The notoriously frank Parker  and Stone are famous for eschewing bland movie-PR pronouncements,  but why are they so tired?  In a word: puppets.

The duo’s new feature, “Team America: World Police” depicts  an elite counterterrorism squad facing off against Kim Jong-il  and a conspiracy of high-profile Hollywood liberals, including  Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin and George Clooney. It has all  the trappings of a Jerry Bruckheimer action film – right  down to its Aerosmith-style power ballad (albeit an Aerosmith-style  power ballad with a decidedly off-color title). What makes  this concept unusually difficult to execute, though, is that  the movie is performed exclusively by marionettes.

That’s right, marionettes – puppets on strings – in  a massively complicated homage to Gerry Anderson’s camp-classic 1960s TV series “Thunderbirds” (as  distinct from this summer’s little-seen live-action remake). This means Parker and Stone have to maintain “South  Park” levels of satire and comic timing in shots so  technically complex that Parker says they “literally  get like seven or eight shots a day. We’re not getting  anything that’s not going in the movie, basically.”

They were still shooting in August.  The movie had to be edited and in the can by the end of September. Here’s what  Trey and Matt had to say in August about “Team America,” “South  Park” and the glories of the cheesy musical. Warning:  Strong talk abounds.

PART I:
HOW I LEARNED
TO HATE THE PUPPET

IN FOCUS: So I hear you guys are on triple  shifts right now.

TREY PARKER: It’s three units at the same time — and  of course [they’re shooting] three completely different  parts of the movie. I can see why people don’t multi-task.  It’s a bad idea.

MATT STONE: Yeah. We go from 7 to 8 or  so, every day — and  a lot of times, we have three, four or five cameras running  at any time on the set, trying to get the stuff. I said that  to my mom the other day: I’ve never worked this hard  in my life.

At the same time, I’m really, really glad we have this  horrible deadline — because it’s a finite amount  of time. We have to have the movie done by the end of September.  If I was working this hard and I didn’t know the movie  was coming out, it would bum me out.

And you could argue that it removes any self-doubt  filters.

MATT: Yeah. I’d say most things are overproduced.  At the same time, even though it feels like this mad rush,  we let the concept gestate for the better part of two-and-a-half  years. But once you get the s*** on film, just get it out  as soon as you can. That’s kind of our motto.

When you pitched “Team America,” were there Paramount executives who looked at you like you were  on mescaline?

TREY: Yeah. I mean, they did not see  any dollar signs with an R-rated puppet movie. [laughs]  You know, they were basically  like, “Well, [Scott] Rudin says it’s a good idea,  so we’ll give you the minimum amount of money we have  to give to make a movie.” [laughs]

MATT: We actually pitched “Team America” to  Rudin first — and I don’t know if we would have  gotten it made without his clout. And, you know, I mean,  Rudin is Rudin — he’s a very complex man — but  one thing he does have is pretty incredible taste in projects.  He just gets things in a way that, a lot of times, other  [executives] just don’t.

When we were doing the “South Park” movie, Rudin  really did get “South Park.” And the thing he got was: We wanted to tell a really big, good story. Everyone  else at that time was just, you know, “Get Cartman  on the screen, 90 feet tall, have him fart and walk around.  It’s a gold mine, guys! Just get it out!” And  we were so interested in doing more — and he was the  only guy who really got it.

TREY: But as soon as they started seeing  [“Team America”]  dailies…. They’re pretty excited now.

MATT: Now everyone at the studio’s f***ing totally  loving it, and the press that’s come to the set has  fallen head-over-heels. But when we first pitched this movie,  it was like, “What the f*** do you wanna do?” And then, even after the first week of film, it was like, “Well,  it’s cool-looking, but….” But after the  second week of filming, when Trey and I started cutting scenes  together and figuring out what the movie was, people starting  jumping on board. But it was really people going, “Oh,  we trust Scott, Matt and Trey — because this is too  f***in’ weird.”

What was the non-“South Park” project you guys  were contemplating before you stumbled onto the 1960s-TV “Thunderbirds”?

TREY:  There was something I’d written for Rudin way  early on, when I’d first come to town, before “South Park” — it was this almost fairy-tale kind of  story that took place in the Colorado Rockies. We were sort  of kicking that around again, and kind of sitting there going, “Man,  I don’t know if I really want to make another movie.” It  was so great working in animation and not dealing with actors,  and being able to sort of just do whatever you want in animation — order  up the Chinese Army if you want.

But then this idea struck us in the head and  we kind of went with it. And now we kind of halfway regret  it. But it looks  good. [laughs]

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