Trey Parker - Career

Career

In 1992, Parker and Stone created Jesus vs. Frosty. It included four boys, Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick and Eric Cartman. Both Jesus vs. Frosty and Cannibal! The Musical were made while they were students at the University of Colorado film school, studying under both Stan Brakhage and Jerry Aronson. Afterwards, the two friends set off for Hollywood in hopes of making more movies. Brian Graden, then an executive at Fox, put Parker to work making a pilot for a musical children's television series called Time Warped. The pilot, called "Rom and Jul," was a love story about a Homo erectus and an Australopithecus. Fox passed on the series, but Graden paid Parker and Stone $1,200 to make a new version of The Spirit of Christmas he could send out as a video Christmas card.

They came up with two worthwhile ideas; one a sequel to Jesus vs. Frosty, titled Jesus vs. Santa, and one about a character that would later be recurring in South Park, Mr. Hankey. They chose to write about the four boys. The result was The Spirit of Christmas, an animated short film that centered on four crude-acting, blob-shaped third-grade boys forced to intervene in a nasty fistfight between Jesus Christ and Santa Claus. The tape was a smash, passed around and copied endlessly in media circles in Los Angeles and New York City. The video landed in the hands of Doug Herzog of Comedy Central. "It literally was the funniest thing I'd ever seen," he said in a 2006 interview. "We said, 'Develop a show.' So they went off and developed the show." Stone and Parker produced 13 episodes for season 1. South Park is currently still under contract to produce new episodes through 2016. As of 2007, Parker is credited with directing and writing the vast majority of South Park episodes, and voicing most of the regular and guest characters.

In 1997, they also released Orgazmo, a movie rated NC-17. In 1998, they starred in (but did not write or direct) BASEketball, another feature film, while being renewed for a second season of South Park. In 1999, Parker and Stone made South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which gave the series a new level of prominence. He was nominated for an Academy Award as the co-writer of one of the film's songs, "Blame Canada," but did not win. In 2001, the duo announced they would do 39 shorts between the lengths of 2 and 5 minutes. Although originally thought to be South Park related, they decided they would do something different. The result was the shorts Princess. The content was so extreme that it was cancelled after two shows aired. In 2001, they also created That's My Bush!, another television series. Despite great reviews, the show was cancelled after one season for the cost per episode. In 2004, they made a film, titled Team America: World Police. The film was not considered a box-office success, grossing 51 million dollars in theaters, despite largely positive reviews (78% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com). As of 2011, South Park is in its fifteenth season.

Parker is also a member of the band DVDA with Stone, for which he plays keyboards and sings. DVDA's songs have appeared in many of the duo's productions. They include Orgazmo, BASEketball, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and Team America: World Police.

Trey claimed to have been on acid with Matt Stone at the time of the 2000 Academy Awards, where they wore dresses popularized by Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow at previous awards shows.

On September 28, 2007, Parker and Stone acquired the rights to the Canadian-made Kenny vs. Spenny, which premiered November 14, 2007 on Comedy Central with ten old and new episodes.

In April 2010, Trey Parker and Matt Stone received a "warning" for allegedly representing the Prophet Muhammad in a bear costume: "We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show." It was revealed in the next episode that the person in the bear costume was really Santa Claus and not the Prophet Muhammad.