check out the trivia from imdb. the first is my favourite:
- The very first footage screened for Paramount executives was of a poorly crafted puppet in front of a background of a badly drawn Eiffel Tower, prompting one executive in the audience to yell. "Oh god, they f#$%ed us!" This was a prank pulled by the directors and the shot then pans over to a beautiful parisian landscape with much better looking puppets.
- The idea for the film came in 2003 when Matt Stone and 'Trey Parker' (I) (qv) were watching television and came across re-runs episodes of "Thunderbirds" (1964), which Parker had never seen. Instantly intrigued, the two decided a marionette action film would be "the perfect way to send up all those Jerry Bruckheimer movies".
- Before Trey Parker and Matt Stone settled on the final plot for this film, one of their original ideas was to do an all-puppet version of Day After Tomorrow, The (2004). They had been given a copy of the script and thought it was already funny as was; but thought that if they were to make it into an all-puppet movie; then it would substantially funnier. The main reason why this idea never came to fruition was because of legal problems with the studio who owned the rights to the film.
- When Parker and Stone showed the first footage of the film at the 2004 San Diego Comic Convention, it began with the tagline (words flying at the screen) "George Clooney, Janeane Garafolo, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Michael Moore, George W. Bush, John Kerry, Kim Jong Il.... will all HATE this movie!"
- On 1 August 2004, the White House issued an official statement (based only on seeing the film's trailer) that they object to the film "mocking the war on terror". Parker and Stone responded by saying "We thank the Bush administration for the free press".
