Chris Rock and South Park

Meanwhile, Deborah Solomon’s usually vapid Questions For… column actually delivers a bit of useful substance thanks to the impossible-to-squelch Chris Rock. Rock explains, very briefly, his comic method (find funny ways to explain absurd notions), talks about what material he's working on, and also tells that South Park is, to his mind, the most consistently funny thing out there:

Any episode of “South Park” is funnier than 90 percent of the comedy produced in any given year — movie, TV, just any episode of “South Park” is generally the funniest thing put out that year.

Though I don’t watch the show nearly as much as I should, I’d probably agree. Parker and Stone, especially now that they’re down to an 8 or 10 day production schedule, have developed a nearly perfect formula for gutting American culture and exposing its contradictory, absurd, and downright ugly insides. Nothing escapes their ridicule, and their vehicle—snotty Midwestern kids who’re spoiled, arrogant, innocent, and (mostly) guileless all the same time—is really inspired, because it mimics, in an exaggerated manner, the self-contradictory way in which Americans often think of themselves and those around them.

In his essay on the decline of physical comedy, A.O. Scott points out that “the best jokes of the moment are aggressively timely, pegged to the news headlines and as accepting of their quick obsolescence as blog posts,” and wryly suggests that “in the future, they will no doubt require footnotes.” This is certainly true with The Daily Show, but I think South Park has managed to find a way to be both hypertimely and lasting. The show’s genius lies not just in its ability to skewer current events, but to do so in an almost classically comedic, character-and-gag based manner. They’re not simply riffing on the news, they’re (like The Simpsons) continually adding to a fairly meticulously developed comedic world—a comic lens through which to view anything and everything. This means that instead of simply reacting to current events, letting it lead them along, they’re actively incorporating those events into their universe. They don’t let the news bring them into its world; they bring the news into theirs.