In the classroom

HYDERABAD: If there’s an animated sitcom after The Simpsons, that’s been able to hold our interest for more than a decade, it has to be South Park. One of Comedy Central’s longest running programmes (the 16th season began recently in the US), this four time Emmy Award winning show about four third-graders and their bizarre adventures in Colorado, made headlines with its crude language, dark and surreal humour. The show’s co-creator, Matt Stone, tells us about his favourite South Park moment and more:What worked for us is that we have to keep messing with the formula in order to keep it interesting, and we found little formulas that worked. We have been on air since 1997,since the beginning of the internet. And you think how much the world has changed. I’m 42 now and when we started, I was 27. You discover new things as you get older. The whole Tom Cruise/Scientology thing-people made a stink about it. We were like, ‘Well, we have a show to do next week’. We’re always looking forward, and that’s served us really well. My top South Park moments are the Terrence and Philip Show in 1997. I thought that was funny even though most people didn’t. I love the last season where we left Stan seeing the world as s**t, and how some things he loved, he didn’t love anymore. My favourite character is Cartman. He is just an incredible character of contradiction. It’s a really hard thing to create a character that has that many contradictions. And once you hear Trey do the voice, it makes them (the contradictions) more real. People ask us if a show on third and fourth graders for 15 years can keep us young. We take our Omega-3s, go on runs, and make fart jokes. I think there is something about making fart jokes. I definitely think there’s something about doing this stuff that helps keep you young.South Park airs on Comedy Central, weekdays at 12 pm