By RUSSELL BAILLIE
Unlike so many animated success stories, South Park doesn't have a theme park. It doesn't need one. It's got Fairplay, Colorado, instead.
Three thousand metres up the Rockies, some members of its 420-population have learned to live with a steady stream of visiting autograph hunters, South Park fans who
have cottoned onto the notion that Fairplay is the real "South Park."
After all, one of the series creators, Trey Parker, lived locally and as the frequently amusing British doco South Park Discovered (TV4, 8.30 pm Sunday) keeps showing, some of Fairplay's prominent citizens have an uncanny resemblance to the grown-ups in the outlandish cartoon series.
There's Bonnie the mayor, Kelvin the chiropractor (who's the only black man in the cowboy town, so that makes him Chef), Michael the Vietnam vet and Rik the police chief among others, all of whom seem bemused at being the inspiration for the 2-D oddballs of the show.
And there's the odd vibe which may well have inspired Parker and partner Matt Stone's more supernatural gags.
Fairplay claims to be the most haunted town in Colorado and has a thing for UFO sightings. Michael the 'Nam man — the obvious inspiration for survivalist nut Ned Gobansky — is actually Rev D. Michael Smith, a paganist who believes in fairies, collects meteorites and has a vast knife collection which he says is in preparation for a coming global cataclysm.
Funnily enough, the local school was off-limits to the doco-crew. Apparently they don't have a sense of humour about being seen as the alma mater to the South Park kids. As we're told by the voice-over (by Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef): "All we wanted was to discover if it really was full of revolting little Cartmans, Kyles and Kennys."
As for the ongoing effect of the South Park-Fairplay connection. Well, as Fred the Janitor says: "I think it kind of demoralises the area somewhat."
Tell that to the enterprising Kelvin who, in between spinal manipulations, was the first in town to start selling official South Park merchandise. He won't be the last. Theme park, here we come.
