Why make a film with marionettes, as opposed to the animation style of South Park?
Pretty obviously it came from watching Thunderbirds. Trey and I were just flicking through the channels a couple of years ago, and it was on. And it was like one of those things where you instantly remembered it from your childhood because visually it’s so different from anything else. We thought it would be cool if someone used this kind of look but made the film fast-moving and funny. Then we realised that the only people stupid enough to do that would be us. No one is safe from mockery in the film, even innocent actors like Alec Baldwin. What was his reaction? All I know is that when Alec Baldwin heard he was going to be in it he called Paramount and said he wanted to do the voice. We said ‘Thanks, but that’s ok’. That’s all we ever heard from Alec Baldwin. And Sean Penn wrote the now infamous letter where he got mad with me and Trey for doing the movie – and that speaks for itself. I think it speaks pretty badly for itself, but that’s his response. Other than that I haven’t heard a
