This is the production blog, where you can find notes from the Executive Producer, and the Production Assistant on duty the night before the show airs.
Production Blog Entry for 03/16/2010
Steve Rippin, Assistant Production Office Coordinator
Hello all! It's been awhile since I last posted on South Park Studios and believe me my fellow production staffers and I are glad to be back. I'm pretty excited about this weeks Season 14 opener. Looks like Tiger Woods will finally get the South Park treatment!
Anyway I want to use this blog to introduce a couple new PA's here at South Park.
First up is PA Sam:
He hails from the far reaches of South Western Tasmania. After apprenticing as an assistant Kiwi farmer, he decided to open his own Kiwi ranch all at the age of 13 and a half. Much to the dismay of Kiwi farms across the globe Sam cornered the Kiwi market. After assuming the title "King of Kiwi" he set his sights on his true passion, lyrical dance. In 1992 he moved to NYC to pursue his craft on the "Great White Way." After brief stints in "Cat's", "Mamma Mia" and his favorite, "Rent," Sam retired from show business broke. For the last ten years Sam has been in hibernating in a small cabin near Northern Vermont where he writes poetry, prose and surfs chat roulette. It took one phone call from Matt and Trey to get him to move to Southern California and breathe life back into what once was a promising career. Now Sam can be found dancing all around the office, in the grocery store while doing food runs, and of course dancing up and down the streets of Los Angeles on one of the many errands required of him. Blog readers please give a warm welcome to PA Sam!
Our second new PA is named Mike. Mike hails from Agra, Kansas, which boasts the lowest population in the whole state at 306 people and is know world wide as "The Home of Leftovers." It was there in 1768 where Mike's great, great, great... really great grandfather first thought to save his dinner to bring to work for his lunch the next day. When Mike turned 16 his father gave him the keys to the horse and buggy and told him to head west just like they had practiced while playing "Oregon Trail" on their floppy disc reading Apple Computer. After Mike's 14-year-old wife died of Dysentery crossing the Missouri River he decided to re-route his lonely caravan to sunny Los Angeles to ride earthquakes. After many years of frustration with the infrequency of earthquakes in So Cal, Mike decided to dabble in show business. Being from the boonies of Kansas Mike's accent was extremely marketable and he soon found himself starring along side Clint Eastwood, Howdy Doody and Zac Effron. With the pressures of fame and fortune wearing on him he did the only thing someone in his shoes could do.....he called Matt and Trey and begged for a job. They set him right up with a sweet PA job here on South Park and the rest is history. PA bloggers please welcome PA Mike!
Welcome back everyone! Enjoy Season 14!
Sincerely,
APOC Steve (Assistant Production Office Coordinator...boo ya promotion!!)
PS. I couldn't have made this stuff up if I tried.
Production Blog Entry for 03/23/2010
Stephen Young, Production Assistant
Hello fellow fans of South Park!
Sam here, suffering from a severe case of "Fresh Production Assistant" syndrome (a one hundred percent, clinically certified disease, by the way). But, fear not! I have been doing my best to get in just the right amount of late-night Starbucks runs before every meal, as per my doctors orders.
But enough about me . . . let's talk about me. My prodigious background in programming of the highest caliber led me to this lofty position as a PA. In fact, my first job in Los Angeles was on none other than the critically acclaimed Bad Girls Club Season 3. Now, I'm not sure if you've seen this show, but it's a healthy mix of 24 meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with a slight hint of Brittney Spear's Oscar winning Crossroads tossed in. In fact, on my first day on the job, one of the lovely Bad Girls tried to use her womanly ways to tempt me into staying as I dropped her off at her hotel. Stay classy, Bad Girls!
After that amazing experience, I worked on other such box office smashes as the Real World/ Road Rules Challenge: The Duel 2, and the Youtube sensation, Eros Rammazzotti's "Parla Con Me". Seriously. If your soul doesn't weep with reminiscent tears of your childhood, you have no soul. . .
Thank God for South Park.
-Sam
Production Blog Entry for 03/30/2010
David Brown, Production Assistant
A PA's schedule is full with endless amounts of coffee making, grocery runs, printer restocking and light bulb replacement. But every once in a while, a PA is asked to bring an extra change of clothes to work because one of the producers wants to film them puking. A narly mixture of yogurt, split-pea soup and beans will be provided.
This extraordinary call to duty was for animators to use as reference in last week's episode "THE TALE OF SCROTIE MCBOOGERBALLS" where there was plenty of spewing chunks.
This first video I call "THAT TASTED GROSS, NEED TO PUKE"
This next one captures my emotion a little better, it's called""I DON'T REMEMBER DRINKING THAT"
And this one is titled, "REALLY NEED TO STOP DOING THIS, STARTING TO ACTUALLY FEEL SICK CAUSE I'VE GOT CHUNKS OF WHATEVER IT IS I'M SPITTING UP INBETWEEN MY TOES"
Yes, they are extraordinary aren't they?
Go on watch them one more time. You know you want to.
This week's awesome episode is called "MEDICINAL FRIED CHICKEN." Cartman is surprised to find his favorite restaurant had been turned into a medical marijuana dispensary.
Unfortunately there is no video record of the mind-altering reference I did for this episode. Enjoy fans.
Production Blog Entry for 04/06/2010
Sam Young, Production Assistant
Hello fellow fans of South Park!
Following in the wake of David "DAVEHEART THE ALMIGHTY" Brown's fantastic throat purging videos of last week, Trey and the Amazing Animators (band name? keep it. It's yours.) decided they needed some reference shots for last week's episode "Medicinal Fried Chicken." So, of course, we the P.A's took it upon ourselves to put our giant blue bouncy balls in the microwave and come down with a little case of inflatable testicular cancer.
Like Randy before him, Steve found himself encumbered by the giant blue weight between his knees. Perplexed, and a bit overwhelmed, poor Stevensly could not get moving.
Mike on the other hand, move effortlessly around the parking lot by skateboard. I knew his gorilla like strength would come in handy some day!
But Dave, being the reference shot pro that he is, quickly managed to bounce himself into his chair and begin doing the only sensible thing a man in his predicament could do: a cleansing massage.
Needless to say we successfully bounced ourselves into insanity. All in a days work.
Right now we're busy stalking ex-girlfriends on Facebook for this week's episode "You Have 0 Friends". Make sure to tune in tomorrow at 10pm!
Production Blog Entry for 04/13/2010
Steve Rippin, Associate Production Office Coordinator
All right folks I'm going to cut right to the chase. I don't have time to say welcome to the blog or anything like that. After all, We have our 200th FRICKIN' EPISODE to finish here. 200 shows is a milestone and quite frankly I speak for everyone when I say, "lets party!"
"Not so fast Steve!" says Matt and Trey. "We still have two more episodes this run!" Ok, so I guess we'll save the partying for later on, but we did get to take a little break last week to briefly celebrate.
Comedy Central was nice enough to send over an awesome taco truck (my personal favorite) and beers (my other personal favorite) for the crew. (Yea that's right, we got our day drink on. No big deal.) We also presented the crew with the 200th Episode cake made by Rosebud Cakes in Beverly Hills (swanky, I know). Elin and Allen were friggin' awesome and the cake looked so sweet.
One of my favorite shows on TV right now is "Ace of Cakes," but after working with the people over at Rosebud they need to move that show to LA immediately and call it "Ace of Rosebud Cakes." IMMEDIATELY I SAY. Here's a behind the scenes look at how our cake was built (riveting I know, but if your like me you are addicted to stuff like this.)
Elin, posing with the skin and bones of the cake.
Elin, painting the trees and the boys.
Frosting attack!!!!!!!!! Elin is laying down the "snow".
Looks like it's coming together. "Snow" complete. Tree frosting time!
Faceless boys...creepy.
Here it is! South Park's 200th Episode cake!
The cake came out awesome! Everyone was thrilled. I'd like to take this chance to thank Rosebud Cakes again for the hard work, effort and willingness to pocket the exorbitant amount of money we paid them to make this kickass cake.
As for me, I'm just excited to be a part of such an awesome occasion. I was 11 when the show first started and to be working on the amazing 200th episode is an honor to say the least. It's not very often that shows make it to 200 episodes...just saying.
Check out www.southpark200.com for all the well wishes from you guys as well as some of our celebrity friends. Robert Popper (one of our writing consultants) made an awesome video where he prank called me and pretended to be a crazy idea loaded fan. I thought I had heard everything, seeing as how I get calls like this on a daily basis. This one takes the cake (zing!) and he made a little animation to go with it and it's posted up on the site now. Enjoy the video, enjoy the pictures and enjoy the episode!
APOC Steve.
Production Blog Entry for 04/20/2010
Steve Rippin, Associate Production Office Coordinator
Good evening South Park fans. Steve here. Last week we talked about fun, drinking, cake and this week were going to talk about the economy. Not only are we going to talk about the economy, but we are also going to talk about the fact that if you are a PA or an assistant here at South Park you don't give a shit about the economy. Believe me, I get it. Live within your means and buy what you can afford blah blah blah. It makes no sense to me. Information like that goes in one ear and out the other. Blame it on my youth, whatever. If you give me OT I'm spending some cash.
So this blog is about living while you're young and just spending stupid amounts of money on things we, the production office, have no business buying in the first place. I know the assistant life looks glamorous on paper, but let's face it we're not making play money down here at South Park. We're making hard earned cash and trust me we love spending it more than making it. Spending large sums of money that we don't really have never hurt anyone right?
So now I know what you're thinking. What could they have possibly bought? Well, I'll start with myself. A couple weeks ago I saw Paul McCartney at the Hollywood Bowl. Epic I know, and I thought it would be great to take up a hobby while I'm sitting in my living room in my boxers trying to think of something to do other than watch "Millionaire Matchmaker" reruns on Bravo. So I bought a bass guitar so I can rock like Sir Paul. It's a very beginner model and I bought an amp to go with it, shut up its badass. Hey Steve!? You ask. Do you know how to play or do you know anything about the bass guitar? My answer to this question is simple. I don't have a friggin' clue, but screw you I bought it and I will learn. If only my elementary school clarinet teacher could see me now!
Up next are PA Mike and PA Sam. They basically bought the same item which is probably the most unoriginal thing ever , but it doesn't matter it was still a ridiculous purchase. Mike and Sam, for those who don't know, are huge camera nerds and while you other camera nerds may think their purchases are cool I know how much they make and nothing can be that cool. Or can it? You see Mike and Sam have just completed hundreds of hours of their first run here at South Park so why not spend retarded amounts of cash on NEW CAMERAS. They shot the season finale of House on the same damn camera so the "what my baby wants, my baby gets," mentality creeps in and they are each swiping the plastic for a new cam. So screw groceries and maybe some new shoes or even a haircut. They needed those cameras and they needed them now! Now they are two expensive ass cameras richer and their bank accounts are two expensive ass cameras poorer. C'est la Vie!
And now for the final chapter in this spending spree saga... Mr. PA David. I have first hand knowledge and picture proof that this next purchase occurred. You see it started about a month ago in the production office and David was watching "The Departed" on his computer. All of a sudden he stood up in his chair and pointed to the screen and muttered to him self, "I must have that." We ignored him, as is usually the case when he mutters senseless psychobabble and carried on. Cut to three weeks later and David pulls back from his desk and exclaims to the office, "I did it! I bought it!" Four days after that a box from the Turkish Towel Company arrived at the front desk. In it was a $150.00 robe -- YES ROBE -- and slippers that was pretty much the exact robe and slippers Jack Nicholson wore in "The Departed." Ladies and Gentlemen this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Stop taking your girlfriend to In and Out and maybe cancel your iPhone bill for a month and buy a robe that you don't need. It just doesn't get any better than that. My good friend David didn't need his robe, but gosh darn it he wanted it so he manned up and bought it. I wish I had a robe like that.
I will now take this opportunity to commend David on buying the most pointless thing for this run of South Park episodes. Congrats dude.
As for you guys, when you get your paycheck from your paper routes or you empty out your tip jar down at Ma and Pa's Market, go ahead and spend it on something you don't need. If after a few days you don't want it anymore put it on eBay and I'll buy it. I'm always looking to burn some cash for no reason especially if someone tries to lecture me about the economy.
Pictures are located below. Congratulations to me for writing the longest blog in the history of this site. If you made it this far without skipping kudos to you...
