Trey Parker

Trey Parker (born October 19, 1969, Conifer, Colorado, U.S.) is an American screenwriter, actor, and producer, best known as the cocreator, with Matt Stone, of the subversive animated comedy series South Park (1997– ) and the Tony Award-winning musical The Book of Mormon (2011).

Parker grew up in small-town Colorado. While in high school, he and a friend released a comedy musical album, Immature: A Collection of Love Ballads for the ’80s Man. He went on to study at the Berklee College of Music, later transferring to the University of Colorado in Boulder. There he met fellow student Matt Stone, an art and math major with whom he shared an interest in film. The two began working on their first full-length collaboration, the movie Cannibal!: The Musical (1993), while still attending school.

In 1992 Parker and Stone created the short animated film The Spirit of Christmas, which featured four foulmouthed boys and an irreverent portrayal of Jesus Christ. It caught the attention of a television executive, who suggested they remake it. That version, released in 1995, became one of the Internet’s earliest viral videos. Its popularity spurred television network Comedy Central to agree in 1997 to air a half-hour program based on the short. Titled South Park, it depicted a quartet of crudely animated grade-schoolers growing up in the small-minded, perpetually wintry town of South Park, Colorado. Parker and Stone cowrote the early episodes (Parker later took over primary script-writing duties) and voiced many of the characters.

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South Park debuted on August 13, 1997, and was an immediate sensation. Featuring absurdist plot twists, casual profanity, and a skewed take on adult topics, the show attracted millions of viewers, a huge amount of critical attention, and the censure of, for example, religious organizations. Within five months of its debut, it was the highest-rated program on Comedy Central. Parker and Stone received their first Emmy Award nomination for the show’s fourth episode, which bore a typically inflammatory title, “Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride.”

Parker branched out into live-action film with the comedy Orgazmo (1997), which he wrote, directed, and starred in, appearing as a Mormon who stumbles upon a career as an adult-film star. In 1998 he starred with Stone in BASEketball, and the following year they released a full-length South Park film. South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut featured a number of songs cowritten by Parker, including the Academy Award-nominated “Blame Canada.” He also collaborated with Stone on the short-lived television show That’s My Bush! (2001) and the film Team America: World Police (2004), for which Parker wrote and performed most of the sound track.

Meanwhile, South Park continued to draw accolades well into its run, receiving five Emmys for outstanding animated program (2005, 2007–09, 2013). Its creators also continued to court controversy, as with a 2005 episode skewering Scientology that led to the departure of cast member Isaac Hayes, a Scientologist. In 2006, after Comedy Central refused to air a cartoon depiction of the Prophet Muhammad—which many Muslims would have considered offensive—a scene intended to feature the Prophet was replaced by a message on a blank screen: “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network.” Parker and Stone again pressed the issue in 2010, when an episode depicted Muhammad wearing a bear suit that masked his identity.

Together with songwriter Robert Lopez, the Parker and Stone later wrote the satirical musical The Book of Mormon (2011), about LDS missionaries in Uganda. The Broadway production, which Parker codirected, received numerous Tony Awards, including best musical. Additionally, its original cast album won a Grammy Award in 2012.

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In 2017 Parker voiced the character of a villain—a former 1980s child star—in the animated film Despicable Me 3.