The notoriously litigious Lucasfilm company once contacted South Park to do some fact-finding when weighing the possibility of a lawsuit against the show. However, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were unfazed, because they knew that they couldn’t have made more of a mockery out of the Star Wars IP than its original creator.
As the iconoclastic king of crass cartoon parody, South Park is one of the select few shows that has the dubious distinction of needing a separate Wikipedia page just for its many controversies. Parker and Stone have spent the last 28 years roasting, ribbing, satirizing, mocking or straight-up excoriating every celebrity, religion, nationality or film franchise under the sun, and, in that time, they’ve earned plenty of powerful enemies. However, as of Season 28, no aggrieved parody target has ever successfully sued South Park over the show’s content — though George Lucas apparently considered trying it.
In the DVD commentary for the Season One South Park episode “Pinkeye,” in which half of South Park Elementary shows up to the school’s Halloween costume contest dressed as Chewbacca, Parker admitted that he once received a vaguely threatening phone call from Lucasfilm representatives over the show’s many references to and parodies of Star Wars.
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Said Parker of Lucas’ legal threats, “How can we possibly hurt the Star Wars franchise more than he has?”
As Parker noted during the commentary for “Pinkeye,” the fledgling South Park had to fight Comedy Central to let them dress up the kids as Chewbacca because the network worried about possible legal action over the depiction of a Star Wars character, even if it was just a bunch of Halloween costumes. “They worried about George Lucas suing them,” Parker recalled.
“With good reason, too, because he does sue a lot of people,” Stone jabbed at Lucas, revealing, “We have been contacted by Lucasfilm, not after this episode.”
“After we had done a Star Wars parody for, like, the 180th time,” Parker said of Lucas’ legal threats.
Stone recounted of the call from Lucasfilm, “They were like, ‘Send us copies of all your Star Wars parodies, we want to see if we can sue you.’”
“Which, like, how can we possibly hurt the Star Wars franchise more than he has? That was basically our response,” Parker said.
Stone agreed, “I think we’re doing more to help it!”
Considering that South Park has referenced or parodied Star Wars in approximately 34 different episodes and specials, clearly, Lucasfilm’s threats had the predictably opposite effect on the iconoclastic cartoonists. But, honestly, it’s surprising that, despite the show’s continued attacks on fiercely protected franchise, Lucas and his companies have still never brought their grievances against South Park to court — we know that he and Steven Spielberg aren’t ones to take “no” for an answer.
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