6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park

This was a documentary that Jaime, my wife, and I watched. We were tired so we wanted something that we could watch without fully paying attention. Seeing a documentary about South Park seemed perfect for that.

Now I've seen almost every episode of the show that they've put out. I own most of the seasons as well. I'm a fan of just how poignant they can be and on the ball with current events. This documentary shows how that happens. They make their episodes in six days. That seems like a lot of time, but considering other animated shows take months. It makes it that much more effective.

Here we get to see Trey Parker, Matt Stone and the rest of the writing room as well as the other teams involved with making the shows happen. This includes Bill Hader who worked in the writer's room at that time. It seems like an inclusive place from what everyone says. Bill also brings up how on Saturday Night Live, they must be careful who they mock. South Park doesn't and both sides are up for attack.

It makes sense why they put out so few episodes per season with how fast paced and stressful this is. We see the inception of HUMANCENTiPAD from beginning to air. This is one that Jaime also saw and we both thought was hilarious. Seeing how they came up with ideas and how they had a member of the team take it to the legal team to see what needs to be changed or what can fly. This is just a fun look at what they do.

This is a short documentary so they also include a bit of the history of the show. They get to know our main duo a bit as well. I thought that this was an interesting little look into the world of South Park that I wouldn't otherwise necessarily know.

My Rating: 7 out of 10.

6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park (2011)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fun documentary with the title referring to how long it takes the South Park group to come up with their ideas, write the dialogue, do the animation and get the finish product on the air. I think it goes without saying but this is mainly going to appeal to South Park fans, although I'm someone who hasn't watched the shows in ages yet it still kept me entertained and reminded me what a funny show it actually is. I really enjoyed seeing all of the behind the scenes stuff that's gone over as it really lets you in to see how tough the job actually is. Some of the best stuff happens in the writer's room where they discuss how for every one great idea they have a hundred bad ones. We see how they come up with the ideas, work them out and how they ultimately decide on whether or not to use them. From here we see the vocal work that has to be done and then of course there's the animation. The episode the guys are working on here is the one where Cartman keeps saying his mother is "screwing" him. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are both interviewed throughout the process and we also get a brief history of how the show started and their trip to the Oscars.

I am not sure if this is still how they go about making the South Park TV show, seeing as this TV Special was made 16 years ago, but it is literally insane that this is how they make the show. South Park has always been a hilarious and relevant show, and this clearly shows how they are able to make the show so relevant. Is there any other show that can make an episode on a similar timeline?

The Comedy in this TV Special is more of a side piece of it being South Park, but not a main focus.

This is 100% a Documentary that shows through and through how South Park has made such a cultural impact.

Not sure what's the point of this 40 min "documentary".

It might appeal to die hard fans. For the rest of us: it might actually push some people away from ever watching any SP episode.

Now: I used to watch South Park (maybe the first 5, 6 seasons) then I guess I grew up and found most of the sexual and poop related "jokes" as being lame and fillers to carry on an otherwise empty episode.

But anyway.

The topic of the human centipede is just unwatchable stuff for anyone not familiar with SP; the unnecessary punishment to push through an episode in 6 days is not entertaining and definitely not meaningful at all (ok, it can help to work under pressure, but there are limits and they are not presented on screen). The pressure the animators, editors, etc are subjected seems like mobbing.

This is a sort of reality show that has been obviously heavily edited (even though the several black frames here and there tell us whoever reviewed it did a sloppy job). It seems the goal is to place the couple of Matt and Trey on the pedestal and see how they operate, rather than the process of making an episode. Again: cool stuff for a long time fan, useless for someone who doesn't knoew much.

The parts about the book of mormon, the oscars awards and how they started are cool yes, but totally unrelated to the premise of the documentary.

There is not much that made me say: "hey now I see how collaboration between different people can help trigger the creative process".

This documentary is pretty much exactly what it says: a look inside the studio and how a small group of dedicated people are able to bring a cartoon to your home each week with only days to go from scratch to screen.

My biggest disappointment is the length of this thing. Clearly it was designed to fit within an hour of television, but I would think they could have put more for those who did not watch the original run (I saw it on Netflix, for example). There was not much discussion of the movies these guys made, and how films like "Cannibal the Musical" fit into the story of Parker and Stone.

That aside, I think it was a good peak at how these guys work, and it is interesting to see Bill Hader in on the fun, too. I knew some episodes were made last minute, but I was not aware that the show consistently worked that way. It is an amazing feat.