We've had musical stuff in the show [South Park] forever. That's mostly because Trey's a big musical fan, and he's a great songwriter. He's been writing songs his whole life. So since the beginning, we've always put a lot of musical moments.

There are good characters and bad characters.

Do goofy stories make people nice? What if, in their goofiness, these stories somehow inspire that in the right way. Is that a social good?

And there's a visceral fun in watching Team America and making it, like taking a puppet and throwing it against the wall. Because it's not CG, there's something funny about it.

When you reach that deeper level, you can't go back.

I've been to China and Russia, and I don't know anything about Chinese or Soviet relations.

So a lot of our shows where even we think we've taken a very deliberate stand, liberals say, 'That's awesome, you took on the conservatives' same show and conservatives say 'That's awesome, you took on liberals.'