South Park creators’ genius strategy after censors tried clamping down on movie

It may be dismissed by some as a dumb cartoon, but anyone who's a fan knows South Park is one of the most astute shows out there.

Being able to turn episodes around in just a few days and generally being able to skewer American culture, politics and world events in the process, Matt Stone, Trey Parker and the team behind South Park are clearly no slouches and a world away from the slacker image sometimes put upon such a show.

The same can be said for their 1999 movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which needed some careful planning and cunning forethought to get around censors and make sure film could be seen by more people.

REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

Anyone who's seen the show will know the characters in South Park have a penchant for profanity.

But did you know the movie has exactly 399 swear words, and it's for a very specific reason?

According to IMDb, the reason it has this precise number is to avoid it getting a higher age rating.

"South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut intentionally went up to using 399 swear words because the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] would have given the film an NC-17 rating if at least 400 swear words were used in the film," the site writes.

However, the cap on the swear words didn't do the film any harm; in fact, the number saw them break a record.

IMDb continues: "In the Guinness World Records 2001, this film was said to have the most profanity used in an animated film. The book cited a total of 399 swear words, including 146 uses of the word 'f**k', along with 199 offensive gestures and 221 acts of violence."

Not bad going when there's a limit on the amount of cussing you can have.

Warner Bros.

It's been more than two decades since the last South Park film was released, but it seems like another could finally be in store, as last year it was announced creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone had signed a $900 million deal with ViacomCBS Inc. to produce new episodes of the show over the next six years, in addition to ‘several spinoff movies for the company’s Paramount+ streaming service'.

Parker and Stone’s deal will run through 2027, with six more cycles of South Park and 14 movies made for streaming.

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Topics: South Park, Film and TV

Charlie Cocksedge

Charlie Cocksedge is a senior sub editor at LADbible Group. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.