Southpark: The gift of an animated Christmas miracle
The festive origins of the madcap animation show
When we think of Christmas TV, we generally refer to Home Alone or Die Hard. However, my favourite Christmas-themed show is Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Southpark.
The origins of our beloved town, nestled near the snow capped mountains of Colorado, packed with oddball weirdos navigating the slings and arrows of daily life actually lie in two Christmas short films. In 1992, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the co-creators of the show, founded a production company named the “Avenging Conscience”. Despite signing and agent, and having lots of meetings in Hollywood, the two creators couldn’t get any of their ideas greenlighted. In 1995, after coming across their Jesus vs. Frosty 1992 short, Fox executive Brian Graden commissioned Parker and Stone to create a video card that he could mail his friends as a Christmas greeting. They came up with Jesus vs. Santa (1995). The clip was too rude for Graden to send out widely and to his bosses. Even so, he could not stop himself from sending it to some close friends, many who were not even in the industry, because it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. The short proved so popular that it became one of the first pieces of media to go viral — as an email forward.
