Fox Passed on ‘South Park’ Because They Worried This Character Would Stain the Network
In an alternate TV universe, Fox is the home of The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park and a couple unsightly skid marks.
Long before Trey Parker and Matt Stone were the co-heads of a billion-dollar multimedia franchise and the co-owners of the almost-as-expensive Casa Bonita, the pair were the writers, producers, animators and stars of two of the earliest viral videos in comedy history. While attending the University of Colorado in 1992, the pair created an animated short film called The Spirit of Christmas featuring a group of schoolboys who bring Frosty the Snowman to life, only for the iconic animated character to turn homicidal.
Three years later, Fox executive Brian Graden would stumble upon the original The Spirit of Christmas video and commission the Colorado duo to create a second festive short film, this time featuring a bitter feud between Santa Claus and Jesus Christ. Upon the success of the second sketch, Graden and Fox invited Parker and Stone to discuss a possible series adaptation of their construction paper characters and world in 1997, and Parker and Stone prepared yet another colorful, Christmas-themed comedy plot line to wow the network into giving them a green light.
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Then, during the eagerly awaited pitch meeting, the Fox boardroom met Mr. Hankey and decided to pass on the project that became South Park, fearing that airing a show that featured a literal talking piece of shit following The Simpsons would ruin the network’s impeccable schedule.
Of course, these are the exact same people who greenlit The Chevy Chase Show just a couple years before passing on South Park, so, for all the Fox executives' concerns about Mr. Hankey, it’s ironic that they couldn’t identify a piece of shit if it landed in their coffee.
In the South Park Season One episode “Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo,” the titular turd makes his debut as a parodically non-religious Christmas mascot who appears to those good little boys and girls who get enough fiber in their diets and causes Mr. Mackey to diagnose Kyle as a “clinically depressed fecalpheliac on Prozac.” Mr. Hankey would make numerous appearances throughout the series, typically around Christmastime, and most recently in the 2018 “The Problem with a Poo,” which fittingly ended with a jab at The Simpsons’ then-current controversy regarding a certain Kwik-E-Mart proprietor.
When Parker and Stone offered Fox the opportunity to be the official home of Mr. Hankey, they initially believed that Fox would be onboard with a little toilet humor. Parker and Stone pitched Mr. Hankey, whom Parker based on his own potty training as a child, as a recurring side character in the theoretical series, but Fox insisted that any kind of adaptation of their short films would have to proceed sans speaking feces. Neither the eventual South Park creators nor the network would budge on the poo issue, thus constipating contract discussions and causing Parker and Stone to flush their dreams of a Fox series.
According to Parker, when he and Stone went on to successfully pitch South Park to Comedy Central, he told the network executives at the top of the meeting, “One thing we have to know before we really go any further: how do you feel about talking poo?” The scatological sketches failed to scare off the new bosses, and Parker, Stone, South Park and Mr. Hankey found their home for the next three decades.
All because Fox couldn’t get down with a talking dookie. Howdy ho!
