‘South Park’ Sued Over This ‘Imaginationland’ Character
South Park creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, were sued for using a wholesome children’s show character in one of their most famous episodes. In the “Imaginationland” trilogy, a character featured in all three episodes is The Lollipop King.
According to the lawsuit, the character is a rip off of the fictitious “Big Bad Lollipop” created by Exavier Wardlaw. Due to the “tarnished” value of the “wholesome” character, the South Park creators were sued.
‘South Park’ ‘Imaginationland’ trilogy wins an Emmy in 2008
Although the “Imaginationland” trilogy left Wardlaw outraged, the three-parter episode also received a hefty amount of praise.
“Imaginationland” is one of the most popular South Park episodes of all time. It even won an Emmy in 2008 for Outstanding Animated Program (for programming one hour or more.)
Yet this isn’t South Park‘s first big win. According to the official website, South Park has been nominated for an Emmy 18 times, and has won 5 times.
Other winning South Park episodes include:
“Raising The Bar” (2013,) “Margaritaville” (2009,) “Make Love, Not Warcraft” (2007,) and Best Friends Forever (2005.)
Matt Stone and Trey Parker were sued over this ‘South Park’ character
According to The Huffington Post, Parker and Stone got hit with a lawsuit after using a character from The Lollipop Forest.
As stated by Wardlaw, The Lollipop Forest is meant to be family-friendly. Yet South Park “diminished” the value of the character through “unwholesome language and sexual innuendo.”
According to the lawsuit, “The South Park television show and its producers, directors, and writers disregarded the public copyright notice.”
Furthermore, it claims the show “appropriated The Lollipop Forest for financial gain, without permission or attribution of authorship or compensation for use.”
“The South Park television broadcast diminished/tarnished the value of ‘The Lollipop Forest’ as a wholesome family show,” the lawsuit continues.
The ‘Imaginationland’ trilogy is Trey Parker’s favorite ‘South Park’ episode
As confident as the South Park creators may seem, Parker is actually extremely self-conscious of nearly every episode he puts out. But there was one particular episode (or trilogy) that he is incredibly proud of: “Imaginationland.”
“If I had to narrow it down to one favorite thing we’ve done, for me, it was ‘Imaginationland.'” says Parker. “We started it as one episode, and it wasn’t until the Monday before it aired that we were like, ‘F— it. Let’s not end this. We’ll do a two-parter.’ It aired, and I said, ‘What if we did a trilogy?'”
And according to Parker, writing the outline for “Imaginationland” was the first time he felt truly confident about an episode.
“I remember that Thursday morning writing every beat of the show on the board,” continued Parker. “It was the first time on a Thursday I stepped back from the board, and the whole show was there. It felt so good.”
