Marc Shaiman Talks Co-Writing the Songs with Trey Parker for 'South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut'

While the jabs weren’t as relentless as the ones aimed at Donald Trump this season, a rewatch of South Park’s fourth season reveals a surprising number of jokes at Phil Collins’s expense. Unlike many of the show’s celebrity targets in those early years — often picked at random — Collins was singled out for a reason: Trey Parker, and to a lesser extent Matt Stone, had a personal axe to grind.

Just before Season Four, Phil Collins won the Oscar for Best Original Song for “You'll Be in My Heart” from Disney’s Tarzan, beating out Trey Parker and co-writer Marc Shaiman’s “Blame Canada” from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. The loss would have stung no matter what, but something about Collins winning it — for both Parker and Shaiman — really stuck in their craw. It’s one of many stories Shaiman revisits here.

Composer and lyricist Marc Shaiman has earned a Tony, two Emmys and two Grammys for his work on stage, screen and television (and South Park nearly gave him the Oscar, if not for Collins). He recently finished his memoir, Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner, out in January and available for preorder now. In it, Shaiman recounts his entire journey with South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, as well as his ill-fated collaboration with Parker and Stone on Team America: World Police.

If you’re looking for the dirt on that latter story, Shaiman says you’ll have to buy the book, but he was happy to talk about getting the job on South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and what it was like collaborating with Trey Parker, all while sharing memories from the film’s biggest musical numbers.

Joining South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

In the late 1990s, I was working a lot with producer Scott Rudin. He knew how to make use of me really well, but nothing could compare to the day he said, “I don't know if you know that I have the rights to the South Park movie. They're going to make a movie and they want it to be a musical and you'd be great to just help them realize what they want to do.” My head immediately exploded. 

That said, Trey Parker doesn't really need any help in any facet. He can do anything he wants to do. He is truly, of all the “geniuses” I have met, he is truly a genius. He can do everything and do it well and do it with humor and camaraderie. 

I was scoring the movie Patch Adams at the time and Rudin sent me down to their office. He said, “The guys just need to meet you to make sure that they think it's going to work.” The first thing I said to them was, “You are so going to hate the movie I'm scoring right now. Just this morning, I was scoring a scene where Robin Williams uses an enema bulb as a clown nose and bedpans as clown feet and dances around a children's cancer ward.” I think they got such a kick out of the fact that I was being so honest. They understood that I got them and said, “Sure, let's join forces.”

I got to do everything on that movie that I ever wanted to do — write music, co-write music, co-write lyrics, arrange, orchestrate. I'm even the voice of one of the boys in “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” And I got to be animated and play for Big Gay Al. It was such a joyous thing. 

On “Mountain Town”

Trey already had a whole script when I started. He had some songs pretty much fully written and some half-written. The opening number was one that lent itself most to me jumping in and joining forces with him, just to make a clear song that was tipping its hat to other musicals. I think the beginning was almost like the beginning of The Sound of Music. I sent Trey what my thoughts were and he was completely open to them. I always say that I was Igor to Trey's Frankenstein, but “Mountain Town” is one of the numbers that was truly a real collaboration between the two of us — music and lyrics.

On “Uncle Fucka”

Then there are ones like "Uncle Fucka" that Trey wrote from beginning to end. I even tried to rewrite a few lyrics so that the rhymes were perfect rhymes — because some of his rhymes are what’s called imperfect or slanted rhymes — but he said, “No, no, I like it just the way I wrote it.” My big idea on that one was that Terrance and Phillip, who are fart-obsessed, would, instead of having a tap-dance break, have a fart-dance break.

Around this time, I'd been nominated for an Oscar for Patch Adams and I'm at the Oscar nominee luncheon — a very classy, dignified luncheon — and I'm sitting at a table with a very sophisticated lady in pearls, and she says, “So, Mr. Shaiman, what are you working on now?” 

I just didn't have the heart to say, “Well, actually, all morning before I came here, I had asked the South Park sound library to send me every digital recording they have of every fart sound effect because I'm finding rhythms within them and cutting them up to create tap-dance-type rhythms out of all these fart sound effects.” I should have just told her I'm composing for wind instruments and left it at that. 

On “Kyle's Mom's a Bitch”

“Kyle's Mom's a Bitch” had already been on the TV show, but I had the idea of an “It's a Small World” version in all different languages. This was pre-Google, so their research department had to get me the translations of “Kyle's mom's a bitch” in all these different languages. I sat there all night and recorded myself singing all the harmonies and vocal parts for the around-the-world section, some of which goes by so fast you can’t even make out actual words. At one point, I said to Trey, “The choir is going to redo all my vocals, and it's going to be so fun to watch this choir singing it,” and he said, “Over my dead body. You are not replacing your vocals.” So those are still my vocals on that song, which is just pure insanity.

On “Blame Canada”

For “Blame Canada,” Trey kept writing songs for Kyle's mom to have this big moment in which warfare starts. The songs he was writing made her into a huge red Disney villain on a mountaintop. Then Columbine happened and we just talked about what we could do that was funny and said something about society but doesn't completely make a parent into a villain for trying to protect their kids.

I think he had written two songs for this moment and he came over to my studio — it wasn't even meant to be a writing day — but we started talking about what else this song could be. And that was the only song where I went to the piano and started playing like a march tempo — “Blame Canada, blame Canada.”

“What if they are just placing blame? That's a big part of society, placing blame elsewhere.” Then Trey came over and we sat at the piano bench. That's the only song that we truly wrote 50/50, sitting next to each other, singing into each other's faces.

It was a sweet thing that “Blame Canada” ended up being the song to submit for Oscar consideration. Many people wanted "Uncle Fucka" to be submitted, but for many reasons, “Blame Canada” was chosen instead. One of those reasons was because Trey is such a nice guy. He said, “It's got to be something that's got Mark on it as well.”

So that was the one submitted and it was chosen. Then came time to decide who should perform it. I think it was Gilbert Cates, the producer of the Academy Awards for many years, who said, “How about Robin Williams?” I knew Robin from my life in comedy, having worked with him on HBO specials and with Billy Crystal. The irony: I got the job on South Park by badmouthing Patch Adams, then Robin Williams performs “Blame Canada.” I certainly never told Robin that, although he would've laughed hardest. 

You can imagine how fun the rehearsals for that were — getting to see the song realized in human form at the Academy-fucking-Awards. Then to be sitting there between Matt and Trey dressed as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez — not only did it feel like I was on acid, but that Matt and Trey were too.

Finally, I will admit that when Cher said, “And the Oscar goes to, 'You'll Be In My Heart,'" I might have heard Trey say, “Oh, not Phil Collins.” Even now, when it comes on the radio, I will mockingly shake my fists to my husband and go, “I'll get you Phil Collins!”