The South Park Timeline

The SP Timeline 1991-1999

1991-1994


	1991 - Parker makes American History with Chris Graves. It wins the silver medal at the 1993 Student Academy Awards. Parker and Stone met at the Unversity of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) when Parker was making The Giant Beaver of Southern Sri Lanka for class, and they began to collaborate on student films. Trey had also discussed making Cannibal! The Musical beginning December of '91, but there was no snow on the ground that month, and no one was ready to start work on it, so the project was put off until a later time. May 1992 - Trey was engaged to marry Liane Adamo, but she met and fell for a guy in an a capella group and left Trey. From this experience he created at least three charaacters based on her. He was also determined to make a movie. 1992 - Parker started work on Cannibal! The Musical, first as a stage production, then as a three minute fake trailer made for an advanced film production class. As a joke, during the summer, Parker said he was going to make the actual film. June 1992 - He and Stone made a $300 trailer for it July 1992 - They edited the trailer. August 1992 - The trailer was finalized. August - December 1992 - They started plans on making and funding the film. Trey, Matt, Jason McHugh, and Ian Hardin formed Avenging Conscience Productions, Inc. which brought both the original version of The Spirit of Christmas and Orgazmo to the screen. Cannibal Films, Ltd. soon followed. Moira Kelly was contacted and espresses interest in being part of it. Winder 1993 - They showed the trailer to possible investors in December. These people showed so much interest in it that Parker and friends then went into pre-production. January 1993 - Trey went to Sundance and submitted the trailer, but it was rejected. He set up his own screening for 20 people at a Park City hotel's banquet room. This act was one of the inspirations for a rival festival, Slamdance, which began the following year in Park City, Utah. Now, both festivals are there. One of the people at the screening was Foxlab executive Brian Graden, who took an interest in the film. Moira's agent finally hears about her involvement in the film and pulls her out of it. She remains on the film's credits as "The Dropout" M.K. February 1993 - Trey and friends deposit $75,000 in $2500 shares in the bank and begin production. March-April 1993 - Principal photography. Trey and friends cast the last few roles while they continue working weekends on the film, since weekdays were for college. April 1993 - He got a hairline hip fracture during an accident riding one of the Lianes, but never had it repaired. He was kicked out of UCB for missing too many classes, while Matt stayed in to finish his math degree. They finished the movie with a cast of fellow students (and Trey's father as the judge) and $125,000 culled from family, friends, and rich people. May-July 1993 - Post-production: some scenes were reshot as the film was edited. MTV showed up to interview Matt and Trey at this time. August-September 1993 - Final editing was done, and the film was submitted to various film festivals. October 1993 - The duo attended most, if not all, the film festivals they submitted the movie to. It premieres at the Fox Theater in Boulder. April 1994 - After Stone got his degree, he and Parker move to Los Angeles. Summer-Fall 1994 - Parker and Stone go to San Diego as part of a BBC crew to shoot a documentary about porn in America. During the shoot, they approach Tim Lake, a man who had his own porn company and present him with a script about the industry. Tim likes it, but takes them to some sets to get the porn stuff right. This leads to Orgazmo. Porn films Parker and Stone worked on with Tim Lake: Profiles for the Young and Horny and Sex for Life. Octoberr 1994 - Cannibal! The Musical finally premieres during the Denver International Film Festival, which took place on October, 13th, 15th, 19th, and 21st.

1995-1996


	1995 - David Zucker asks Parker to direct a short that was to spoof Seagram's purchase of MCA/Universal, and Parker make Your Studio and You. Traci Lords and Sylvester Stallone are among the stars who appear in the short. Parker and Stone, assisted by Graden, begin discussions with various channels, including Comedy Central and Fox, about a show they'd like to make. They use several voices from the show, called "Conifer" at the time, but they are shown the door. They reject HBO, but present the show to Fox. Fox rejects it. Once the show airs on Comedy Central and thrives, Fox executives who rejected the show are shown the door. Parker and Stone showed Graden one of their early works, The Spirit of Christmas, which is now known as Frosty. He gave them $2000 and asked them to produce an updated version for him to use as a Christmas video card (they made it for $750 and pocketed the rest - for Christmas presents and rent). Graden made 40 copies and sent them to friends. He would have sent it to 500 people, but most of them were studio heads he just knew he couldn't send it to. On the other hand, Parker and Stone considered making a "Mr Hankey" short instead. The video card was circulated around Hollywood by George Clooney (who later voiced Sparky, the gay dog) and others, and it became the underground cult hit of the animation industry. Rock groups such as Metallica and Tool played the short during their concerts. Trey and Matt soon heard from people in every state about their video, and friends in Ohio sent them a copy and asked them to have a look at it. One path the short took was from some people who worked in an LA studio, through five other people, to Tim Skirvin, a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). In 1996, the card, The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Santa, was featured in Spike and Mike's Sick And Twisted Festival of Animation, and is now an anchor of that festival. In 1997 it receives a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for best animation. I saw the video in the festival and just knew it would appear as a series on cable in a year or two, possibly with the town's name as the title: South Park. Parker was offered the chance to direct Barney, the Movie, but he passed on it. The show was going to be called The Mr. Hankey Show, but Graden persuaded Trey and Matt to focus more on the four boys and on the town. And so, Trey and Matt renamed the show South Park. Another of their ideas for a show was two singing apes who hung upside down. They opted for Comedy Central because some of their favorite shows were there: Monty Python, Absolutely Fabulous, Kids In The Hall. March, 1996 - Before attending the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen Colorado, Comedy Central's Debbie Leibling closes a deal with Matt and Trey for a pilot based on The Spirit Of Christmas, and Matt and Trey spent the summer of '96 working on it. In casting the female voices, they invite Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson) to try out. After seeing The Spirit of Christmas, she walked out disgusted, and the next female went in. That female? Mary Kay Bergman! October 1996 - Trey and Matt finish the pilot to South Park. It's quite different from the first episode. The instrumental version of the original opening song survives on the closing credits of the episodes, while Primus redid the opening song. The opening sequence is quite different from the current ones, though it shows a lot of the familiar bits. The closing credits shows four naked men dancing in a forest whose genitals are censored with a large black bar across the screen. December 1996 - Tim Skirvin digitizes "The Spirit of Christmas", with Dave Weber's help and MAC, and posts it in a number of formats at his site (http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~tskirvin/soxmas - now moved to the Original SOXMAS Distribution site run by the Daemons). He distributes the short to the net at UIUC first. Once the short causes bandwidth problems, Skirvin encourages other netizens to set up mirror sites. Paul Swanson writes up a transcript of the short.

1997


	January 13, 1997 - Paul Swanson's "The Spirit of Christmas" transcript is set to HTML by Tim Skirvin, and posted to the Web by the Daemons at UIUC. January 28, 1997 - Rick May, freelance animator, posts a history of The Spirit Of Christmas from the Sundance Institute which reveals that Trey and Matt had sold South Park to Comedy Central and had a budget of $1.5 million to create a full-length animated feature. February 1997 - Trey and Matt begin shooting Orgazmo. During the second week of shooting, they find out South Park was picked up to become a series. They finish by spring and start work on South Park, which is a good thing, as people who had turned down Parker and Stone earlier got wind of the short's presence on the Internet and took a second look. Orgazmo is a hit at the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival and at Slamdance in January 1998. February 7, 1997 - David F. Bills is the second site to have a site dedicated to the The Spirit of Christmas with script, short, and history. April 18, 1997 - Taison Tan opens up a SOXMAS site. It's the third site to have the short. June 1, 1997 - Taison Tan opens up his unofficial South Park Web site and mentions changes made to the show pilot. He also mentions that tapes of the pilot have been circulated throughout the nation. June 6, 1997 - South Park first mentioned in TV Guide. Trey and Matt finish production on Orgazmo at around this time. Later, Matt and Trey start making South Park's first 2 episodes and are asked to do BASEketball. Trey was asked to direct the film, but turned it down to concentrate on South Park. He and Matt are then asked to star in the movie instead. They agree, figuring it would be fun and easy, and that South Park would be cancelled by the time they started filming. A few Web sites related to South Park are already up and running, including the Original SOXMAS Distribution site. June 20, 1997 - At the première of Batman And Robin Trey and Matt ask George Clooney to voice a gay dog for the show the next day. He agrees to do it. June 28, 1997 - Alt.tv.southpark appears among the newsgroups. Its creator is Jon Deutsch. People begin posting binaries there, necessitating the creation of alt.binaries.southpark. July 26, 1997 - Taison mentions a few guest celebrities that might appear on the show, like Michael Keaton and George Clooney. August 6, 1997 - Taison's unofficial South Park site becomes A South Park Information Center. He mentions Kathy Lee Gifford being joked about. August 9, 1997 - ZDNet presents a history of "The Spirit of Christmas". August 13, 1997 - South Park premières! Comedy Central airs the first of four planned South Park episodes, "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe". A viewership of 65,000 households greets the première. Thirty-five people work on creating the episodes. The two other sites that came to make up Beef-Cake soon appear on the Internet: The Beefcake South Park Sound Archive (by Jonathan "Elvis" Davis), and Blackbart's South Park Page (by Shannon Greene, handles scripts and images, and linked to sounds within the scripts). Soon a small bunch of new sites appeared such as Mr Hat's Hellhole, Ray's Southpark Zone, and The South Park Cows. Work begins on BASEketball. Filming begins next year. August 19, 1997 - Taison reveals what Kyle said to the visitors. Kyle: YOU KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE !? I BET YOU"D ALL LIKE TO (BEEP) YOUR OWN (BEEP) WHILE SHE (BEEP) ON YOUR (BEEP) (BEEP) !! September 14, 1997 - The Washington Post reports that the show has been picked up for another 13 episodes, to begin airing next spring. Trey and Matt find out after "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" airs, so they know before September 10. Also, Parker and Stone finally get the computers to replicate the look of the original construction-paper cutouts (that means they finally got the textures right). Finally, episodes are to be released to video after episode 13. September 21, 1997 - South Park Underground opens. October 16, 1997 - Comedy Central urges Webmasters - Webcasters - to stop webcasting the show, but doesn't crack down on them. This becomes a yearly threat, and every year it's made, a few more sites close down. Kickass! appears. South Park wins a CableACE Award for animated programming, special or series. October 24, 1997 - Entertainment Weekly reports that South Park's memorable Big Gay Boat Ride will morph into a float and lead the procession at New York City's 24th Annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. "From concept to execution, it's the dumbest idea ever", says Park cocreator Matt Stone of the brainstorm from Comedy Central's publicity dept. "But that's what's so sweet about it." Onlookers will enjoy reenactments of classic Park bits, including Kyle's kicking of his baby brother and Stan's vomiting, as performed by actors and Comedy Central employees. The float will feature Big Gay Al and some of the gay animals along with the South Park kids. Chef's green Town and Country is going to be pulling the float. There will be a contest at the local radio station. The winner of the contest gets to ride on the float. Comedy Central releases "A Mother's Courage" as both a comic strip and an online video, but the video format it is released in becomes obsolete. Only the comic strip remains. November 11, 1997 - At a Q&A session at UCLA, Trey and Matt reveal some sources for the characters on the show. Shelley is Trey's older sister, Cartman's mom is his mom, but as a crack whore. Mr. Hat is a kindergarten puppet. Cartman is basically the garbage in everyone's soul. Eric Stough, who was at the session with the duo, reveals that he made the rats that came after Kenny in The Spirit of Christmas. Trey says A Christmas Story (see Favorite Movies in The Creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone) was the model he used to base the show on the boys instead of on Mr. Hankey. This is Taison's recap of the UCLA interview, as he was there: I got there late so I missed like the first 15 minutes so I know I don't have everything here. Some interesting questions were asked of them. Such as, "Is Mr. Garrison really gay?" Trey's answer was a "NO" in a Mr. Garrison voice. Very funny indeed. Other little tidbit information given out was that Cartman's mom was styled after Trey's own mother, except his mother wasn't a crack whore. : ) Mr. Hat was also a real puppet that Trey's teacher used to use to teach one of his classes back in his elementary school days. The teacher would just play a record with the lessons on there and then move the puppet's mouth. : ) Also Trey mentioned that he was kinda like Stan while Matt was kinda like Kyle. Matt is also Jewish and he once again confirmed that the photo of the girl in the first episode in Cartman's house really is his sister. Since Stan is kinda like Trey, the subject of Shelley was brought up. And indeed Trey really does have an older sister named Shelley who really did used to kick his ass. His last comment however was that it was now pay back time. : ) When asked who Cartman was modeled after, they said, "Cartman is basically the garbage in everyone's soul." That brought a laughter out of the crowd. And when asked about Kenny they just said, "Oh he's the guy that dies every week." Their initial intentions on Kenny was that they didn't want it to be known so much that Kenny would die every week. They were hoping that when people saw the first show they would see Kenny die. Then when they watched the second show they would see that he was back and that would maybe cause people to think it was an old show and that Kenny wasn't going to die again, but then he does. But then they would watch the next show and see Kenny back and think that maybe he wouldn't die, but then he really dies. However, Comedy Central decided to pick up the idea of Kenny's death and it was just sent everywhere to all the press releases and his death is now never a shock. This also brought up the question if Matt and Trey ever saw the promotional commercials for the show since some commercials revealed Kenny's death which some people would rather wait and see. Matt and Trey weren't happy about it either but it was not much they could do. Concerning commercials aired during the show, Volkswagen is a big sponsor of the show. If you may remember the DA DA DA commercial comes on every now and then in the commercials. However, for the Halloween episode, Volkswagen decided to not have a commercial as you can all understand why. : ) (Cartman's Hitler costume) They have basically two groups of people for sponsors. Those who don't want to be a part of South Park at all and then those who really want their commercials on during South Park. There is really no in between amongst the sponsors. When asked if they were butt-rich now, they said compared to how they were before, yes, but compared to other people working in the same type of thing, no. However they did say they hoped to make a lot of money off the merchandising. : ) They also had a friend who came along with them named Eric. He was one of Trey's old schoolmates and he was the one who made the rats in the Spirit of Christmas for Kenny's death. When he finally spoke, he let out a piece of information which I think Matt and Trey may have hoped to have been saving. All that he mentioned was that an upcoming character would be the school counselor. Hmm....... Concerning their personal interests, someone asked what Monty Python movie was their favorite. I forgot what Matt said, but then Trey replied that his favorite all-time movie was A Christmas Story. You know the one with the kid named Ralphie who wanted the bee-bee gun, but everyone kept telling him he was going to shoot his eye out. That was what got Trey into the idea of wanting to work with comedy about little kids and such. When asked who did the voice of Ike, their answer was a two year old girl. What they did was they taped a two year old girl making sounds and noises and semi-talking for about two hours. While they were recording her voice, she saw a fly buzzing around in the room and she said, "Oh......fly in the sky." And the two were saying, YES. Since that line was then consequently used in Cartman Gets an Anal Probe. However, the little girl has now aged and can now talk in normal English. So they were thinking that maybe Ike would be the only character that would really age since all they have for his voice now to use is simply two hours of tape. That would be quite funny if Ike were the only character to age. And yes like I said before, George Clooney really did do Sparky's voice. The two had gone over to the set of ER and just recorded George Clooney barking for like 10 minutes. Both went to CU Boulder but only Matt got out alive. I think he was a Math and Film major. Trey got kicked out. They both had a tough time since they were trying to complete their feature Cannibal the Musical.Both said that they probably learned the most their whole time there making this feature. It was ironic though because it was the reason of their troubles of completing school. Since Trey didn't get his degree yet, he said he was waiting for an honorary one. : ) They also mentioned that they will be releasing the Spirit of Christmas for sale along with the Frosty video. The Frosty video? What's that you ask? Stay tuned to this homepage and you will find out. : ) Trey and Matt were ordered for a second season of 13 episodes, however, they mentioned that they would really like it to be 20 episodes. Let's hope they get their wish. Well that's all I can remember. Hope it's some good info. : ) See there's a reason why this place is called A South Park Information Center. : ) As you can see, a second season of 13 episodes was ordered, but Matt and Trey wanted 20. It turned out to be 18. They also plan to sell "Spirit of Christmas" and "Frosty" sometime in the future. November 15, 1997 - The Daily News reports that the show is currently talking to Jason Priestly, David Caruso, John Cusack and Tiger Woods about doing future episodes. November 20, 1997 - Jay Leno airs a little short he asked Trey and Matt to create for him. In it he visits Mr. Garrison's class and discusses Thanksgiving with the kids. He makes a spectacular exit. As to how this short came to be, Leno's people approached CC about making it, as Matt and Trey are going to guest on the Tonight show for the first time soon. November 27, 1997 - a picture of Kenny unmasked makes the rounds in newsgroups and Web sites, but the face is the same as that of the tattered kid in the front row. Still, it makes appearances here and there for another five months. December 4, 1997 - Alt.binaries.southpark appears. Creator: Ben Dake. Binaries (pictures, audio, video) can now be gotten there. December 12, 1997 - Parker and Stone make their first appearance on The Tomight Show. Liane Adamo is in the audience for it. December 24, 1997 - John Kricfalusi accuses Matt and Trey of stealing his creation, Nutty the Friendly Dump, and turning him into Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo.

1998


	January 1, 1998 - This site appears on AOL, after I download "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" and begin transcribing. It joins my personal site, which already has a section for camp songs I learned as a kid. January 8, 1998 - Taison Tan posts a letter from Trey Parker (people have their doubts about this.) praising the site, but critical of the guy posting "What Kenny Says," Mike Kalec, for getting wrong Kenny's line in "'Magic: The Gathering." January 20, 1998 - The Journal Sentinel reports that the second season will begin in May. January 23, 1998 - A South Park video game is to arrive, with Acclaim as its distributor. January 26, 1998 - Orgazmo is rated NC-17 by the Sundance Institute. Trey protests. Orgazmo is set to open in May, but opens on October 23. In Yahoo! Internet Life, Trey says he's gone into Palace chat rooms as "treyparker" and tried to start conversations, but people brushed him off, thinking him a jerk. Jay Leno was going to voice a bird, but ended up as Kitty, Cartman's cat. BASEketball begins filming. Jenny McCarthy joins the film's cast. January 30, 1998 - Beef-Cake.com appears. Thus are the three sites gathered under one umbrella site. January 31, 1998 - First reports of South Park articles being banned at schools across the nation. February 1998 - Mr. Hat's Hell Hole's message board at aphrodisiac.net, using WWWBoard 2.0, is the biggest SP board around, which arguably makes the Hellhole. on Simplenet at the time, the #1 fan site. Taison's site is still at www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~ttant/SouthPark, but he eventualy creates www.BEEF-CAKE.com, an umbrella site for the three indivudial sites already in existence. Elsewhere, Spin and Rolling Stone both come out with articles about South Park. Rolling Stone got the bigger article and the front cover, Spin got one article and no front cover from Trey and Matt, so they make their own - Chef fondling Cartman's breasts from behind. Spin also creates a timeline for the future of the show. One of the items is that South Park would move to ABC in the fall. Needless to say, Trey and Matt sent emails to several sites to debunk the timeline and to urge their readers to boycott Spin. February 23, 1998 - Comedy Central considers going after fan sites that sell ads on their pages. Mr. Hat's Hell Hole and You Killed Kenny are featured in a TIME magazine article, on the issue of distributing RV files of whole episodes. March 7, 1998 - It is at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival where Parker discussed the South Park series soundtrack in which Chef is to sing with people like Fiona Apple, Beck, and Ozzy Osbourne. Of these three, only Ozzy showed up on the soundtrack when it was released in November. Parker and Stone also discuss visiting Web sites. They visit Beef-Cake once a week to see what's going on in the world of SP outside the studio. Matt marvels at the network Taison seems to have, as Taison gets news from everywhere. March 28, 1988 - In TV Guide, Trey and Matt say that if the boys grew up, Stan might have a TV show. Kyle might be a scientist, a banker, or a slumlord. Cartman would sell insurance. Kenny? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? April 1, 1998 - Trey and Matt begin the second season with "Not Without My Anus" as a practical joke. The joke backfies, since the fans were genuinely interested in who Cartman's father is. Comedy Central is flooded with angry letters. Trey and Matt appease the fans by presenting the answer three weeks later. I decide to concentrate on South Park, so I shelve my personal site and make this site the main site. April 27, 1998 - Mr. Showbiz reports that Trey and Matt get two more season - 40 episodes - and at least $15 million for writing, producing, and voicing the characters. They also, finally, get a piece from the merchandising. The second season was to begin May 20, which means that "Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut" would have been Episode 115. May 2, 1998 - MAD TV airs a South Park/Peanuts parody called "South Parknuts." May 14, 1998 - A 12-year-old boy commits suicide and leaves a note telling his parents to study South Park's Kenny to know why he did it. As Kenny is stifled so you can't understand what he's saying, the boy must have felt that no one understood what he was going through, and he couldn't find a way to make them understand. His last effort was to have his parents see South Park's Kenny so that they could understand their son's anguish. May 15, 1998 - Comedy airs a ten-episode marathon from 11 p.m. till 4 a.m., not knowing about this suicide until later. May 22, 1998 - Comedy Central releases this statement concerning the suicide: "Anyone who has ever lost a family member to suicide, or knows someone who has taken his own life, knows what a horrible tragedy this is. And our hearts go out to this boy's family." May 27, 1998 - "Chickenlover" airs. Originally, Cartman was to appear using a gun, but Comedy Central had problems with Cartman handling one. They didn't seem to have that problem with "Volcano," in which all four boys carried rifles, but a flurry of school shootings was in the news at the time. The latest one, in Springfield, Oregon, may have changed Comedy Central's position on Deputy Cartman using a gun. May 28, 1998 - Sweeet, manned by Justin Trevena, opens. His specialty is computer-generated SP images in 2D and 3D. Beef-Cake and The Hellhole make use of his graphics, and Juz designs logos for The Hellhole. June 11, 1998 - Comedy Central decides to not release any South Park plushes this fall, in an effort to keep children from watching the show, which abounds with curses and bathroom jokes. A South Park CD will come out in the fall ("Chef Aid," as it turns out) and a book (Sticky forms). The current crop of plushes will not be recalled, though. July, 1998 - South Park gets an Emmy nomination in OUTSTANDING ANIMATED PROGRAM (FOR PROGRAMMING ONE HOUR OR LESS) South Park • Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride • COM Comedy Central Anne Garefino, Deborah Liebling, Executive Producers Trey Parker, Executive Producer/Writer/Director Matt Stone, Executive Producer/Writer Pam Brady, Creative Producer Frank Agnone II, Supervising Producer July 27, 1998 - From USA Today: Big-screen script of 'South Park' pulls no punches by Elizabeth Snead Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of Comedy Central's South Park, have delivered their script for the movie version of the TV series to Paramount Studios. And It's definetly R-rated material, the two say. "(Studio executive) Sherry Lansing is reading it right now and probably bleeding her eyeballs," Stone says an ominous chuckle. "I would love, love, love to see her face. I think they thought we'd put in a few naughty words. But its like downright R-rated;it's pretty bad. Parker gleefully describes the opening scene: "Saddam Hussein is in the electric chair, and they say, 'For crimes against mankind, you will be put to death. Do you have any last words?' And he goes, 'Last words? How about get me the (expletive) out of this chair!' They throw the switch, his eyes...come out, blood just goes everywhere!" Stone and Parker had zero desire to do a tamer big-screen version of their outrageous animated show about potty-mouthed prepubescents Stan, Kyle, Cartman and the repeatedly ill-fated Kenny. "We would really rather not do the movie than have it kind of suck and be normal," Stone says. July 30, 1998 - On E! Online, Trey reveals that they owe 52 episodes. This added to 13 episodes for Season 1 and 8 aired by this date for Season 2 gives 73 total for the series' run. The contract for this number of episodes was signed in April. July 31, 1998 - BASEketball opens. Hardly anyone sees it. Six months from the start of filming to theatrical debut. September 2, 1998 - Taison hangs out at #mrhat (run by Mr. Hat's Hellhole) on DALnet and registers TaisonBeefcake there. Snowcalico and Vinnie are there as well. September 3, 1998 - www.BEEF-CAKE.com/spboard opens as a shared message board between Beef-Cake and Mr. Hat's Hellhole. A few weeks after it opens I place my first post there. One of my early posts was an answer to the latin writing present at the planetarium's entrance in "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off The Fatty Foods." October 1998 - Trey and Matt plan to shave their heads after interviews with Juice Magazine and TV shows. October 16, 1998 - On an AOL chat, Trey clears up what Cartman says in the show's theme song: Ample parking day or night, people spouting "Howdy, Neighbor!" That's it. Oh, and Kenny's actually a supernatural demigod (hee hee). October 18, 1998 - October Films launches the Trey Parker-directed porn spoof Orgazmo with a private poolside bash at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. Trey and Matt throw the bash. Metallica shows up and plays a 45-minute set for them in a tent set up on the grounds. October 19, 1998 - Trey's opinions: Stan will grow up to be gay, and Kenny will be a serial killer. That makes Stan the male version of Ellen DeGeneres. Kenny will be a serial killer who is serially killed. October 23, 1998 - Orgazmo opens. A few more people see it. October 28, 1998 - Mr. Hat's Hellhole affiliates with Best Internet Communications. This gives them a faster server, greater bandwidth, and a definite advantage over other SP sites. With the new server they get CGI capability, and so Vin Casale sets up a new board for The Hellhole, thus breaking the agreement to have one board for the two sites, the first step in dissolving the partnership between the two sites. Still, at the end of the year they thank Vinnie for being the Admin of its message board (before the one at Beef-Cake opened) and Southparkworld's Schmid for designing it. Seven message boards in nine months. Wow. Well, eight for Mr. Hat's Hellhole. Many members of the shared board, if not most of them, remain at what is now Beef-Cake's board. SouthParkWorld soon disappears. In 2000 it promises to return, but nothing new since... November 11, 1998 - #beefcake is created on DALnet. November 27, 1998 - DTISFU joins the canniballovers.com family after four slow months at Geocities.

1999


	January 1999 - in Rolling Stone Australia, Trey notes how the pace of the show has picked up since "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe." Scripts were once 30 pages long; now they are 45-47 pages long. In a PC Gamer interview (made in November 1998), he notes that he and Matt are working on the show, the movie, the Chef Aid album, and a book. Just like the Dumb and Dumber prequel, though, the book seems to have faded away… At the National Association of Television Program Executives conference in New Orleans, Trey figures the show has peaked and is on its way down. Lapdance, another indie movie festival, debuts in Park City, and Trey and Matt perform there. Meanwhile, Elvis sends an email to sites mirroring the sounds telling them that no further sounds are coming from Beef-Cake, as it is going to affiliate with UGO to handle all requests for sounds. Beef-Cake will soon have all the bandwidth it needs to send out sounds, and mirrors would no longer be necessary. At this time, some mirrors aren't updating with the sounds being produced by Beef-Cake, other sites simply link back to the archive's sounds instead of hosting copies of the sounds themselves. The Hellhole sets up all kinds of redirecting domains. One of them is overthelimit.com, and it soon sets up a chat room by that name. February 3, 1999 - It is in this chat room that Elvis, Vin, and Matt meet and talk about Elvis' email from two weeks prior. Vin and Matt are not pleased that Elvis has decided to stop sending them sounds and see no reason why they should no longer receive the sounds. Indeed, they see it as detrimental to the success of their own site, and a greedy move on Elvis' part. Indeed, the one argument Vin and Matt have against Elvis' decision to stop sending out sounds to its mirrors is that the Hellhole already has a fast server, and so all Beef-Cake has to do is send the sounds to The Hellhole so the Hellhole can distribute them to everyone else. Beef-Cake, of course, can still distribute the sounds from its own archives. This way, sounds can come from two fast servers in half the time. But Elvis stands his ground and denies them any more sounds. The partnership that began last September ends. February 4, 1999 - The guys at Mr. Hat's Hell Hole publicly protest Beef-Cake's decision to stop distributing sounds to its mirror sites. This earns an immediate rebuke from Elvis, who now does the updates at Beef-Cake. The Hellhole soon stops mentioning Beef-Cake, but it remains friendly with Sweeet. Elvis, in response, needles Vin and Matt in most every update. Beef-Cake soon reclaims its position as the #1 SP fan site. April 7, 1999 - The third season begins with "Rainforest Schmainforest". April 28, 1999 - J.C. Penney stops the sale of South Park merchandise at its stores, due in part to reports from sites such as Christian Family Network. August 1, 1999 - Beef-Cake.com goes down for over a month. The only thing present is an image of the four boys. Their shadows are the same except for Kenny, who has Mr. Hat's shadow. This is one of those situations Vin and Matt worried about when they talked to Elvis back in February: if a site is gonna be down for a long time, wouldn't it make sense to have a mirror site out there with the same content ready to fill in when the mainn site is down? The point is moot now, though. September 16, 1999 - Beef-Cake returns with a new layout and several missing areas. For the past seven weeks the three sites that comprised Beef-Cake combined their content into one big site, and so Beef-Cake goes from umbrella site to full-fledged site. October 9, 1999 - The Monty Python Flying Circus 30th Anniversary Special shows a little South Park tribute called "The Dead Friend Sketch," in homage to Monty Python's "The Dead Parrot Sketch." October 23, 1999 - In TV Guide Trey reveals that he and Matt promised themselves to make the show for one more year (which means this season 3 may well be the last year for the show). Trey started getting grey hairs in July, and he's sure it's from making the movie. November 1, 1999 - The guys at Park Wars get notices from Trey and Matt, and Star Wars Episode 1 Art Designer Doug Chiang. Doug says, "To Ayaz, I love Park Wars." Matt Stone and Trey Parker were asked by a fan on Atlanta's 99x radio station about Park Wars. They said, "It's awesome, we liked it better than our own movie trailer." November 11, 1999 - Mary Key Bergman, the official voice of Snow White and of all the females of South Park save Bebe, dies of an apparent suicide Thursday night. Her agency confirms this on November 15, after South Park Web sites, including this one, report on it. But we all found out from her official Web site Wacky Voices (now gone). She started her career in South Park as Shannen Cassidy, a pseudonym, but switched to her real name in the second season. She leaves behind husband Dino Andrade. November 16, 1999 - APB News reveals the Mary Kay died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. The show will go on without her. November 17, 1999 - "Starvin' Marvin In Space" carries a memoriam to Mary Kay Bergman in front. November 23, 1999 - Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics is released, with several songs from the show, and many new ones. The South Park Digest carries information that Mary Kay was suffering from a progressive mental illness when she took her own life. December 1, 1999 - …a progressive phobic disorder… December 8, 1999 - Daily Variety reports that Parker and Stone will create 39 2-5 min. SP shorts for Shockwave next year. These shorts will introduce characters and storylines for the fans and determine from fan reaction which ones make it to the series and/or any future movies, as well as to other forms of entertainment (games, puzzles, etc.). As fans know, Shockwave has been making shorts from existing episodes for two years now. The first new shorts are due out in March. December 13, 1999 - The Los Angeles Film Critics votes to give the award for best score of the year to Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman for SP:BLU. Andy hopes to present it to them himself on January 19 at the Bel Age Hotel in West Hollywood. December 18, 1999 - Comedy Central issues a cease-and-desist on Mr. Hat's Hell Hole for hosting episodes. Because of this, Bernie Case shuts his site down. Some of his mirrors shut theirs down as well. The South Park Archive is redesignng irself.