South Park<\/em><\/strong>\u2018s superstar creators Matt Stone<\/strong> and Trey Parker<\/strong> were in fine form on Tuesday afternoon at a special \u201cFor Your Consideration\u201d Emmys event in Hollywood. Following their Monday night appearance<\/a> on Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em> where they showed off a finger puppet version of Donald Trump\u2019s penis, the duo chatted with self-described South Park<\/em> superfan Michael De Luca, co-chair and CEO of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, about their show and career.<\/p>\n Stone discussed the strange nature of doing timely socio-political comedy in the Trump era. \u201cWe started out even before the internet, so as comedians you\u2019re always jealous when you see something on TikTok and it\u2019s really good,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then you start competing with the Secretary of War and the President because they\u2019re online too and making jokes, so it\u2019s all disorienting. I really think Iran\u2019s LEGO videos<\/a> as our competition, because they do fast animation, and that\u2019s what we do. We\u2019re doing timely stuff, and when I first saw that I sent that to Trey and said, \u2018This is our new competition!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Parker then talked about how today\u2019s South Park <\/em>is different from the show that began its run on Comedy Central in August of 1997. \u201cWe\u2019re always reacting not just to the culture, but also to who we are in life. We\u2019re not as crazy as we were 25, 30 years ago,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cWe\u2019ve become parents and both things are put in the show. For example, the character of Randy used to be me making fun of my dad, and now, that\u2019s just me being me and making fun of me.\u201d<\/p>\n The duo recalled the show\u2019s humble origins as a Christmas card videotape, which went viral in Hollywood, back when it meant people dubbing the VHS tape and passing it around to their friends. He recalled, \u201cWe were 25 then, and we\u2019d go to parties in L.A. and people would tell us, \u2018You\u2019ve got to watch this tape,\u2019 and we\u2019d be like \u2018We made that,\u2019 and they\u2019d say, \u2018Oh no, I met the guys who made that. They got jobs at MTV right now!\u2019 and we\u2019d be like, \u2018Whaaaaaat!?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Stone and Parker brought up the fact that they like to push everything to the last minute works in their benefit and credited the evolving technologies that helped them do their job so quickly. \u201cIt\u2019s immediate by design,\u201d said Parker. \u201cWe\u2019ve always made the show the same way. We basically come in on Thursday and the show will air the next Wednesday. In the early days, we relied on Avid and CorelDraw! It was the marriage of those two things that allowed us do to it so quickly. We\u2019ve always been great tech nerds and always asked \u2018What can we do with that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The conversation then turned to AI and Deep Voodoo, the duo\u2019s deepfake company which opened its doors five years ago. Stone explained, \u201cWe\u2019re using some of the stuff on South Park<\/em> now. I know it\u2019s a hot topic as people are trying to figure out what it means for the industry, but for us, it\u2019s so invigorating to watch what can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n Parker recalled a conversation he recently had with one of the head artists on his show. \u201cWhen we started South Park<\/em>, they had just begun drawing on tablets instead of using pen and paper, and they were getting tons of shit from other artists. But these are artists, they went to art school, they know everything about art history and they make much better stuff on their own than South Park.<\/em> But they, like us, want to know about the new tools and what they could make with them. What\u2019s crazy that when we first figured out the program, it was pre-Maya, and we were thinking, \u2018Dude, you can make an animated show in one week.\u2019 What\u2019s funny is that we were sitting there and thinking that everyone is going to do this. The technology is here and soon, everyone is going to make animation that way. But 25 years later, people still weren\u2019t doing that. It took a very long time for the old ways to change.\u201d<\/p>\n Stone added, \u201cThe secret of South Park<\/em> is that people think we do it real fast. We do it in 10 days instead of six days these days. We actually do 90 minutes because every shot has different iterations. The secret isn\u2019t that we do it fast, we wait until the last minute. It\u2019s that we are able to change every line. We can just run in the booth and change things. What\u2019s happening with AI is that it\u2019s going to bring those tools that we enjoy into more beautiful animation and ultimately live action. I think the tech community has come and said that [they\u2019re] going to take jobs. People have to realize that all those guys are doing is raising money. That\u2019s just a marketing pitch. They\u2019re out there selling something. I think what\u2019s going to happen is that more tools are going to be available to more filmmakers, and just as many people will be employed. It will change things, but I think there has been a panic because of the way it has been presented by the tech guys.\u201d<\/p>\n Stone and Parker then talked about the impact of the highly visible and acclaimed 28th season of the show, which included brutal and very funny depictions of Trump, J.D. Vance, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth and Peter Thiel as well as appearances by regular guests Satan and Jesus. Parker said, \u201cWhen we see a negative space where nobody is saying something, then we\u2019ll say it. Sometimes, you don\u2019t do the thing everyone\u2019s else is doing. What felt powerful about the last season was that that we decided to really throw our show out on the table, and it became the joke that we just couldn\u2019t stop doing. We were just going to do the Trump stuff on that first show of the season, and we laid into him so hard, and it all became, like, \u2018Oh, well, who\u2019s the bully now?\u2019 It became this totally juvenile joke that we were going to do every single time.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.animationmagazine.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2026-05-20-at-8.35.13-AM-e1779294779933.jpg\")
<\/a>Playing with New Technologies<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"South](\"https:\/\/www.animationmagazine.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/South-Park-Season-Finale--e1779294737739.jpg\"\/)
![\"South](\"https:\/\/www.animationmagazine.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/South-Park-Season-Finale--e1779294737739.jpg\")
<\/a>Always Have One Bag Packed<\/strong><\/h3>\n