Trey Parker Wanted ‘South Park’ to Show That Halloween Is Good for Kids
We’re getting a new episode of South Park this week, just two days before Halloween, meaning that fans' pleas for another storyline themed around the spooky season could finally be answered — especially now that Cartman has been abducted by amateur exorcist Peter Thiel.
The show obviously has a long history of Halloween-themed shows, beginning with Season One’s “Pinkeye.” The episode began with Kenny being fatally crushed by a flaming chunk of the Mir Space Station. When his corpse is inadvertently embalmed with Worcestershire sauce, Kenny becomes a full-on zombie.
Don't Miss
Meanwhile, Cartman shows up to school dressed as Adolf Hitler, forcing the school administration to make him an entirely new replacement costume. Unfortunately, the last-minute “ghost” outfit is similarly horrific.
In the DVD commentary for the episode, Trey Parker and Matt Stone revealed that they originally planned to use Diet Dr. Pepper instead of Worcestershire sauce, but “Dr. Pepper wouldn’t let us” since the company didn’t want to be associated with embalming children and/or zombism for some reason.
They also discussed their childhood experiences with Halloween, which wasn’t always easy due to the weather. “Up in the mountains in Colorado where I grew up, we couldn’t really go trick or treating because there was always so much snow and the houses were so far apart,” Parker recalled. “You had to get your costume and then you put on your winter coat and your moon boots and your hat over it, and then you got driven in dad’s truck to the next house and you could take it all off and run to the door and ring (the bell) and get your thing. Basically anyone that’s walking around in the streets just looked like people in winter clothing because it was too cold.”
Parker went on to explain that he wanted South Park’s spooky episodes to reinforce the important role that Halloween plays in children’s lives. “Halloween’s a great thing,” Parker noted. “That was part of what we wanted (to say). I think in a later Halloween special we did there was sort of a… There were so many people that were starting to say that Halloween wasn’t PC either, and it was wrong for kids to go around with hatchets in their heads and stuff like that, and maybe that was the reason for all the violence.”
“Halloween has been around forever, and it’s been fine,” he continued. “I think that kids having this kind of mythology is great. It’s like the Day of the Dead in Mexico, where it’s like, in a way you’re celebrating death and you’re pointing at death and acknowledging it as a part of life.”
He’s right, Halloween is a great activity for kids. Specifically the kids who don’t dress up as Hitler.
