Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

There's a rule of thumb that the longer an animated show lasts, the likelier the quality and humour will decline."The Simpsons" is a pale shadow of its glory days and "Family Guy" has lost a lot of its spark.There is an exception: South Park.While the right wingers aren't outraged by it anymore, it remains the most topical animated comedy on the air."6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park" shows us why. Covering the making of the season 15 premiere "HUMANCENTiPAD", it shows the intense process of one episode, from original writers meetings to 11th hour delivery of the finished tape to Comedy Central.This documentary shows us WHY South Park is still relevant and funny after almost 20 years: Matt Stone and Trey Parker are involved in every step of creating the show, melding it into what we see on TV every week. Coming off the successful Book of Mormon stage show, Parker and Stone are understandably struggling for motivation. A few writers room sessions (including SNL's Bill Hader) has the boys kicking around ideas, doing the character's voices and laughing like five- year- olds at poo jokes. The episode idea is full of the topical humour South Park are famous for: it's a parody of the often-unread Apple iTunes Terms and Conditions (Trey got the idea after having to update iTunes for the gazillionth time) and "The Human Centipede" horror film. Meanwhile, Executive Producer Anne Garefino has to clear the idea with the censors.After the idea is hatched, the hard-working animators bring the show to life, while Matt and Trey record dialogue. While most animated shows farm the grunt work out to Korea, the South Park animators have to juggle multiple tasks to get the episode done.As they days tick by, the laughs disappear and the stress kicks in: while Trey does last-minute work on the script, bemoaning that a lengthy script means massive cuts (and admitting to hating the 'lonely' writing process), they attend the Tony Awards for "Book of Mormon" and do interviews for said show. The crew are on board too, sleeping in the office and pulling long days to finish the episode. The relief at finishing is obvious.We do get some reminiscing from Parker and Stone: how they rose from poor animators to cultural icons through "The Spirit of Christmas", how their temperaments and skills complement each other and the infamous night they wore dresses to the Oscars while on acid. This is why South Park is still vibrant: Stone and Parker are more than just colleagues, they're friends. It's why they put themselves through the unimaginable stress of a six-day turnaround. It works, as Parker says the deadline stops them from becoming too pedantic.Another important point: Parker and Stone don't give two shits about reputations. When Bill Hader explains SNL's political tightrope when parodying celebrities ('we might want them to host one day'), Parker and Stone have no restrictions, allowing them the brutally parody any celebrity they want without fear of reprisal.If you're a fan of South Park, or animated shows in general, "6 Days to Air" is well worth watching.

And that episode is the first of season 15. I have not yet seen that one, but at some point I certainly will. I think I have watched roughly 150 episodes of the show so far. The episode that these 40 minutes here are about is a spoof of "The Human Centipede", a horror film I quite enjoyed, so one reason more to watch it besides being a great "South Park" fan in general. But this documentary is not only about this episode. It also features scenes from older episodes that were particularly memorable and edgy and also some background stuff on Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the "South Park" creators, such as when they were at the Oscars or their very early short film works before "South Park" started. There's some generic stuff here like comments how the crew is the best they could think of or some pseudo drama about one of the makers being unhappy with the episode every time shortly before it gets aired, but all in all it's a good documentary by Arthur Bradford and nice to see it achieved an Emmy nomination. Certainly worth a watch for fans of the series. Recommended.

This documentary is pretty much exactly what it says: a look inside the studio and how a small group of dedicated people are able to bring a cartoon to your home each week with only days to go from scratch to screen.My biggest disappointment is the length of this thing. Clearly it was designed to fit within an hour of television, but I would think they could have put more for those who did not watch the original run (I saw it on Netflix, for example). There was not much discussion of the movies these guys made, and how films like "Cannibal the Musical" fit into the story of Parker and Stone.That aside, I think it was a good peak at how these guys work, and it is interesting to see Bill Hader in on the fun, too. I knew some episodes were made last minute, but I was not aware that the show consistently worked that way. It is an amazing feat.

I think the main reason why South Park will never be among one of the top ten animated programs of all time is because it's a show that centers around crudeness, vulgarity, and very controversial subject matter. Shows like The Simpsons overshadow South Park because of the fact that a show like that is on network TV and it's more family-orientated. South Park is and always will be in its own world.The Making of South Park: 6 Days to Air is a special that is definitely overdue and under-stayed. This is a forty minute behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show and how everything is done in six days. During the summer and winter seasons the creators take a much needed break, while in the fall and spring seasons the animators, writers, and directors work hectically to try and put together seven or more episodes.I always wondered why the creators don't work during the months the show is off the air. Then I figured it out; if they worked during the months the show was off the air and created episodes that centered around pop culture things set in the month of, say, June, then by the time they aired in October they'd be outdated because surely new tabloids have come out by then.During the spring season many running jokes about actor Charlie Sheen surfaced since he was hogging the public light, and making himself out to be one of the biggest goofballs on Television. But in recent months his popularity has simmered and now no one even references his many catchphrases. Imagine if South Park made an episode about him during the June months and aired it in the months of October. It would be so outdated and old ratings might be hurting.That's why, I believe, the show has such a strict week schedule. Every episode is created within six days, hence the title. Trey Parker and Matt Stone state that they spend so much time in the writing room before giving the idea to the animators for them to quickly animate and create it. The two also state that if they come up with some cockamamie idea (IE: people bouncing on their over-sized testicles) the animators need to find out how to make that happen. Nonetheless in a six day period.The stress is sometimes unbearable, and the turnout isn't pleasing all the time. Trey Parker states that more often than not he is disappointed when the episode is finished, but can't hold onto it for a day more. It has to be turned in. He said that if he delayed some episodes he could be working for several more weeks to perfect it to his personal standards. And who's to say that the episode would even please him? 6 Days to Air shows the production of the episode "HUMANCENTiPAD," which was the season premiere for the show's fifteenth season. The episode is one giant joke about the lengthy and repetitive "Terms of Use" policy iTunes makes you agree to every few months. The joke is that everyone reads it except Kyle, and Kyle learns he has agreed to a very disgusting, inhumane project by Apple.One thing the special should've included more of was the voice acting by Parker and Stone. Somehow, it's hilarious to see two grown men, one voicing a Chinese guy who is about to have diarrhea and the other voicing a young boy who is about to have a very unpleasant experience. The way they bounce back in forth, voicing almost all the male characters in the show is creative and nothing but sheer enjoyment.I think it's because we (a) never see Parker and Stone together on camera and (b) we never really get a good look on how South Park is made. 6 Days to Air only scratches the surface on how the show is crafted, and at forty minutes, how much can you truly show and say? This is the first South Park documentary made since Going' Down to South Park in the early nineties. Maybe in another ten years we'll get a near two hour documentary with more extensive scenes of an episode's creation and more scenes involving the animators discuss the stress and frustration of working on such a show.What we get is very good, and a long overdue project. But the result is it's under-stayed and leaves much more to be desired. There has to be more to the writing and animating process we see. Maybe next time we'll detour a bit and talk to both creators about their reactions on their films BASEketball and Team America: World Police. There is so much more to these creators than we see on this special. It seems they just don't want to show it.Starring: Trey Parker and Matt Stone.