‘South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone Are Closer to EGOT Status Than Meryl Streep
Cher. Julie Andrews. Audra McDonald. Al Pacino. Bette Midler.
Of all the storied entertainers one award away from achieving EGOT status — that is, a performer or creative who has won a competitive Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony — two near-winners are not like the others: South Park overlords Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
So how have the pair — famed for gags like “The Crack Baby Athletic Association,” the “HUMANCENTiPAD,” and of course, sending Lemmiwinks the gerbil on a trip up Mr. Slave’s ass — managed to go get closer to an EGOT than Meryl Streep or Denzel Washington? Well, by making excellent television for more than two decades and taking a brief detour onto Broadway.
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Winning their first Primetime Emmy Award for South Park in 2005, an achievement the duo have repeated four more times since, Stone and Parker became serious EGOT contenders in 2011, when their musical, The Book of Mormon, made its Broadway debut. They swept the Tony Awards later that year, with both creatives taking home hardware for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score, with Parker winning the award for Best Direction of a Musical alongside storied Broadway legend Casey Nicholaw. The following spring, the creative twosome did it again, with The Book of Mormon scoring the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
Though this final accolade may have cemented Parker and Stone as almost-EGOT winners — an exclusive club including Quincy Jones, Jeremy Irons and Liza Minelli — it nearly catapulted Parker straight into the winner’s circle.
As any South Park fan could tell you, Parker and composer Marc Shaiman’s absolute banger, “Blame Canada” from the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song in 2000.
They ultimately lost to Phil Collins, who won for “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan, yet Parker still made the most of his Oscars experience, tapping Stone to be his date, popping a tab of acid and hitting the red carpet wearing Jennifer Lopez’s iconic green dress.
But even though Parker and Stone remain Oscar-less — and, in turn, EGOT-less — it still could be worse: at least they’re not Bradley Cooper.