‘This is the Most Dangerous Thing I’ve Ever Seen’: Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Casa Bonita Documentary Looks Stressful as Hell
The documentary about the massive Casa Bonita renovation project launched by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone is going to premiere before the restaurant itself opens its doors to the general public — and looking at the trailer for ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!, it’s easy to understand why.
On September 23, 2021, Parker and Stone finalized a deal to purchase the struggling Mexican restaurant and entertainment complex Casa Bonita in Lakewood, Colorado for $3.1 million. At the time, Casa Bonita had closed its doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and with its infrastructure crumbling and its finances doing the same, the closure seemed all but permanent before a couple of obscenely wealth and devotedly nostalgic Colorado natives decided to purchase the towering pink cathedral after falling in love with Casa Bonita back during their childhoods.
However, the sizable sale price on the the failing business would quickly pale in comparison to the nine-figure expenses Parker and Stone would soon have to shell out to transform Casa Bonita from a mid-collapse death trap into one of the hottest tourist destinations in the country.
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Right now, Casa Bonita is still in a limited soft-open phase that seems unlikely to end anytime soon, and the waitlist to get into one of their trial-run dinner services is at least 600,000 potential patrons long. But South Park fans who weren’t fortunate enough to get in on the early action can still vicariously enjoy all the magic and mayhem of Casa Bonita when the award-winning MTV documentary about the Casa Bonita transformation premieres in select cities on September 13th:
¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! director Arthur Bradford is a long-time friend of both South Park and its creators, having first worked with Parker and Stone on the MTV comedy infotainment series How's Your News? in 2003. Parker and Stone executive produced the project that Bradford created, and, though How's Your News? only ran for six episodes, it began a partnership that would lead to millions of South Park fans getting their most intimate look behind the scenes of the iconic animated comedy.
In 2011, Bradford directed the Comedy Central documentary film 6 Days to Air, which chronicled the chaotic creation of each South Park episode over a single week. 6 Days to Air was a massive hit among South Park fans and an eye-opener to anyone who mistakenly believed that, because of the crude animation and cruder jokes, South Park was a “low-effort” comedy series. Bradford’s documentary even earned an Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Nonfiction Special category.
With ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!, Bradford has already added to his trophy case with another documentary on an even more stressful and tumultuous project from Parker and Stone — the Casa Bonita doc won the Audience Award at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, where it premiered back in June.
Bradford’s breakdown of the spirit-breaking process of gutting the decaying, OSHA-violating 52,000 square foot “Mexican restaurant Disneyland” and turning it into South Park superfan Mecca will be an unmissable event for anyone living in Los Angeles, New York, Denver or one of the few other American cities where ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! will play.
Unfortunately, anyone who isn’t driving distance from one of the participating theaters might need to get creative if they want a taste of the chaos — in fact, they might need to take a page out of Cartman's book.
