South Park at 20: Secrets of the Opening Theme Song

South Park is now 20 years old (funny how Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny don’t look a day over 8) to the time is right to take a look back on the evolution, history and impact of the show.

The theme for the show, which has been reworked a number of times over the years, is the product of Primus leader, Les Claypool. It contains one of my favourite lyrics of all time: “Ample parking, day or night/People spouting ‘HOWDY NEIGHBOUR!”

(Secret side note: Kenny and Timmy’s parts in the theme are tremendously foul. But because no one can make out what they’re saying, they’ve never, ever been censored.)

The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Les about how this all happened.

We got a call years ago that these guys were working on this little animated pilot for Comedy Central. They were a couple of college kids who were fans of the band, and I guess they approached me to do the theme song. At the time, Primus had just gotten a new drummer, so I said, “Let’s have Primus do it.” We had watched their Christmas thing that was going around, and we realized these guys were pretty clever, but there was no way in hell that they were going to be able to get something like that on television. More than anything, it was just an excuse for us to go into the studio and start experimenting.

Read the rest of the article here.