This is what I would look like on South Park. I found a South Park character generator that let me pick out a hairstyle and some clothes and accessorize them with a chainsaw and some blood spatters. In the early seasons of South Park, Kenny McCormick got killed in every episode. In the next episode, Kenny would be there again, and no one would have remembered that he had been killed. Then he would die again. Kenny's other characteristic was that he was unintelligible because his parka muffled his speech. But the other characters understood him, and after a while I thought I did too.
Boomhauer in King of the Hill has a similar gimmick. Who came first, Boomhauer or Kenny? Both series debuted in 1997, but King of the Hill was first.
Mike Judge has stated that the inspiration for Boomhauer’s voice came from a message left on his answering machine by an irate viewer of Beavis & Butt-Head.
Does anyone remember a character from black-and-white movies who spoke gibberish?
Here is a clip, assembled from many episodes, of Kenny dying over and over again.
1 comment:
I was never a fan of South Park or King of the Hill. I was subbing in 2nd and 3rd grade and I was flumoxed to discover that some of the 7 and 8 year old children had been up till all hours watching these "cartoons" and their behavior showed it. Also, on my list was "The Simpsons" broadcast earlier in the evening. I fought a losing battle with Liz and her dad about that one. So, I spent a lot of time and energy making sure that she knew that was sarcasm and not the way people really acted. Little boys got into big trouble at school because they acted like Bart, even mooning folks.
One of the interesting things that I read about South Park, was that it was one of 23 ideas submitted to the TV gatekeepers that ranged from very child friendly to totally gross. And they chose the grossest of the lot. It would have been nice if they had chosen several from the range of ideas, but noooo. So, I joined the Parents Television Council and began to demand that the PUBLIC airwaves carry non-offensive material during the early evening hours.
My family was the first in our neighborhood to have a TV, so I have watched it from the very beginning and I see how the impact of television has undermined much of public civility. This has been a gradual process over the last 4, now 5,generations of Americans. So today's parents accept crap that is imaginatively packaged. Some of it is not so artistic or creative.
One problem is that the gatekeepers apparently have the mental age of permanently adolescent males. The other is the bald face lie that TV doesn't affect the behavior of young people. My question is, "If TV doesn't affect behavior, how do networks justify charging advertisers millions of dollars per minute for ads to changes people's buying behavior?"
I really don't mind if people watch whatever appeals to them, I just want to have something that appeals to me. And, I don't want to have to deal with weirded out little kids who think that bratty, insolent or "gangsta" is the behavior that is appropriate and expected.
CET 11-8-2007
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