6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park (2011)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Absolutely Fantastic

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There's a rule of thumb that the longer an animated show lasts, the likelier the quality and humour will decline."The Simpsons" is a pale shadow of its glory days and "Family Guy" has lost a lot of its spark.There is an exception: South Park.While the right wingers aren't outraged by it anymore, it remains the most topical animated comedy on the air."6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park" shows us why. Covering the making of the season 15 premiere "HUMANCENTiPAD", it shows the intense process of one episode, from original writers meetings to 11th hour delivery of the finished tape to Comedy Central.This documentary shows us WHY South Park is still relevant and funny after almost 20 years: Matt Stone and Trey Parker are involved in every step of creating the show, melding it into what we see on TV every week. Coming off the successful Book of Mormon stage show, Parker and Stone are understandably struggling for motivation. A few writers room sessions (including SNL's Bill Hader) has the boys kicking around ideas, doing the character's voices and laughing like five- year- olds at poo jokes. The episode idea is full of the topical humour South Park are famous for: it's a parody of the often-unread Apple iTunes Terms and Conditions (Trey got the idea after having to update iTunes for the gazillionth time) and "The Human Centipede" horror film. Meanwhile, Executive Producer Anne Garefino has to clear the idea with the censors.After the idea is hatched, the hard-working animators bring the show to life, while Matt and Trey record dialogue. While most animated shows farm the grunt work out to Korea, the South Park animators have to juggle multiple tasks to get the episode done.As they days tick by, the laughs disappear and the stress kicks in: while Trey does last-minute work on the script, bemoaning that a lengthy script means massive cuts (and admitting to hating the 'lonely' writing process), they attend the Tony Awards for "Book of Mormon" and do interviews for said show. The crew are on board too, sleeping in the office and pulling long days to finish the episode. The relief at finishing is obvious.We do get some reminiscing from Parker and Stone: how they rose from poor animators to cultural icons through "The Spirit of Christmas", how their temperaments and skills complement each other and the infamous night they wore dresses to the Oscars while on acid. This is why South Park is still vibrant: Stone and Parker are more than just colleagues, they're friends. It's why they put themselves through the unimaginable stress of a six-day turnaround. It works, as Parker says the deadline stops them from becoming too pedantic.Another important point: Parker and Stone don't give two shits about reputations. When Bill Hader explains SNL's political tightrope when parodying celebrities ('we might want them to host one day'), Parker and Stone have no restrictions, allowing them the brutally parody any celebrity they want without fear of reprisal.If you're a fan of South Park, or animated shows in general, "6 Days to Air" is well worth watching.

And that episode is the first of season 15. I have not yet seen that one, but at some point I certainly will. I think I have watched roughly 150 episodes of the show so far. The episode that these 40 minutes here are about is a spoof of "The Human Centipede", a horror film I quite enjoyed, so one reason more to watch it besides being a great "South Park" fan in general. But this documentary is not only about this episode. It also features scenes from older episodes that were particularly memorable and edgy and also some background stuff on Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the "South Park" creators, such as when they were at the Oscars or their very early short film works before "South Park" started. There's some generic stuff here like comments how the crew is the best they could think of or some pseudo drama about one of the makers being unhappy with the episode every time shortly before it gets aired, but all in all it's a good documentary by Arthur Bradford and nice to see it achieved an Emmy nomination. Certainly worth a watch for fans of the series. Recommended.

Since its debut in 1997, "South Park" has somehow managed to remain the sharpest and most consistently hilarious show on television. This is quite impressive given not only how long the show has been on the air at this point, but also justhow quickly each episode gets produced. It had often been said that episodes of "South Park" are made in a week or less. I'd heard this a long time ago and thought it was simply a rumor, as it seemed completely insane to think that anyone could put together such great television in such a limited time span. 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park shows how "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone manage to do just that. The focus here is The Human Centipad episode, perhaps the most disgusting episode the duo has ever come up with. The writing process, animation process, voice-recording process, and editing process are all covered here. Due to the short running time of the documentary, the coverage of each of these processes is not extensive, but long enough for the viewer to get a good sense of what it takes to create a typical "South Park" episode.The best part of 6 Days to Air is that, unlike most behind-the-scenes documentaries that try to sell that every production is a blast to work on, here there is emphasis on the enormous pressure and anxiety everyone is under to get the episode done on time. Parker and Stone make no attempt to hide the anxiousness, making this feel like a real honest look at the creative process, not just a "South Park" fluff piece. Parker, in particular, is seen to be quite on edge when it seems the episode may not be done by the scheduled airdate. Although Stone gets his fair share of camera time, Parker seems to be the main figure in the documentary as head writer and director of the episode being produced. Parker is a fascinating figure to watch, alternating between hilarious, stressed out, and just happy to get the work done. This isn't one of those documentaries where the audience is left with the impression that the filmmaker is delusional, pretentious, or a jerk. Parker just seems like a normal, everyday guy with a very tough but rewarding job in the television industry. If anything, 6 Days to Air makes one admire Stone and Parker even more for the hard work put into their television show.6 Days to Air isn't perfect as its aforementioned short running time is a bit of a bummer, but it's certainly one of the more entertaining and informative documentaries about television. I've seen it several times now, and still find it to be just as intriguing as I did the first time that I watched it. It would be great to see another longer documentary about "South Park" in the future, although for now 6 Days to Air remains the definitive documentary on the legendary series. Definitely recommended. 9/10

This documentary is pretty much exactly what it says: a look inside the studio and how a small group of dedicated people are able to bring a cartoon to your home each week with only days to go from scratch to screen.My biggest disappointment is the length of this thing. Clearly it was designed to fit within an hour of television, but I would think they could have put more for those who did not watch the original run (I saw it on Netflix, for example). There was not much discussion of the movies these guys made, and how films like "Cannibal the Musical" fit into the story of Parker and Stone.That aside, I think it was a good peak at how these guys work, and it is interesting to see Bill Hader in on the fun, too. I knew some episodes were made last minute, but I was not aware that the show consistently worked that way. It is an amazing feat.