George Clooney Had a South Park Cameo You Probably Forgot

In the “South Park” episode, “Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride,” Stan (Trey Parker) gets a new dog he named Sparky. Stan loves Sparky, and Sparky is well trained, loyal and friendly. Stan, like any dog ​​owner, gets a little distressed when Sparky meets other dogs and fucks them in public. Stan’s friends notice, however, that Sparky is only banging other male dogs and, in that childish, homophobic way, laugh at Sparky’s possible weirdness. However, the characters are eight years old and live in a fairly small community in 1997, so their knowledge about queerness is quite limited.

Stan asks his teacher, Mr. Garrison (Parker), what it means to be gay, and the terrified, repressed teacher announces right to Stan’s face that queer people are evil. Stan, overwhelmed and scared, flees. At home, Stan laments loudly that his dog is gay, internalizing his teacher’s bigoted message. Sparky listens to Stan and runs away. Sparky somehow ends up at an animal shelter in the woods…an animal shelter for rejected gay animals. It is run by a character named Big Gay Al (Matt Stone).

The early episodes of “South Park” relied on stereotypes, and much of the show’s “shocking” humor remains shocking to this day, but the final message of “Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride” is one of tolerance. Stan accepts Sparky for who he is and they end the episode happy and together again. It was rare for a mainstream television series, especially an animated one, to deal so candidly with queer themes in 1997. Despite the stereotypes, the episode was revolutionary in its own way, nominated for an Emmy Award and a GLAAD Award.

In a strange casting coup, Sparky’s barks and growls were provided by George Clooney.

One might recall that every episode of “South Park” begins with a warning that all the celebrities who appeared on the show were simply bad impersonators. In Clooney’s case, show creators Stone and Parker wanted to include the famous actor in their show, but not in a flashy way. According to the episode’s DVD commentary track, Parker and Stone noted that they wanted “South Park” to be different from “The Simpsons” in this regard. “The Simpsons” frequently had notable celebrity guests and often featured famous people playing themselves. “South Park” was always meant to poke fun at the very notion of celebrity, and Parker and Stone regularly made fun of famous people simply because they were famous. Remember when Barbra Streisand turned into a giant mechanical monster and fought Leonard Maltin and Sidney Poitier?

Parker’s ethos: “Let’s have celebrities and make them do minor, unimportant things.”

As an antidote to the celebrity cameos on “The Simpsons,” Clooney was offered Sparky, a non-speaking role. Clooney said yes, as he had been a long-time fan of “South Park,” even before its debut. Stone recalled that Clooney was a fan of his 1995 short film “The Spirit of Christmas,” and the actor’s proliferation of the short film, attached to his Christmas cards, was a big reason Hollywood muckety-mucks knew who they were. Stone and Parker. “The Spirit of Christmas” was one of the first viral memes to gain traction in the Internet age.

Stone remembered well Clooney’s proliferation of “The Christmas Spirit” and said in a commentary:

“George also thought it was funny. Actually, it was easy to get George because he had helped ‘South Park’ get started. When we made that first film, ‘The Spirit of Christmas,’ legend has it that he single-handedly dubbed it. I sent it as 700 times to people and one of the main reasons it spread around Los Angeles was because George was sending it to everyone he knew, without even knowing us. So when he found out that the short was becoming a. supported from beginning From the beginning he has always been kind to us. He is a good guy.”

Clooney also appeared in the 1999 feature film “South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut.” He played a super serious (but not very competent) variation of his “ER” character, operating on poor Kenny (Stone) after he set himself on fire. The doctor accidentally replaces Kenny’s heart with a baked potato.

However, his participation did not save Clooney from Stone and Parker’s ridicule. In the episode “Smug Alert!” from “South Park,” played clips from Clooney’s 2006 Oscar speech, in which he said celebrities should use their visibility to advocate for social change. Parker and Stone felt the speech was cocky enough to be lampooned on their show and openly mocked Clooney’s seriousness. Clooney hasn’t commented on the satirism, however, so one can’t be sure if he and the “South Park” kids are still getting along.