How Trey Parker and Matt Stone made South Park a success

CNN Money has an interesting Fortune article on the greatest animated comedy right now, South Park and its creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. From CNN Money:

During my visit to South Park Studios, Parker appears to be the show's primary funny guy. He writes the scripts, directs the episodes, and provides the voices of Stan and Cartman. Stone does the voices of Kyle and Kenny, but you might call him the duo's external-affairs director. He handles the business aspects of the show that don't interest his partner.

So why do they share equal billing? "Trey physically writes the scripts," says Anne Garefino, executive producer of the show. "But it's Matt and Trey's voice."

Jason McHugh, who went to college with the two men and worked on "South Park" in its early days, says, "Usually Trey is the starter and Matt's the chimer-inner. But together they will riff out and beat down a joke and turn it inside out and go upwards, backwards, downwards, beat it until it's not funny anymore, and then it's even funnier than you ever could have imagined."

... Parker went off to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he met Stone, a math prodigy from Littleton, Colo. The two collaborated on a short cartoon called "The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Frosty." It's really the first "South Park" episode, and you can find it today on YouTube. Kyle, Kenny, Cartman and Stan make a snowman. He comes to life and kills one of the boys. "Oh, my God," Stan says. "He killed Kenny!" "You bastard!" yells Kyle. The boys summon the baby Jesus, who throws his halo at Frosty like a Frisbee, decapitating him.