Placing kids at the heart of an essentially adult show is not a new idea — there really are correlations here to Peanuts and Leave It to Beaver. But unlike LITB, the problems these kids have to cope with go beyond the boundaries of the playground. In fact, they not only go into the full range of adult problems, but enter into the realms of metaphysics and speculative fiction. This exaggeration off the old formula is an apt commentary on how much more complex and perplexing a world kids face today.

So Peanuts-like, the gang has to deal with adult level problems. But unlike Charlie Brown and Lucy, they are not adults in children’s bodies; they are only kids, with the limited resources of kids, left to muddle through their confusing lives as best they can.

There is a lot going on in this series, so much so that it could easily turn into a hash. What holds it together are the personalities of the three main characters and, more so even than other shows, the way their personalities interact. Stan is the lynchpin, the everyman in the middle who is friends with the other two. This is critical because Kyle and Cartman don’t really get along and would probably not be friends if they weren’t held together by their mutual friend and the childhood rules of proximity.

This works well because it builds believable tension into the foundation element of the show. Stan is the glue and the kid we can most easily identify with. Kyle is almost as normal but in many ways, his most important role is as the foil for Cartman.

Cartman, of course, is the primary source of tension and a very believable bully — every neighborhood has a twisted troublemaker like this who you later find out was abused or traumatized in some way. His fractured personality — argumentative, prejudiced, manipulative and yet also compelled to make little tea parties with his toys when he thinks no one is looking — adds up to a disturbingly real portrait of a kid in serious emotional trouble. Or it would be disturbing if it weren’t so funny.

This edgy group dynamic functions as the primary running storyline of the series, a useful device, which affects everything they do. Because of it, the group can be dropped into any situation, whether close to home or completely off the map, and the dynamic provides a framework for their response which grounds even the craziest plotlines in emotional reality.

The group dynamic plays a big part in the stories of South Park. © Comedy Central.

One of the things that’s interesting about a show like this is the way we identify with it. Younger kids who are actually allowed to watch it can come away confused. The kids are so real and so much about it feels like a show meant for them, but what are they to make of the content beyond the gang’s interaction? This isn’t like Toy Story where you can watch the show on several levels, the adult level being on top of the rest and not essential for primary continuity.

Stan, Kyle and Cartman are too entirely enmeshed in their stories; you have to take them whole or not at all. I remember many interesting discussions in my household about exactly when South Park would be sanctioned viewing and about why that wasn’t going to be just yet. I haven’t ever been one to shirk some of the more challenging conversations, which, being a parent demands. But tackling the challenges of this program — how exactly do you explain The Island of Dr. Moreau references to a five-year-old? — proved too much even for me.

But that, of course, is part of what makes watching the show engaging for an adult. On one level, we are the kids, remembering what it was like to catch glimpses of the adult world without really understanding the implications of what we were seeing; remembering how lame our parents began to seem as we reached mid childhood while also re-experiencing how nasty and unforgiving kid culture can be.

And then, we can reverse this perspective and get a glimpse of how we look to the current younger generation. It is, after all, the conceit of every new generation of parents that we will not become like our own mothers and fathers…famous last words.

And on a more general level, we can identify with Stan and friends as the underdogs in a crazy world, regardless of their age. Kids make great underdogs because they can attract universal identification (we have all been kids) and also because, while an adult underdog carries a certain stigma of shame- he or she must on some level be a loser, kids are simply victims of circumstance. No blame or shame attaches to them just for being young and naïve.

This is quite a load for such a simple seeming show. And remember, they manage to do all this and still make it funny.

Let’s wrap this up for today. Next time we’ll carry on with The Simpsons and Family Guy and also take a closer look at that other key factor in creating emotional reality: the ever flexible, all important context.

Ellen Besen studied animation at Sheridan in the early 1970s. Since then she has directed award-winning films both independently and for the NFB, worked as a film programmer and journalist, taught storytelling and animation filmmaking at Sheridan and given story workshops at many institutions and festivals, including the Ottawa International Animation Festival. She is the director of The Zachary Schwartz Institute for Animation Filmmaking, an online school that specializes in storytelling and writing for animation.