South Park exploded into the national consciousness in 1997, becoming the most popular, outrageous, and controversial animated series to hit airwaves since Beavis and Butt-Head. The brainchild of creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park began in 1995 as a five-minute animated short commissioned by a Fox network executive and distributed throughout the industry as a video "Christmas card." The short, titled The Spirit of Christmas, was endlessly dubbed as it passed hands throughout Hollywood, becoming an underground sensation; ironically, Parker and Stone -- fearing that...