‘South Park’ is Still Thrown Together at the Last Minute, Video Game Developer Confirms
The South Park franchise may be worth more than a billion dollars, but that doesn’t mean that Trey Parker and Matt Stone have given up on their “frat boy cramming for their biology final at the last minute” approach to episodic television production.
The duo famously thrive on an intentionally hectic schedule, which often finds them throwing together South Park episodes in less than a week and revising story elements even after much of the show has already been animated. “It is so nice to be able to do something and react to it,” Parker said of the process at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. “I still can’t write a scene and be like, ‘Oh that’s going to be good.’ I have to see it.”
This year’s frequently confusing schedule affords Parker and Stone far more time between episodes; at least two, and sometimes even three, weeks. So, does that mean that they’re plotting out each episode earlier than usual? Not at all.
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There have been a few signs that the pair haven’t adjusted their “super-stressful” workflow despite the extra lead time. For starters, actress April Stewart, who voices characters like Wendy and Mrs. Cartman, revealed that Parker and Stone called on her to record lines at one o’clock in the morning, less than 24 hours before the show actually aired.
Then, in September, South Park missed its deadline for the first time since 2013, which Matt Stone later said was “the price of being a procrastinator.”
Now we have yet another peek into the semi-chaotic behind-the-scenes operations of the show, thanks to video game developers Embark Studios. The company’s popular game ARC Raiders made a brief appearance in the most recent South Park episode, “Turkey Trot,” while Cartman feuds with Tolkien over the ethics of taking money from Saudi Arabia.
As Embark’s marketing lead revealed on Linkedin, per Eurogamer, South Park Studios only contacted them last Monday, and they didn’t actually provide the footage until Tuesday, just one day before the episode aired.
In what may or may not qualify as a Thanksgiving miracle, everything worked out in the end, and the South Park successfully incorporated the footage into the show – even though it was largely obscured by Cartman’s head.
