Slashdot Mirror
'South Park' Creators in Web Deal
wunderhorn1 writes "Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, have agreed to do "39 short cartoons" for Macromedia, Inc.'s Shockwave.com. According the the New York Times article, Parker and Stone will "receive equity of less than 10 percent in Shockwave.com," which will apparently be run as a subsidiary of Macromedia. "
Considering they find TV restrictive I bet that their online animations will be similar in content and vulgarity to the South Park movie. I don't know if this is good or bad but I know I'll be entertained. Western Civilization might be falling but it's a nice ride.
IMHO as per.
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
I know that Tom Fulp, the guy who runs Newgrounds was going to meet with the South Park guys due to some involvement with the Troma people. Newgrounds is basically a lot of Flash stuff... I wonder if he is involved at all.
However, Parker and Stone are NOT exactly motivated by creativity here. It's a total money grab situation. They say "we've had offers before", and if one thing they've ALWAYS known how to merchandise thier product. They knew they could get a hefty sum rather than going out on thier own like Spumco. 10% of Shockwave is a nice pile of dimes. They're not making cartoons; they're making commercials. They sell Macromedia's software (which I do generally like; Fireworks is an excellent tool), and they sell thier own tv series. It's not like they're giving that up (John K. doesn't do tv very often anymore . . . occasionally, but from what I understand he doesn't WANT another regular series).
And if that fails, they still have movies (which I'll admit was funnier than the tv show, but still bored me after the first fifteen minutes).
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
This is a strange move for Macromedia, as someone else mentioned, South Park is very crappy looking animation. Why would they want to demonstrate what you can do with Shockwave with something that is supposed to be very collage like. The most important thing in South Park is the sound, that's what makes it funny! No one went to the South Park movie to see next generation "Toy Story 2" graphics, so why would anyone goto shockwave.com to see something unamazing visually. They should stick to showing off Shockwave's ability to do flashy and fast websites. But hey if what the South Park gang can come up with something funny for http://www.Shockwave.com then I'm all for it!
Considering that Flash has been shipping included with Netscape for quite a while, don't go bitching about MS just because you automatically think of them :P
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
NOPE.
They use Alias|Wavefront packages for the show and movie, most notably PowerAnimator and Composer.
PowerAnimator rocks, IMO. I've used it for a while, and the modelling tools are second to none.
Pixar uses it to make their models, then animates in something else, then uses RenderMan for output.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Will they allow cursing in the short cartoons?
From the Macromedia website at http://www.macromedia.com/support/ shockwave/svt/ when you try to install Shockwave (i.e. Director, NOT Flash)....
/. !!! P.S. be nice, no flames, etc.
You chose "Other" platform because you are not on Windows or Macintosh.
Currently, Macromedia has not made any announcements regarding versions of Shockwave Player for OS/2 or other platforms. Please stay tuned to this site for updated information about other platforms.
Please see Guide to Shockwave Player browser and platform compatibility for more information about which browsers and platforms are supported.
If you would like to log your request that Shockwave Player support platforms other than Windows and Macintosh, then please send us your feedback.
Well - go to it
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
This deal has the potential to break Hollywood's grip on what gets seen on TV. How's that, you ask? Read the frickin' article I tell you...
This is not South Park on Shockwave.com. That has been done already. This is a new Parker/Stone series, done in 2-5 minute bursts, created with Flash. Shockwave.com is willing to give these two pretty much total creative control in return for their names with an option to sell.
Something new from Trey and Matt, with a guarantee of more vulgarity than South Park, is a way to pull in thousands if not millions of viewers to Shockwave.com. They can pretty much count on getting everyone who has watched South Park at Shockwave.com to check out the new series. South Park viewers have always been very net savvy. Remember South Park on Realplayer? Hell, a lot of you are probably still watching South Park that way. People who are willing to watch a 'pirate' copy of South Park in grainy Realplayer quality are probably going to be willing to watch this new series at least once.
And what if people keep coming back? Shockwave.com serves up more ads and makes more 'money'. The real cash here comes from Shockwave.com's option to sell the series to Hollywood if it takes off. Hollywood gets a proven series with a quantifiable following. Shockwave gets Hollywood Dollars. Trey and Matt get to swear as much as they want. Win-Win-Win
In any case, since when do all nerds use Linux? Personally, I use NT, Mac and Linux as needed.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
but if we were going to start cracking down on some of the garbage that passes as "entertainment" these days
Exactly who is "we," and why are we cracking down? And at exactly what point in your life did you decide that religion precludes humor? I mean, noone in the world is allowed to make jokes about your personal religion?
What is it about so many religious people that makes them so completely self-righteous?
And really, what exactly is it about Jesus that is supposed to relate to this pagan festival? It certainly has absolutely nothing to do with his birthday. Christmas is a hell of a lot older than Jesus, and his real birthday is a lot closer to Easter than it is to Christmas.
See, the joke with Jesus battling Satan is that it's a parable. You've studied the bible, you understand those. Christmas is an ancient pagan ritual which the Christians adopted in an effort to convert the pagans -- they came into northern Europe saying, "You have a spring festival and a winter festival? What luck, they happen to fall exactly on the days of the birth and death of the deity we worship. How convenient."
What exactly do eggs have to do with Easter? Nothing. They're symbols of fertility, the symbols of the pagan spring festival. What exactly do pine trees and gifts and Santa Claus have to do with Jesus? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
So the next time you're going on about, or listening to someone going on about, how the fetivities and commercialization are ruining Jesus' birthday, remember that the festivities were there first. Jesus was tacked on later.
It's also one of the best meditations on the nature of evil I've ever seen - "I'm going to bet on Satan, 'cause evil's stronger than good! (Time passes.) Hey, Satan ripped me off! That's, uh, like, evil..."
Fine, and we pity you as a brainwashed dupe of organized religion. Shall we throw a pity party for each other?Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Folks! Joke! Sarcasm! HAHA! Definitly not as funny as the Grits Guy, and possibly not as apparent (seeing as how everyone missed the real point like a MX missile.). I suppose I should really try to stay away from the humor, though. I'm never funny until I'm drunk, and even then I only think I am.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I've never missed the Shockwave and Flash plugins for Netscape before -- I'm running Linux on a PowerPC which, like all other non-x86 chips, is not supported by Macromedia on the Linux side.
But gee, it's the guys who brought us Orgazmo. Now I wanna see the neat Flash cartoons. I'll be emailing them at customerservice@macromedia.com, and sending a polite note to
Macromedia, Inc.
600 Townsend St, Ste 310W
San Francisco, CA 94103
I urge anyone else who is unable to use Flash and Shockwave to do the same -- I imagine they could make the port rather easily, already having an x86 version, but don't see the demand yet.
John
SouthPark has no place in the internet! For months and years now it has brainwashed our hapless children into doing unspeakable crimes!
Well, this is somewhat beside the point, but southpark has been available online for quite some time now, usualy in realmedia format though, and I don't want to rape my computer by puting on another viral application that feels the need to rape windows and reassociate every single filetype with itself... (quicktime is bad enough, I can't view png files on the net normaly anymore when its installed...)
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
200 Million is how many copies of Internet Explorer Microsoft claimed were installed during the Antitrust trial!
Just because I mention the useless plug-in pack included with IE doesn't make it a automatic 'M$' bash!
I know now what Katz felt like after those 'Disney' articles
.sig: Now legally binding!
If ever South Park was a hot commodity, it was about 2 years ago before they managed to piss off most of their die-hard fans with the whole Terrance and Phillip debacle (remember that episode? It was *supposed* to be the "who is Cartman's Father" episode).
Speak for yourself. I (and most of my SP watching friends) laughed our asses off. Very reminsicient of a certain Mr. Kaufmann....
BTW, do you happen to have proof that they are no longer "hot"? Slipping ratings? Lack of merchandising? Seems to me that the SP christmas ornaments argue against you!
Certainly this is odd timing what with the dismal display of the South Park movie, which grossed *far* less than most predictions...and even failed to be all that funny.
Again speak for yourself.
Did anybody think all of the anal-rape jokes were even remotely funny or necessary?
If you are watching a show/movie that is know and marketed as being offensive, you should not be suprised if it sometimes offends you.
(Remember Orgazmo or Baseketball?)
Hmmm... both of which I personally found to be very funny. See my point immediately above.
Myddrin
I'll probably regret taking this bait
:-)
Me too, but I can never let these things go.
what if I *do* think that religion is necessary for morality?
Well, for starters, you'd be wrong.
You claim that you think it's wrong to murder and all that, and that's all well and good, but if you honestly don't believe in God (which I find very hard to believe) then you've got nobody to answer to, and you don't have any accountability for your actions.
Let's take that one bit at a time, shall we?
I'm an atheist also. A pretty outspoken one as many slashdotters will testify. You say you fnd it hard to believe that a person can not believe in god? Boy are you an idiot then. The majority of the WORLD does not believe in your god, for starters. Christians, as a whole (catholics, baptists, the whole lot), form less than a third of the world population.
Second, you claim that by not believing in an afterlife, or a god, or some such nonsense, I have no reason to have any morals whatsoever. What's your basis for that? I kill a man, I go to jail. Simple. Easy. Or perhaps his friends kill me. There are always consequences. But consequences aside, have you no personal sense of ethics? Do you not know right from wrong unless your god tells you so? If your god told you killing is good, would you do it? After all, he controls right and wrong in your mind, right?
If you can't tell the difference between right and wrong, have an ethical position, without a strawman to hold up and say "I know this is wrong because god says so," then you are a sheep. A follower. No mind of your own. Your god is your crutch.
In the final analysis, it is my opinion (note opinion) that belief in and obedience to God is necessary to be truly moral. Without it you can only have a *semblance* of morality, which is not the same thing. Unless you live your life with the understanding that your actions *do* have final consequences, I don't see how true morality can be acheived.
Morals, like ethics, are a personal thing. Everyone has their own sense of morals. However, you are using the term like there is some absolute set of morals that all people should follow, all the time. This is obviously wrong. What may be correct in one circumstance would be hideously wrong in another. What may be wrong for you to do may be right for the person standing beside you to do. Circumstance alters situations. It is wrong to kill, unless it's self defense, or there a war going on, or something else. There's unlimited possiblities, man. Life is not simple.
Just my opinion. This is off topic anyway.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Neither is it a Linux website.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
IMHO, it is precisely the fear of being proved wrong. So their self-righteousness is merely a defense against that terrible possibility. Of course, they spin it as "I am NOT wrong -- but more right than you could ever be!" They have not learned St. Paul's lesson: "Perfect love casteth out fear.", for still they fear. Have pity.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Easter is supposed to be closer to Christ's death since in the Bible it is when he is killed.
Xmas is even older than Pagan cults (also Pagan cults probably indirectly derived these cults from there), it goes as far as Babylon. If you read the Genesis their is a part about the "first" King of what was to be called Babylon, Nimrod (in fact I think his father was the first King). When he died his mother made a cult saying that his soul was living in the tree that didn't die (i.e. Xmas tree still have their needle in winter, they sort of "don't die" during winter).
But of course the Catholic religion (and most Christians inspired religions for that matter) have incorpored a lot of pagan cults, even the trinity can be found in some other form in other religions (Antic Greece, Egypt and even India).
Anyway all dates of Catholic celebrations are wrong because of the calendar, not the difference between Orthodox and Catholic calendar, but the difference between Solar revolution based and Lunar revolution based calendar. The Bible following a Lunar calendar any feast that has fixed dates in this calendar can't have fixed dates in a Solar calendar.
Oh, BTW where is Xmas mentioned in the Bible?
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,