like 18 minutes there's just numbers there were these numbers we had to

hit and those numbers have just slowly come down and down and down to where like now it's sunday and it's like yeah you know it's sunday we only have 10 minutes of show but we'll figure it out monday so you're like the kids in college with the term paper that you're starting as late as possible percent trey was like trey and i were both like do the term paper the morning of set the set the alarm for 3 30 get up have some coffee because the most do a term paper the most painful part of it is committing to something you know you sit there in the room and you're like well this could be funny or this could be funny and making that decision of which way to go like and at least we're in this microcosm where we only have six days yeah because otherwise we would just work for 10 years on the same movie you know because it it really is like there's so much writer's block of just

like oh these are you could do it this way or you could do it this way i don't know which is right and so i'll just wait to the last possible second to make that choice and in the meantime yeah but it's all feedback too you know you want to do a little scene and watch something you've talked about and watch the scene and be like oh that is funny you know and and there's a little bit of magic that happens being able to being able to unlike other animated shows being able to do something look at it okay that works that doesn't let's do more of that tonight you know that let's follow that through oh let's do two let's do two callbacks to that

like that kind of sculpting and kind of going back and layering is fun do you feel kinship with some of these other shows that have been on for a while and i've had to go through the ebbs and flows or you don't care like who you don't know like simpsons has been on forever i guess different people are yeah i mean at this point family guy's been on for a while it's weird and it may be the yeah i don't the only the kinship like it's it's not i i don't think it's really there in a big way but it's funny getting to know bill hater and i think i understand the snl both the appeal and how hard it is to do that show and like we're very very different but i guess that's the position we've

put ourselves in is that kind of almost live performance well and sometimes there'll be a big thing that happens in the world and you're like, okay, and we're doing shows. So it's like, okay, we're probably going to do that.

We do have to think like, okay, what's SNL going to do? You know what I mean? Like, cause, cause we have to kind of, we do come to the office on Sunday morning,

like this season where it's like, you're doing a lot of date, you know, you look, okay, what, what happened last night on SNL? What did they just do it again?

So we don't do the same thing. Cause we're obviously all sniffing around the, we're all living through this. So. You don't have to worry about them doing the Caitlyn Jenner stuff. No. They didn't have her running

over people in her car. Are you worried that there's not going to be a season 21 because of a writer's strike or no? Well, we're not going to strike, so we're fine. It's just me and Trey and Vernon.

Yeah. Oh. Yeah, there's no. Any thoughts on the writer's strike? I don't know. We talked about a lot about the last writer's strike i don't know we talked about a lot about the last writer's strike remember because both you and i thought it was a bad idea

and i think it was it was a terrible idea i'm not so sure this time i don't know enough about it but it does seem like the thing that i was the thing that i didn't buy about the last writer's strike because they were striking for those internet dollars that weren't there yet yeah and they are there now i feel like for so it's different now. But I don't know the merits of the strike. But the last one was a disaster. Yeah, the last strike, I wrote about it some. And I remember we talked about it. And I never understood because I knew just from my ESPN experience

that nobody could figure out how to monetize anything online yet. Right, we knew too. And it was like, you're striking for stuff that they don't have answers for and don't do this now wait until some of the answers come but i don't know it just seemed like it was being driven from a certain group and then things take hold and all of a sudden people are out there holding picket signs it was like yeah we had friends that went to the the vote and they got drunk before i remember there was some rather yeah i think it was like fun to go i think it was people were pissed off about what they saw was an inequality but they it was this time around

do you think it's different do you think it's different i do because i the whole motto is so different i think the danger of it is when when you strike you give them a chance to reset the infrastructure again because last time it was like the greatest thing that ever happened to hollywood they completely changed this system that just wasn't beneficial to people that actually were spending the money they were able to get rid of all these deals all these development deals they changed the pilot process and all that stuff so i wonder this time around if you give people a chance to reset how will they reset at this time and will that be a good thing i would say it's dangerous oh yeah i'd say that the netflix the netflix model of like pay everybody out no residuals like that's the that would win it seems like that's winning right now and i'm not

sure i'm sure that's like got to be the central i mean i don't even know what i'm talking about right now i don't even know what the strike's about but it does seem like that the that the business has changed a bunch since the last strike and mostly about the primacy of television and shorter series that's an issue yeah that's an issue and syndication is less important than it was on what television what the definition of television is now i don't need netflix amazon hulu all of that stuff it's just it does feel different it does feel like in about five years, Netflix, Facebook, and Amazon will just, and Apple, Google. Hulu.

What do you mean? Maybe Hulu. It'll just be like seven companies controlling everything. Yes, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft. Amazon could just look around and go, we're going to get into ticketing. And then there's like, all right, Ticketmaster, we're taking this. Two or three years ago like even two or three years ago because we've been wanting to

do another movie basically since since book of mormon we don't know what the movie is but we when we talk like it may be great to do another movie because i said we kind of started in film yeah and two or three years ago four years ago or whatever not relatively recently the feeling was remember there was this couple years where like you couldn't get a 20 million dollar movie made you can make huge huge franchise you can get seven transformers movies greenlit right or at the same time but you can't get this these little movies and then all of a sudden in the last like three years it feels totally different because of amazon because of netflix like people are doing real cool

documentaries for them real cool narrative films that are like a million two million five million dollars budgets right 10 million you know relatively small um and they're getting and they're like winning all the oscars and it's like they're all it's it's incredible and i feel like some at some part of that is just jeff bezos could just go let's spend like 500 million dollars in movies i don't know just see like i mean that's like pocket change to amazon and completely transforms the the film industry from from from people like our perspective like holy shit we could go make a fight you know we could get the money to go do a five million dollar movies kind of started doing that i mean they've definitely changed indies indies they just

go and they buy and all of a sudden this they spent a hundred thousand on a movie and you sell for a million bucks you don't have to worry about whether people are going to see it and yeah it's just like she's there i feel like the stupid studios just again gave them a whole like didn't there's this whole kind of industry there and it's all of our friends that make movies all the people we know are like netflix will give me money i'm gonna go make something great for them and they will like let you do it it's like just cut a check yeah it seems like this has been happening now for almost two years yeah yeah and it's like if you're a creative person you had your dream project go to netflix talk them into it yep i didn't i didn't really get it while they were doing it it looked like a vanity thing but i was really really smart of them

to do the house of cards thing and the transparent yeah thing to to go and to win awards you just like actors and directors and producers like they they don't want to go spend a year of their life on something that isn't seen in the same they want to and i don't think they need to win an award but they don't want to not they want to be respected it was crazy how well that worked you know remember the yankees and the red sox in early 2000s when they had more money than everyone else and they're like i need a i need a number one starter i'm gonna get that guy it does feel like that's where this is going like netflix is like we should get into stand-up comedies yeah and they just go and they get chappelle and they get amy schumer they just chris rock the best ones like here's 100 billion dollars

oh we just now we own stand-up comedies. All right, what's next? Here's some change laying on the ground. We'll go and just own that space. And then all of us instantly go, okay, that makes total sense. Great. That's fine. So basically, you're announcing your new Netflix deal. Yeah.

Let's go to Netflix. It's just changing so fast that now I just think that's really interesting. The film industry now seems like all of a sudden kind of to me like interesting again would you rather release a movie in the theater or finish a movie and all of a sudden the next day it's up on netflix or amazon or wherever i really care yeah i don't know i think i'd like to be in a theater old school no i get i get i get why people are old school about it romantic about it or that that you know one of the things that i I think Netflix did it wrongly at first, but I do think as they get into, okay, so this is the difference.

This is why it took so long. The reason is because they wouldn't pay for content before, right? And this is what I'm saying is they talked about all the algorithms that they use and they talked about all that stuff, all that user data, how they're going to eat everyone's lunch with that. And so we heard about that for a few years. And then they ended up just going to Sundance, buying movies, you know what I mean, like everybody else,

from not algorithms, but from people that know movies. How they bought the Sandler thing I thought was fascinating. They just looked at it, and they looked at what their habits of their viewers were. And their viewers loved Adam Sandler movies movies and serenity was just like we should just give that guy a four movie deal and he could just make these movies for us and that's it is that cool or not i don't know is that it's a it's one of the reasons we're probably gonna have a strike i don't know yeah i mean i'm i'm happy i'm I mean personally I'm fine with Adam Sandler movies to

not be around and then be on Netflix over there like but I don't know everybody else can can find it there were you was was there like 10 of you guys that were nostalgic slash jealous slash whatever when Hamilton took off because it kind of married when the book of mormon took off and it was really the first kind of phenomenon yeah what is that what's with that maybe 20 yeah oh no it's it's that feeling of recognition of like and i've seen it i've seen it twice i saw it off broadway and on broadway and it's unbelievably great it's like deserves every bit of it there's a little bit of that the sports analogy the old quarterback it's like deserves every bit of it. There's a little bit of that sports analogy, the old quarterback. It's like looking back at the young quarterback.

You know, you can't, that is not you, but you recognize they're going through this ride or something. It's even more meteoric and more, you know, incredible. Yeah. But it's like good jealousy. I don't know. You know what I mean? It's really great.

You're probably one of the only two people that could even understand what that's like when it's like you spend all this time doing something you throw it out in the world then it's like boom yeah

and then it just keeps going can I have tickets can I have tickets can I have tickets and that's your life for the next two years yeah and it just keeps going

like we were just in we were just in Australia for the premiere in Melbourne of Book of Mormon of Book of Mormon and it's just it's just crazy that like, you know,

there we are again just watching that same show and watching a whole bunch of people. Oh, wow. Oh, man, that's so funny. It's like, to us, it's like, man, that was eight years ago, you know, seven years ago. How many countries has it been in now? It's just UK and Australia.

And pretty much every state. Yeah, there's been a road tour going around. There's a road tour going around right now. I'm not even sure where it is no it's it's like trace said it's totally weird it's like you do it and then you sort of it's out sending a kid off to college yeah yeah and you can't you can't micromanage it was something we got told kind of by some the broadway veterans they said you know you it it's hard because you know it's south park you can control every single line and every single thing you can make it exactly how you want it at least you know the time constraints but then and then it's out there and with book of mormon it's just like you know it's going on right now it's gonna in new york

it's gonna start in half an hour and and you know just just the the idea of that and we probably don't even know anyone in the cast no you know what i mean it's like we and we haven't worked with them or anything and like it's just it's i mean it's just you show up they're shocked you're there what are you guys doing it's kind of how it is hey guys oh my god hope it's sort of what we wanted but you know it's like it's crazy if you guys do anything to fuck with brady with like movie or musical i'm gonna be really upset we are we're doing we have a good tom brady joke we have a good bell check and tom brady joke and i just wrote a great song called liar liar and uh we have some burning pants i'm gonna be very upset please don't do that all right so you're back in august there was no chance of you guys just packing it in

uh probably not this season, but Yeah, we'll make it through this season. I think we'll get it through this one at least. Could this be the last season? No, I mean, well, we have a contract for three more years. So we're trying to make it that. When you're not feeling it anymore, that's going to be it. Yeah. I don't see you guys doing

a season because you have a contract. But we're never feeling it when we're doing it. It's always sort of afterwards that we're like, oh, I'm glad we did that. I think that's why you hear us a little bit bummed out about season 20 because I think usually we're really in it and we hate it and then we get done in a month later and we're like, that was really cool. I like that.

And then season 20, I think we're looking back and going, I think it just feels like it was really, really hard. Yeah, but you guys said you compare it to sports right and each one's like a season and you look back like trump is kind of like a sprained mcl yeah yeah or like it's kind of like a torn or something yeah or some lucky team that gets 25 points in a quarter and a half and like takes your takes your super bowl from yeah yeah you lose the coin flip

yeah that goes wrong you get all the way to the super bowl and lose you know god i don't i don't i don't think they recover from that no oh it's just like there's no way if you're there's no way that coach at some point doesn't go and all right i'm gonna watch the tape this one time and then it's just having a stroke all the ways it could go wrong all right matt and trey cool good luck this is fun i'm glad we finally did this thank you cool thank you thanks so much to books remember sending flowers has always been the best way to show someone you care but it isn't always easy or satisfying thankfully books.com is a better way to buy flowers with fully transparent pricing

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Hopefully I will have a column on TheRinger.com as well. Thanks again to Matt and Trey. That was great. On the wayside On the first I never said I don't have to ever say