Matt Stone

The Spirit of Christmas and Cannibal! The Musical (1992–1994)

In 1992, Parker, Stone, Jason McHugh and Ian Hardin founded a production company, Avenging Conscience, named for D. W. Griffith's film which the group hated.^[10] Its first production was The Spirit of Christmas (1992, referred to as Jesus vs. Frosty), a short pitting the religious figure against Frosty the Snowman. Observing the showdown are four foulmouthed friends who would feature in his later work.

The quartet created a three-minute trailer for a fictional film, Alfred Packer: The Musical. It was based on an obsession Parker had with Alfred Packer, a Colorado prospector accused of cannibalism.^[11] Parker was a longtime fan of musical theater and dreamed of doing something in the genre.^[12] Stone says he had a "musical-deprived childhood" (aside from Monty Python numbers) but Parker showed him the ropes.^[13] The trailer became something of a sensation among students at the university, leading Virgil Grillo, the chairman and founder of the film department, to convince the quartet to expand it to a feature-length film. Parker, under the pseudonym Juan Schwartz, starred, directed and co-produced, creating an Oklahoma!-style musical with ten original show tunes.^[14] The group raised $125,000 from family and friends and began shooting the film. The movie was shot on Loveland Pass as winter was ending, and the crew endured the freezing weather.^[10][14] Filming locations included the Lake City, Colorado courthouse where Packer was tried.^[15] Stone and McHugh costarred, and Brakhage had a bit part.^[9]

Alferd Packer: The Musical premiered at the Boulder Theater in October 1993; "they rented a limousine that circled to ferry every member of the cast and crew from the back side of the block to the red carpet at the theater's entrance."^[14] The group submitted the movie to the Sundance Film Festival, which did not respond. Parker said he had a "vision" they needed to be at the festival, which resulted in the group renting out a conference room in a nearby hotel and putting on their own screenings.^[11] MTV did a short news segment on The Big Picture about the film,^[10] and they made industry connections through the festival.^[11][16] They intended to sell video rights to the film for $1 million and spend the remaining $900,000 to create another film.^[16] The film was sold to Troma Entertainment in 1996 where it was retitled Cannibal! The Musical, and upon the duo's later success, it became their biggest-selling title.^[17] It has since been labeled a "cult classic" and adapted into a stage play by community theater groups and even high schools nationwide.^[18]

Your Studio and You and Orgazmo (1995–1997)

Following the success of Cannibal!, the group, without Hardin, moved to Los Angeles.^[14] Upon arrival, they met a lawyer for the William Morris Agency who connected them with producer Scott Rudin. As a result, the duo acquired a lawyer, an agent and a script deal.^[16] Despite initially believing themselves to be on the verge of success, the duo struggled for several years. Stone slept on dirty laundry for upwards of a year because he could not afford to purchase a mattress.^[16] They unsuccessfully pitched a children's program titled Time Warped to Fox Kids, which would have involved fictionalized stories of people in history.^[19] The trio created two separate pilots, spaced a year apart, and despite the approval of Fox Broadcasting Company development executive Pam Brady, the network disbanded the Fox Kids division.^[14]

David Zucker, who was a fan of Cannibal!, contacted the duo to produce a 15-minute short film for Seagram to show at a party for its acquisition of Universal Studios.^[20] Due to a misunderstanding, Parker and Stone improvised much of the film an hour before it was shot, creating it as a spoof of 1950s instructional videos.^[20] The result, Your Studio and You, features numerous celebrities, including Sylvester Stallone, Demi Moore and Steven Spielberg. Parker recalled, "You could probably make a feature film out of the experience of making that movie because it was just two dudes from college suddenly directing Steven Spielberg."^[20]

During the time between shooting the pilots for Time Warped, Parker penned the script for a film titled Orgazmo, which later entered production. Half of the budget for the picture came from Japanese porn company Kuki, who wanted to feature its performers in mainstream Western media.^[14] Independent distributor October Films purchased the film rights for one million dollars after its screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.^[14] The film received an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, which resulted in poor box office performance. Parker and Stone attempted to negotiate with the organization on what to delete from the final print, but the MPAA would not give specific notes.^[16] They reasoned that the organization cared less because it was an independent distributor which would bring it significantly less money.^[16]

Brian Graden (then at Fox) asked Parker and Stone to produce a video Christmas card that he could send to friends. Parker and Stone made The Spirit of Christmas (1995, referred to as Jesus vs. Santa), a variation on the theme of their earlier short.^[14] Graden sent the film on a VHS to several industry executives in Hollywood; George Clooney is said to have made 300 copies for friends. Meanwhile, someone digitized the clip and put it up on the Internet, where it became one of the first viral videos.^[14][21][22] While Fox executives were enthusiastic about the premise, they didn't want to air a show that included the talking poo character Mr. Hankey and passed on it after the duo refused to remove the character several times. Parker and Stone then entered negotiations with both MTV and Comedy Central. Parker preferred the show be produced by Comedy Central, fearing that MTV would turn it into a kids' show.^{[23] [24]} Doug Herzog said of the short “It literally was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. We said, ‘Develop a show.’”^[21]

Premiere and initial success (1997–1998)

The pilot episode of South Park was made on a budget of $300,000,^[25] and took between three and three and a half months to complete, and animation took place in a small room at Celluloid Studios, in Denver, during the summer of 1996.^[26][27] Like Parker and Stone's Christmas shorts, the original pilot was animated entirely with traditional cutout animation techniques.^[26] The idea for the town of South Park came from the real Colorado basin where, according to the creators, a lot of folklore and news reports originated about "cattle mutilations and UFO and bigfoot sightings".^[28]

South Park premiered in August 1997 and immediately became one of the most popular shows on cable television, averaging consistently between 3.5 and 5.5 million viewers.^[29] The show transformed the then-fledgling Comedy Central into "a cable industry power almost overnight".^[21] At the time, the cable network had a low distribution of just 21 million subscribers.^[29] Comedy Central marketed the show aggressively before its launch, billing it as "why they created the V-chip."^[30] The resulting buzz led to the network earning an estimated $30 million in T-shirts sales alone before the first episode was even aired.^[29] Due to the success of the series' first six episodes, Comedy Central requested an additional seven; the series completed its first season in February 1998.^[31][32][33] An affiliate of the MTV Network until then, Comedy Central decided, in part due to the success of South Park, to have its own independent sales department.^[34] By the end of 1998, Comedy Central had sold more than $150 million worth of merchandise for the show, including T-shirts and dolls.^[35] Over the next few years, Comedy Central's viewership spiked largely due to South Park, adding 3 million new subscribers in the first half of 1998 alone and allowed the network to sign international deals with networks in several countries.^[29]

Parker and Stone became celebrities as a result of the program's success; Parker noted that the success of South Park allowed him to pursue, for a time, a lifestyle that involved partying with women and "out-of-control binges" in Las Vegas.^[16] Their philosophy of taking every deal (which had surfaced as a result of their lack of trust in the early success of South Park) led to their appearances in films, albums, and outside script deals. Among these was BASEketball (1998), a comedy which was a critical and commercial flop.

Bigger, Longer, and Uncut and continued success (1999–present)

Parker and Stone signed a deal with Comedy Central in April 1998 that contracted the duo to producing South Park episodes until 1999, gave them a slice of the lucrative spinoff merchandising the show generated within its first year, as well as an unspecified seven-figure cash bonus to bring the show to theaters.^[36] During the time, the team was also busy writing the second and third seasons of the series, the former of which Parker and Stone later described as "disastrous". As such, they figured the phenomenon would be over soon, and they decided to write a personal, fully committed musical, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.^[37] Parker and Stone fought with the MPAA to keep the film R-rated; for months the ratings board insisted on the more prohibitive NC-17.^[38] The film was only certified an R rating two weeks prior to its release, following contentious conversations between Parker/Stone, Rudin and Paramount Pictures.^[39][40] Parker felt overwhelmed during the production process, especially between April and the movie's June opening. He admitted that press coverage, which proclaimed the end of South Park was near, bothered him.^[16] The film opened in cinemas in June 1999, receiving critical acclaim and grossing $83 million at the box office.

Parker and Stone continue to write, direct, and voice most characters on South Park. Over time, the show has adopted a unique production process, in which an entire episode is written, animated and broadcast in one week.^[41] Parker and Stone state that subjecting themselves to a one-week deadline creates more spontaneity amongst themselves in the creative process, which they feel results in a funnier show.^[21] Although initial reviews for the show were negative in reference to its crass humor, the series has received numerous accolades, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, one Peabody Award, and numerous inclusions in various publications' lists of greatest television shows. As of 2011 its viewership was lower than at the height of its popularity in its earliest seasons, but South Park remained one of the highest-rated series on Comedy Central.^[42] In 2012, South Park cut back from producing 14 episodes per year (seven in the spring and seven in the fall) to a single run of 10 episodes in the fall, to allow the duo to explore other projects the rest of the year.^[43] The twenty-seventh season premiered on July 23, 2025.^[44]

South Park has expanded to music and video games. Comedy Central released various albums, including Chef Aid: The South Park Album and Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics, in the late 1990s.^[45][46][47] The song "Chocolate Salty Balls" (as sung by the character Chef) was released as a single in the UK in 1998 to support the Chef Aid: The South Park Album and became a number one hit.^[48] Parker and Stone had little to do with the development of video games based on the series that were released at this time,^[49][50] but took full creative control of South Park: The Stick of Truth, a 2014 video game based on the series that received positive reviews and for which they won the 2014 Writing in a Comedy award and Stone (as Various) was nominated for Performance in a Comedy, Supporting by National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR).^[51][52] Broadcast syndication rights to South Park were sold in 2003,^[53][54] and all episodes are available for free full-length on-demand legal streaming on the official South Park Studios website.^[55] In 2007, the duo, with the help of their lawyer, Kevin Morris, cut a 50–50 joint venture with Comedy Central on all revenue not related to television; this includes digital rights to South Park, as well as movies, soundtracks, T-shirts and other merchandise, in a deal worth $75 million.^[56]

That's My Bush! (2000–2001)

In 2000, Parker and Stone began plotting a television sitcom starring the winner of the 2000 presidential election. The duo were "95 percent sure" that Democratic candidate Al Gore would win, and tentatively titled the show Everybody Loves Al (after Everybody Loves Raymond).^[57] The main goal was to parody sitcom tropes, such as a lovable main character, the sassy maid and the wacky neighbor, in the context of the White House household.^[58] Parker said the producers did not want to make fun of politics, but instead lampoon sitcoms.^[57] They threw a party the night of the election with the writers, with intentions to begin writing the following Monday and shooting the show in January 2001 with the inauguration. With the confusion of whom the President would be, the show's production was pushed back.^[57] The show was filmed at Sony Pictures Studios, and was the first time Parker and Stone shot a show on a production lot.^[59] It starred Timothy Bottoms as a fictionalized George W. Bush.

Although That's My Bush!, which ran between April–May 2001, received a fair amount of publicity and critical notice, according to Stone and Parker the cost per episode was too high at "about $1 million an episode".^[60] Comedy Central officially cancelled the series in August 2001 as a cost-cutting move; Stone was quoted as saying "A super-expensive show on a small cable network ... the economics of it were just not going to work."^[61] Comedy Central continued the show in reruns, considering it a creative and critical success.^[60] Parker believed the show would not have survived after the September 11 attacks anyway, and Stone agreed, saying the show would not "play well".^[62][63] During this time, the duo also signed a deal with Shockwave.com to produce 39 animated online shorts, in which they would retain full artistic control; the result, Princess, was rejected after only two episodes.

Team America (2002–2004)

In 2002, the duo began work on Team America: World Police, a satire of big-budget action films and the war on terror.^[64] Using the supermarionation of Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds , Team America was produced using a crew of about 200 people, including three dozen highly skilled marionette operators.^[65] The execution of some very simple acts by the marionettes proved to be very difficult, with a simple shot such as a character drinking taking a half-day to complete successfully.^[65] Stone recalled it was "the worst time of my life - I never want to see a puppet again."^[65][66][67] The film was barely completed in time for its October release date,^[65] but reviews were positive and the film made a modest sum at the box office.^[68] The duo battled with the MPAA over the rating; finally, it was rated R for "graphic, crude, sexual humor; violent images and strong language–all involving puppets.”^[69]

The Book of Mormon (2011–present)

Parker and Stone went to see the puppet musical Avenue Q on Broadway. Robert Lopez, the show's writer-composer, spotted them in the audience and asked to have dinner with them. He expressed interest in a musical on Mormonism, a subject which had long fascinated Parker and Stone.^[19][70] The musical, then The Book of Mormon: The Musical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was worked on over a period of eight years; working around their South Park schedule, they flew between New York City and Los Angeles often, first writing songs for the musical in 2006.^[19] Developmental workshops began in 2008,^[71] and the crew embarked on the first of a half-dozen workshops that would take place during the next four years.^[19] Originally, Scott Rudin planned to open The Book of Mormon Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in summer 2010, but opted to premiere it on Broadway, "[s]ince the guys [Parker and Stone] work best when the stakes are highest."^[72]

After a frantic series of rewrites, rehearsals and previews,^[19] The Book of Mormon premiered at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011.^[73][74] The Book of Mormon follows a pair of mismatched Mormon missionaries (Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells) who are dispatched to a war-torn, AIDS-plagued village in Uganda. It received broad critical praise for the plot, score, performances, direction and choreography.^[75][76] The cast album became the highest-charting Broadway cast album in over four decades.^[77] The musical received nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.^[78] The national tour kicked off at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.^[79] It has expanded to include productions in Chicago and London. Parker and Stone have confirmed a film adaption is in pre-production.^[43][56] The Mormon Church offered a measured response. Stone says "The official church response was something along the lines of The Book of Mormon the musical might entertain you for a night, but the Book of Mormon,' — the book as scripture — 'will change your life through Jesus'. Which we actually completely agree with. The Mormon church's response to this musical is almost like our Q.E.D. at the end of it. That's a cool, American response to a ribbing — a big musical that's done in their name. ... We weren't that surprised by the church's response. We had faith in them."^[12]

Future projects (2013–present)

With sufficient funds from their work on South Park and The Book of Mormon, the duo announced plans to create their own production studio, Important Studios, in January 2013. The studio will approve projects ranging from films to television to theatre.^[56]

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parker, Stone, and Peter Serafinowicz created a web series, Sassy Justice. The series uses deepfake technology to insert unrelated celebrities and politicians into the fictional world of a television reporter.^[80] The first episode was posted to YouTube on October 26, 2020.^[81] The team was originally assembled for a film project that was interrupted due to the pandemic, who made the video based on a series of impressions that Serafinowicz developed of a "sassy" Donald Trump.^[82] The creators have a handful of shorter videos alongside a 15-minute first episode that may be turned into an ongoing series, film, or other type of project.^[82]

In August 2021, Stone and Parker signed a $900 million deal with Paramount Global to make six additional seasons of South Park and 14 movies in the South Park universe for streaming.^[83] After the HBO Max streaming rights expired in late June 2025, on July 21, 2025, Stone and Parker announced a five-year agreement with Paramount+ to stream the series exclusively and to have 10 episodes produced per year.^[84] After signing the deal with Paramount, Stone and Parker became billionaires.^[85]

In September 2021, Stone and Parker reached an agreement to purchase Casa Bonita for $3.1 million. A group named "Save Casa Bonita" filed an objection to Stone and Parker's purchase, pointing out that they had in fact made an offer first.^[86] Their objection was later withdrawn, and the sale was completed by November 19.^[87][88][89] They spent $40 million renovating the restaurant and hired Chef Dana Rodriguez to update the menu.^[90][91] The restaurant had a soft opening on May 26, 2023.^[92] In early June, Casa Bonita began taking reservations although a formal opening date had not been set.^[93] Stone and Parker amended the employee compensation system at Casa Bonita, removing the need for wait staff to earn tips, instead paying every employee $30 per hour, much higher than the Colorado minimum wage, $13.65.^[94]

In January 2022, it was announced Stone will produce an untitled film with Parker through their now-renamed production company Park County and Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free's multi-disciplinary media company PGLang.^{[95][96][97][98]} The film will mark the first theatrical collaboration, and second overall, between Parker, Stone, Lamar, and Free. Parker and Stone developed the deepfakes used in the music video for Lamar's promotional single "The Heart Part 5" (2022) through their artificial intelligence startup studio Deep Voodoo.^[99] In March 2023, it was reported that Parker will direct the film.^{[100][101][102]} It will be distributed by Paramount Pictures.^[96] The live-action comedy film, written by Vernon Chatman, addresses racial issues.^[97] Production began in the fall of 2024.^[103]

Casa Bonita controversy

On October 30, 2025, 57 performers at Stone and Parker's Lakewood, Colorado restaurant Casa Bonita went on strike for at least three days after alleging that Parker and Stone paid them unfair wages and subjected them to a less safe working environment.^{[104][105][106]} Actors' Equity Association president Brooke Shields also criticized Stone and Parker as well,^[107][106] with Casa Bonita lead negotiator Andrea Hoeschen also stating that their Casa Bonita management only offered "an additional 11 cents over their last unfair wage offer, and very little for future layoff protections."^[104] It would also be revealed that the restaurant's labor union Casa Bonita United filed a National Labor Relations Board unfair labor practices charge against the restaurant in September 2025.^[108][109]

Soundtrack albums

Cast recording