ABSTRACT
During its first six years, comedy central – which was created in 1991 by the merger of two other comedy channels – was barely a blip on the televisual landscape and, in fact, many cable systems did not even carry the channel. But that all changed drastically in 1997 when Comedy Central launched South Park – a crudely animated series about the lives of four 8-year-old boys (Stan Marsh, Eric Cartman, Kenny McCormick, and Kyle Broslowski) and their small Colorado town. Almost immediately the new series generated both success and controversy. Success came in the form of high ratings. 2 Within a year of its debut, South Park was “the top rated series on cable, seen by some five million people every week” (Collins 1998: 76), and with nearly 60 percent of its audience between the ages of 18 and 34 (Marin 1998: 60), the show was, according to one advertising executive, a marketing “gold mine” (Ross 1998: 38).
