During his college years, South Park co-creator Trey Parker was far from a model student, and that’s not just because he couldn’t stop doing a proto-Cartman voice in class.
Long before Parker and his long-time creative partner Matt Stone were worldwide celebrities and iconoclastic comedy kings, the duo were just a couple of enterprising young filmmakers who had better things to do than to keep up with their classwork at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Parker and Stone famously met in a film class at the college, where they began collaborating on short films, often shooting as many as one per week. But the magnum opus of Parker and Stone’s college years was undoubtedly Cannibal! The Musical, a 96-minute black comedy cult-classic feature that jump-started their entertainment empire and ended Parker’s academic ambitions.
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When Parker and Stone appeared on Dennis Miller Live! in 1998, just weeks into South Park Season Two, Parker revealed that their reputation as the slacker rebels who stumbled their way into stardom is unfair — he only flunked out of college because he skipped straight to his career.
When Miller asked Parker and Stone what they were like as students, Parker replied, “We both got in trouble,” then added, “I actually got kicked out of college,” but not for the reasons that some viewers may have assumed in 1998.
“When things hit, as big as the South Park story was, and everyone liked the story because it was, you know, we’re these two supposed slacker loser rebel guys that suddenly got fame, (but) the truth was that we were working our asses off since we met in college,” Parker corrected of his and Stone’s earliest creative ventures and their rep. “We did films all the time, and I only got kicked out of school because I was working so hard on this film, trying to get it done, and failed all my classes.”
Based on a real-life doomed prospecting journey led by “The Colorado Cannibal” Alfred Griner Packer in the winter of 1874, Cannibal! The Musical was a critically divisive cult-hit — but, more than anything, it remains the most impressive college project of any U.C. Boulder film student, regardless of their graduation status. And, while Parker would earn no high honors from the department for writing, directing, producing and starring in the feature film, he and his collaborators did have the honor of working alongside one of the most influential experimental filmmakers of all time.
Parker’s brief time studying film at U.C. Boulder coincided with the inconsistent tenure of professor and filmmaker Stan Brakhage, whose experimental work throughout the latter half of the 20th century inspired and influenced movie giants such as Martin Scorsese and George Lucas. Brakhage has a brief cameo in Cannibal! The Musical as the father of George “California” Noon, which, in lieu of a BFA, is about the highest distinguishment that a U.C. Boulder student director could ever earn.
Clearly, Parker’s decision to focus on his career instead of his studies paid off, and the staff of the U.C. Boulder Film Department played a part in his ascension, even if they couldn’t exactly award him with a “cum laude.”
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