After they signed a deal to create an ongoing television series, Trey Parker
and Matt Stone were faced with a difficult task: How do you turn a short video into a TV show?
They essentially had to develop a series from scratch. As a result,
their earliest “South Park” episodes were marked by uncertainty, as
their approach to the series changed as the idea developed. In the case of Parker and Stone and “South Park,” the most notable
change was that originally the series was going to be a lot like “The
X-Files”!
The first episode of “South Park,” “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe,”
detailed just that, alien “visitors” coming to South Park, Colorado, and
inserting an anal probe into third-grader (as well as other residents).
The aliens abduct Ike, the younger brother of Cartman’s classmate Kyle,
forcing Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny to rescue him. Eventually, the
boys use the anal probe the visitors left in Cartman’s ass to lure them
back to Earth so Ike can be saved. The hook of the series was that small
towns in Colorado seem to report the most sightings of UFOs, Bigfoot
and the like.
While the aliens depart at the end of the first episode, originally they
weren’t supposed to leave entirely, and would influence the plot of the
series going forward. However, when coupled with their view that this was a town where things like Bigfoot or the Chupacabra really did
exist, Parker and Stone felt the series was going to be too similar to
“The X-Files”. So they decided against including the alien-conspiracy angle. A remnant
of that, however, remained in having alien visitors appear in the
background of episodes for pretty much the rest of the show’s run.
“The X-Files” star David Duchovny actually ended up appearing in a number of episodes of “South Park.”
Article: CBR