There was actually no beef with Damon; the puppet just looked goofy as hell, so they decide to just make him so slow he could only say his own name. Damon has actually gone on record in saying he found it hilarious even though he still deals with people saying “Matt Damon” to him on the street.
My mom never saw this movie but because me and my friends did the Mat Damon line over and over, she, till this day, will say "Matt Damon" in the dumb way every time he is mentioned XD
In the underwhelming political drama Syriana that came out a bit after this I was in the theater and did the "Matt Damon" voice when he first came on screen. At least a handful of people laughed, and it was a very proud moment for me. 🤣🤣
The main element as I understand it was they couldn’t find anything distinctive about Matt Damon’s voice that they could caricature, and the first instance of “Maaaaaatt Daaaaamoooon” was done out of frustration, but everyone involved immediately lost their shit. So they just went with it. 😂
Matt Damon said of his "cameo" in the movie; "I thought it was brilliant! I mean, I never understood it, and then I heard an interview with them and they said the puppet came in looking kind of mentally deficient and they didn’t have time to change it, so they just made me someone who could really only say his own name."
The South Park creators said it was so difficult dealing with all the puppets and voice overs in this film, that they would never ever ever make another film with puppets again. I LOVE this film. Equal sarcasm spread in every direction.
I had heard for even the first fight scene in here at 2:12 ("let's make this interesting") they wanted the puppeteers to just bash the puppets together randomly like in the final shot, but they couldn't make it look bad enough... so either Trey or Matt ended up doing it, and they damaged the puppets in the process.
George Clooney was only upset that they didn't ask him to voice himself. The one actor who did get upset was Sean Penn but that's consistent with his humourless personality.
Which makes sense with Clooney, since he “voiced” a dog in the first season of South Park and pretty famously was the celebrity who passed the original short film around Hollywood and helped Trey and Matt get the show launched. I believe he actually voiced a doctor in the SP movie too, right?
@@callmeshaggy5166 Yup. "Dr. Doctor: Son, we... accidentally replaced your heart with a baked potato. You have about three seconds to live." SP Movie is still so watchable even today. Same with Team America.
I saw an interview with Matt and Trey where the interviewer asked "So what do you think the chances of Kim Jong-il seeing this movie are?" Matt and Trey begin laughing, then Trey says "Pretty fucking good, we sent him a copy!" ROFL I love those guys.
When Kim is singing 'I'm so lonely', the statue in the middle of the stairs is a real dude. Its still my favourite detail of this entire movie. The whole thing is hilarious
@@dunhill1 He's still singing the song 'I'm So Lonely', just because he mispronounces it because of his accent doesn't mean he's not singing that same song.
Allegedly, the over the top sex scene was put in so the censors would focus on that and the rest didn’t seem so bad in comparison. For the theatrical release, they just had to remove the worst of the sex scene and the rest was allowed.
South Park, Jackass, and even the simpsons writers use the same technique. They will write and make a ridiculously over the top obscene bit they know the censors will reject in order to get all the other stuff through.
The more graphic sex scenes that were cut out of the theatrical release were put in the unrated DVD edition. The sex scene is longer and includes golden showers and scat.
It was an homage to Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds series, that ran from 1965 - 1966. I don't know about abroad, but here in the UK it holds a similar status as Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes - not nearly to the same extent, but in terms of being one of our proudest television outputs. It was two seasons of 16 90 minute episodes that entirely used puppets in the same style as Team America - Anderson actually pioneered that form of puppetry, which he called 'supermarionation'. I can't explain why, but I feel it holds up incredibly well for something 60 years old, compared to other shows and films from the time. The use of colour film, way ahead of its time in the UK; the expansive, detailed sets; the enrapturing pyrotechnics; the futuristic aesthetic (seriously, the designs of vehicles in his series are iconic, from the Fireflash and the Sidewinder to the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle and Saloon Car from his next show, Captain Scarlet).
Here in Spain some local tvs used to run some of Gerry Anderson's shows, being Thunderbirds and UFO the most famous. I loved coming back home from school just in time for your daily episode of Thunderbirds. The good ol' times.
Marionation is done by audio sensors in the head of the puppet that are activated by prerecorded audio tracks and move the lips to the audio. I just read this in an article online.
18:30 Actually it was a happy accident. Apparently they were meant to make Matt Damon a quite intellectual and intelligent character... but then they got the puppet back and it didn't look the best so the rest is history One of my favourite behind the scenes is actually to do with the opening shot of the crudely drawn Eiffel Tower with the marionette. Allegedly when they screened the film to executives, one of them saw the shot and yelled "Oh my God they fucked us" It's a shame you didn't react to the Unrated version, "that" scene was extended with various other positions and acts
I seem to remember reading that they actually tried to remake the Matt Damon puppet multiple times and kept getting that not quite right result. They made the joke that he looked like he should talk like Timmy on South Park. Hence we got, “MATT DAMON!”. 😆😆😆
my favorite fun fact about this movie is that the puppeteers (who are obviously the best in the business) offered to make the marionette fight scenes and walking/moving around parts look realistic, but Matt & Trey insisted that they make it awful on purpose. makes the first fight scene (matrix parody) and the scene of spotswoode walking out the door after meeting gary that much funnier.
Michael Moores depiction and demise was revenge for Moore using an animation in Bowling for Columbine that ripped off an animated short trey parker and matt stone made in college after they turned down Moore's request to do a south park style animation sequence for Columbine. In the edit of columbine, Matt Stone's appearance in the documentary makes it seem as if Stone had something to do with the sequence.
Matt and Trey said they wouldn't do it again because it was such a huge effort to make over a long period of time but they were very satisfied with the result. I think they are proud to have made a block buster movie and an award winning musical. I think they're also proud of their earlier efforts including Cannibal the Musical, Orgazmo and Baseketball. Orgazmo is still my favourite but it felt great going to see this at the cinema when the war on terror was really kicking into gear.
It was specifically the studio oversight that drove them out. They hated needing all their ideas approved by outside executives. Bigger, Longer, & Uncut didn't have this issue because Comedy Central was backing it.
In Captain Scarlet there is an old dude who is the boss of the team, just like Team America. The reason his chair is always sliding all over the place, is that the boss in Captain Scarlet had a similar chair, and it moved around arbitrarily to the point it was distracting. I love that they did such a tribute with this movie, to Gerry Anderson and his shows with “Supermarionation”.
The best thing to a sequel you are gonna get is a 5 minute segment in Stargate SG1s special 200th episode where they use this exact same style of puppet and humor to eviscerate their own first episode. It just amazed me they went through all that effort for a 5 minute skit and the punchline is magnificent. That whole episode was a wonder of madness.
This is BY FAR my favorite reaction from you two! George got all the jokes, and Simone was appropriately shocked at... all of it, haha. I can see George clutching at his sides during the vomit scene, haha. This movie is just gold from beginning to end.
I remember seeing this in theaters when I was in High School. They literally had ushers at the doors of the actual theaters where this was showing to verify people were old enough to see it. I've never seen that before or since with a rated R movie.
It was the other way around for me (in Las Vegas, NV) , I was sitting next to kids and there's no way they were older than 10. That also happened with Bad Santa. People here give zero fucks.
They probably learned their lesson from the South Park movie. Somehow, young kids convinced their parents to take them to see the movie (probably cause it was a cartoon) and they made the R rating very clear early on by placing "Uncle Fucker" at the very beginning of the movie. Needless to say the theater emptied out pretty quickly....LOL.
The marionettes were heavily inspired by Gerry Anderson’s series like Thunderbirds and Stingray - in fact, the sash at around 15:50 is a nod to the sashes in the Thunderbirds uniforms. Might be worth having a look at some of those shows some day - really excellent shows for their time.
I remember seeing this in the theater with two of my friends. We were kind of shocked how many people brought their pre-teen kids in because they heard "puppet movie." There was an elderly couple sitting in the row in front of us and they were laughing as hard as we were, so that was a turn-up for the books. A couple of weeks after we saw it, one of said friends came to my dorm and I asked her to wait. I'd worked out how to play "I'm So Ronery" on the pennywhistle and gave her a little performance. Good times with this movie. Also! My Western Civ teacher was this really straight-laced, reserved man from India. He asked me after class one day if I'd seen Team America. Thought it was a little strange, but I said I had. He said he'd seen it that weekend and found the puppet sex scene one of the funniest things he'd seen in years. If my head could have exploded that day, it would have.
I'm surprised they hadn't seen those sort of puppets before. As you say, this is based on Thunderbirds, but you also had Captain Scarlet, Stingray and Joe 90. I thought they might have seen one of those shows.
During the closing credits, the movie samples the entire soundtrack... but near the end of the credits, a bonus song plays of Kim Jong-il giving some of his motivation and back story.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone write most of the songs used in South Park, and have made multiple musicals. They have multiple Emmys, Tonys, Grammys, and were nominated for an Oscar for the South Park movie. Stephen Sondheim even wrote Trey Parker a letter, saying he loved Team America, and wondered if he would ever want to do a collab.
16:46 "There's three kinds of people..." These are likely the wisest words recorded on film. More accurate than anything that Socrates passed on to Plato.
There was documentary that came out a while ago called, "This film is not yet rated" about how inconsistent the rating is. Trey and Matt were interviewed and talked about the sex scene in this movie. They said they took it as extreme as it could go, knowing they would get an nc-17 rating, and then scaled back until they dropped it to rated R. They knew if they started with what the final cut would have been, it would have probably go the nc-17 rating.
They have complained about the rating system forever. They said when they were more independent and making movies like Orgazmo, they got no feedback and were slapped with an NC-17 rating. Then when they made the South Park movie, all of the sudden the ratings people worked closely with them and the studio to make sure they could get an R rating.
@@Willinders01 And if you watch Orgazmo, it's really fucking tame. The worst thing in it is dude butt, and a couple swears (Mainly from A-Cup and Roy). Aside from the concept, it could be made PG-13 with some minor edits.
@@Eidlones It was actually one of the jokes of the movie, that the whole story revolves around porn, but there's no sex and barely any nudity in it. I'd love to see George and Simone react to it, now that I've seen their reaction to Team America.
You should watch 'Swiss Army Man'. It was made by the same people that made 'Everything, Everywhere all at once'. Its proper mental and defo worth a watch.
This film is SO fu*king brilliant. There are so many levels of jokes. I wish they would do a sequel, but I know they never will (Trey and Matt said this was so difficult to film they'd never do it again).
I looked up some responses from the people parodied on the film. Full quote of Matt Damon's AMA: “I was always kind of bewildered by Team America, I think because it’s hard for us to understand what our images are in public, I think we’re not good judges of that, and when I saw myself on screen just only able to say my own name and not really that well, I kind of wondered “Wow, is that how people perceive me?” At that point I just kind of was like, I’m a screenwriter and an actor, and like really? I can barely say my own name? So I was always bewildered by that, and I never talked to Trey and Matt about that. And Incidentally, I believe those two are geniuses, and I don’t use that word lightly. I think they are absolute geniuses, and what they’ve done is awesome and I’m a big fan of theirs, but I never quite understood that one. But I will say this. Those of us who were parodied in that video were parodied because we were against the Iraq war, and we went on the record against that war, and so history is on my side not theirs.” Alec Baldwin said it was hilarious. (Wikipedia claims that he offered to voice the role himself but the link is dead; the IMDB trivia page says the same but it doesn't have a source so I'd take it with a grain of salt.) Sean Penn thought in his letter that "it's all well to joke about me or whomever you choose. Not so well, to encourage irresponsibility that will ultimately lead to the disembowelment, mutilation, exploitation, and death of innocent people throughout the world" and ended it with a sincere f*** y**. George Clooney: "I must say I would've been offended if I wasn't in it... Those guys, they're friends of mine. I helped them get their show on the air and was Sparky the gay dog and was in their South Park movie. Part of the fun about being up here is that we get to be objects of that." In 2008, Helen Hunt had become much less vocal about her political statements. In a piece from The Guardian: "[P]erhaps such satirisation explains her nervy shyness today. When asked why actors who make political statements are parodied, she won't even let me finish the sentence, blurting out, 'I don't know, I don't care.'" The only thing I could find about Susan Sarandon was a tweet from 2017 where she joked that maybe Team America was behind North Korea's failed missile launch. Stone & Parker said their aim wasn't to insult individuals, but the idea of celebrity expertise: ”This isn’t so much a statement on who they are as people, but it’s the idea that as celebrities, they know everything about everything. You’re actually trying to figure out what’s going on in the world, and then all of a sudden, on your TV news show is Janeane Garofalo. These stars really aren’t authorities on anything.” The exception: Sean Penn.
@@A-small-amount-of-peas The american military was being satirised as a bunch of "dicks". But then the movie loops around to the big moral and speech at the end with a "sure, the army are dicks, but we need them to keep the world in check". Matt and Trey tend to play the moral at the end of a story pretty straight. Nearly all south park episodes parody both sides but the ending moral is played straight.
The original idea for this movie was to remake Michael Bay's 'Armaggedon' but with puppets. It evolved into this. And as much as people wanted a sequel, making the film was so difficult that the directors said no way.
It sort of looked like she was weighing whether to laugh or chuckle at some of the jokes, on camera. Don't want to get heat for laughing at a scene that is deemed "offensive" now.
"I'm surprised they didn't do more..." It's a LOT of work. (And they come from *animation*...) They had fun, they loved the end result, but the experience was just brutal and something they were not motivated enough to ever do again.
This is such a unique concept for a movie that has yet to be truly topped. Matt and Trey have stated the filming process using puppets was immensely frustrating and would never do so again. Also humorous how Team America was threatened with an NC-17 rating, for that matter.
As a Brit, i was brought up on shows like Thunderbirds, Stingray & Captain Scarlet as a kid which this film was heavily based on & spoofed. Made this film even funnier.
Fun fact: when they first showed the movie to Paramonut executives, the higher management were audibly enraged when they saw the opening shot thinking Matt and Trey had stiffed them by making something that looks that crappy. Then the camera panned out and they sighed with relief.
In the opening fight when the TA chopper arrives, Chris as he's coming down the rope declares, "Why can't we ever do anything the easy way!" Chris was voiced by Matt Stone, who put that line in referencing his regret over deciding to do a really really hard to make puppet movie.
Yeah the creators of this said that working with the puppets was so hard they will never ever ever do it again. But they have to realize that they created something special. I can only imagine what what happened now if somebody went to the studio and said they wanted to make a big budget movies with marionette puppets
The puppetry is based on Gerry Anderson’s “Supermarionation” puppet series like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlett. Anderson was always working on trying to disguise the strings with extremely thin gauge wires and got upset when people focussed on being able to see the wires, for that reason there was no attempt to hide the puppet in Team America. The International Rescue team in Thunderbirds rescued people but often at the expense of a significant piece of infrastructure being destroyed. One of Anderson’s trademark moves was to blow up a model but the show the explosion repeated from several different camera angles. I am not sure if the parody of Gerry Anderson’s puppet series’ in Team America had anything to do with the fact that a long awaited live action Thunderbirds film also came out in. 2004.
I loved the music in this movie so much I bought the soundtrack. But the thing I love most about this movie is that they aren't making fun of Muslims, North Koreans, the French, etc. They are making fun of the typical American's stereotypically blind view of the world and their feeling of self importance and exceptionalism.
This movie is hilarious and insane. Call HR I can't believe Gary went through with it. I love how Simone keeps being distracted by all the animals even before the real cats appeared.
I heard that the cinematographer loved shooting the movie because with everything being 1/3 sized, it let him film as if he had boom cameras 3x the actual size. The puppets (aside from Kim) were about 2' tall.
Ridonkeylous is the word for this film A lot of shows like Thunderbirds had large mannequins for their shows, it was the best way to shoot such tv series.
The puppets were an homage to Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation TV shows. Most were of very similar production value with sets, vehicles and special effects. This movie has similar themes to one of his best remembered series, Thunderbirds. A kind of father figure calling the shots, working from a hidden base of operations, specialized vehicles, and a small team of main characters involved in some sort of international intrigue. They did an amazing job, and totally pushed it over the top and into the abyss of no holds barred South Parkesque humor! I saw this in the theater when it was released, and when I wasn't picking my jaw of the floor, I was laughing my but off!
@@Dularr sausage party came out just a handful of years ago and that has quite a few things in it that some people might consider worse, then you have stuff like The Interview that came out like 7 years ago. I REALLY think people go too overboard with the "this couldn't be made today" comments
@@Goomyx1492 Sausage Party sounds right. It came out in 2016, but was in production for 8 years. I don't think it could be made today. Generally 2017 is when Hollywood changed. After the scumbag Harvey W was outed.
I think I heard somewhere that the Alec Baldwin part was supposed to be George Clooney, but they recently made fun of George on the show and it was reported that he thought it was hilarious, so they changed the character to someone who would be more easily offended.
I love the three kinds of people speeches. First, because they're so true, and second, because they perfectly explain the main protagonists and antagonist of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" starring James Stewart, John Wayne and Lee Marvin - a classic western that everybody should see.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone actually said they will never do a movie with puppets again after all the difficulties with this one. But if you want more, there's a scene made by the same puppeteer studio in the 200th episode of Stargate SG-1.
My favorite story about the making is that apparently Alec Baldwin heard about his role and liked the idea so much he offered to play himself but Matt and Trey said no because they thought they did a better impression of him. Also when Sean Penn saw the film he sent the pair a letter outlining how offended he was which pretty much boiled down to his exact dialogue in the film
The funny thing is Matt Damon is convinced that the reason they portrayed him like that was because of his political stance on the Iraq war, but in reality Matt Stone & Trey Parker say in the behind the scenes that it’s solely because when the mold of Matt Damon’s puppet came out, they thought it looked like an idiot, so instead of redoing the mold, they used the original one & changed all of his lines to, “Matt Damon.”
I'm sure someone pointed out already that this is a homage/parody of a '60's British show called Thunderbirds. There were also two movies. Thunderbirds are Go and Thunderbird 6. Gerry Anderson also was responsible for several other adventure shows all done with marionettes. All are family friendly and worth a look.
The puppet sex scene was originally way longer and far more extreme. It was basically Parker and Stone seeing what they could get away with. And while they didn’t have an issue with Matt Damon, it was just because of how the puppet came out, they did have a beef with Micheal Moore
There is a documentary on this movie that is fantastic. It answers all the questions that you have. The puppets facial expressions were actually more detailed in the beginning of the production but Matt and Trey decided to dial it back some. Great reaction kids.
Matt Damon's puppet came out looking like that, so rather than remake the puppet they changed the script so his character is essentially brain damaged cause of how it looked 🤣 Matt Damon reached out and asked Matt and Trey about it and when they explained he found it hilarious. Sean Penn on the other hand got so offended he wrote them an angry letter about how they portrayed him, so they published the letter publically to take piss more out of him 🤣
Matt Damon doesn't take himself too seriously, and Sean Penn does. Pretty much the way it's always been. Didn't Matt Damon appear as himself in J&SB Reboot just to say he played Loki before it was cool?
The week after this movie came out, Alec Baldwin had a bad time dropping his kids at school. All the teenagers kept saying to him "You are worthress, Arec Barrwin"
In the spirit of today's unconventional marionette animated film, I would like to recommend either or both of Wes Anderson's stop-motion films: The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs!
I've seen some of the "sets" from this movie in person and they're roughly 3-4 feet high if memory serves, so the puppets were around 2 feet tall give or take.
Me and my then bf seen this in the theater when it came out and thought it was so hilarious 😂 😂😂 the theatre was in stitches at the hidden jokes. One of my favorites to this day
Easily one of my favorites all time; it was huge when it came out. It had been just long enough that we could laugh at the topic & everyone needed it then. So fun to watch you enjoy it.
This is probably one of funniest movies I've ever seen. The production is SOOO incredible and the humor is a home run -- just GREAT fun! There is an unrated/uncensored version of the film too you should check out, hehe. Good time! Loved watching your reaction! I die laughing every time I watch the vomit scene, so funny.
There was actually no beef with Damon; the puppet just looked goofy as hell, so they decide to just make him so slow he could only say his own name.
Damon has actually gone on record in saying he found it hilarious even though he still deals with people saying “Matt Damon” to him on the street.
My mom never saw this movie but because me and my friends did the Mat Damon line over and over, she, till this day, will say "Matt Damon" in the dumb way every time he is mentioned XD
And Matt Damon is actually friends with Trey and Matt.
‘Fortune favors the bold.’
In the underwhelming political drama Syriana that came out a bit after this I was in the theater and did the "Matt Damon" voice when he first came on screen.
At least a handful of people laughed, and it was a very proud moment for me. 🤣🤣
The main element as I understand it was they couldn’t find anything distinctive about Matt Damon’s voice that they could caricature, and the first instance of “Maaaaaatt Daaaaamoooon” was done out of frustration, but everyone involved immediately lost their shit. So they just went with it. 😂
Matt Damon said of his "cameo" in the movie;
"I thought it was brilliant! I mean, I never understood it, and then I heard an interview with them and they said the puppet came in looking kind of mentally deficient and they didn’t have time to change it, so they just made me someone who could really only say his own name."
Actually the full quote is:
“Matt Damon”
@@peeramidwithin3823 For the win!!!!!!!!!!!
The South Park creators said it was so difficult dealing with all the puppets and voice overs in this film, that they would never ever ever make another film with puppets again. I LOVE this film. Equal sarcasm spread in every direction.
I had heard for even the first fight scene in here at 2:12 ("let's make this interesting") they wanted the puppeteers to just bash the puppets together randomly like in the final shot, but they couldn't make it look bad enough... so either Trey or Matt ended up doing it, and they damaged the puppets in the process.
but they did make another one, they made Boots Over Whitehall, puppet movie with alternate ending to the Battle of Britain.
weak...AP films did tons of tv shows like this.
George Clooney was only upset that they didn't ask him to voice himself. The one actor who did get upset was Sean Penn but that's consistent with his humourless personality.
He really is a completely unlikeable jerk.
He wrote them an angry letter, and they used that letter as promotional material for the movie.
Which makes sense with Clooney, since he “voiced” a dog in the first season of South Park and pretty famously was the celebrity who passed the original short film around Hollywood and helped Trey and Matt get the show launched. I believe he actually voiced a doctor in the SP movie too, right?
@@JeffKelly03 yes he played his ER character in the movie if I remember
@@callmeshaggy5166 Yup. "Dr. Doctor: Son, we... accidentally replaced your heart with a baked potato. You have about three seconds to live."
SP Movie is still so watchable even today. Same with Team America.
I saw an interview with Matt and Trey where the interviewer asked "So what do you think the chances of Kim Jong-il seeing this movie are?" Matt and Trey begin laughing, then Trey says "Pretty fucking good, we sent him a copy!" ROFL I love those guys.
When Kim is singing 'I'm so lonely', the statue in the middle of the stairs is a real dude. Its still my favourite detail of this entire movie. The whole thing is hilarious
Ronery
You mean, I'm so ronery! ? He could not pronounce the "L" sound.
@@dunhill1 He's still singing the song 'I'm So Lonely', just because he mispronounces it because of his accent doesn't mean he's not singing that same song.
@@omegashinra7672 I was joking; apparently there is a lack of humor here. Not everything has to serious. Have a good day.
"Ronery" not lonely
Allegedly, the over the top sex scene was put in so the censors would focus on that and the rest didn’t seem so bad in comparison. For the theatrical release, they just had to remove the worst of the sex scene and the rest was allowed.
South Park, Jackass, and even the simpsons writers use the same technique. They will write and make a ridiculously over the top obscene bit they know the censors will reject in order to get all the other stuff through.
The more graphic sex scenes that were cut out of the theatrical release were put in the unrated DVD edition. The sex scene is longer and includes golden showers and scat.
@@Kiernan5 I saw the shit scene in the theater!
Pretty sure I saw the golden shower scene in the theater, too.
@@williamsarnecky2229 + juan santos
Do you mean theaters in the USA? Because there's a LOT of difference with the rest of the world.
18 years later and this movie still makes me laugh as hard as it did the first time.
Me too
"I'm So Ronery" is one of the greatest musical moments in movie history. I said it, and I will never be convinced that I'm wrong.
Sadly, no one takes it serirousry
>_>; I had to...
The entire movie is the greatest musical moment in movie history.
@@Keff170882 10/10
When i saw that in the cinema…
no one laughed…
I get it - its funny…
It was an homage to Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds series, that ran from 1965 - 1966. I don't know about abroad, but here in the UK it holds a similar status as Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes - not nearly to the same extent, but in terms of being one of our proudest television outputs. It was two seasons of 16 90 minute episodes that entirely used puppets in the same style as Team America - Anderson actually pioneered that form of puppetry, which he called 'supermarionation'. I can't explain why, but I feel it holds up incredibly well for something 60 years old, compared to other shows and films from the time. The use of colour film, way ahead of its time in the UK; the expansive, detailed sets; the enrapturing pyrotechnics; the futuristic aesthetic (seriously, the designs of vehicles in his series are iconic, from the Fireflash and the Sidewinder to the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle and Saloon Car from his next show, Captain Scarlet).
Came here to comment exactly this. :)
Here in Spain some local tvs used to run some of Gerry Anderson's shows, being Thunderbirds and UFO the most famous. I loved coming back home from school just in time for your daily episode of Thunderbirds. The good ol' times.
And before the Thunderbirds there was Fireball XL-5, Supercar, and Stingray.
@@robertpearson8798 - Joe 90.
Marionation is done by audio sensors in the head of the puppet that are activated by prerecorded audio tracks and move the lips to the audio. I just read this in an article online.
18:30
Actually it was a happy accident. Apparently they were meant to make Matt Damon a quite intellectual and intelligent character... but then they got the puppet back and it didn't look the best so the rest is history
One of my favourite behind the scenes is actually to do with the opening shot of the crudely drawn Eiffel Tower with the marionette. Allegedly when they screened the film to executives, one of them saw the shot and yelled "Oh my God they fucked us"
It's a shame you didn't react to the Unrated version, "that" scene was extended with various other positions and acts
I seem to remember reading that they actually tried to remake the Matt Damon puppet multiple times and kept getting that not quite right result. They made the joke that he looked like he should talk like Timmy on South Park. Hence we got, “MATT DAMON!”. 😆😆😆
Fortune favors the brave!
The funniest thing about that story is that "Oh my God they fucked us" is exactly the kind of thing Matt and Trey would write for execs to say.
I was hoping they had the extended cut when it got to "that" scene but no such luck. The shock value would've been excellent.
Golden showers and a hot Carl.
my favorite fun fact about this movie is that the puppeteers (who are obviously the best in the business) offered to make the marionette fight scenes and walking/moving around parts look realistic, but Matt & Trey insisted that they make it awful on purpose. makes the first fight scene (matrix parody) and the scene of spotswoode walking out the door after meeting gary that much funnier.
Speaking of "Matrix", the cinematographer who shot Matrix also shot this movie.
Simone's reactions are always great but the reaction to "I'm So Lonely" is priceless.
George's laugh is stupidly contagious. Brilliant duo.
I think my favourite parts in their reactions are usually when Simone is too shocked to say anything and George is killing himself laughing
@@TheChiraagG I was definitely howling along with George the whole way. Same upper register. My wife thinks I've finally snapped.
Michael Moores depiction and demise was revenge for Moore using an animation in Bowling for Columbine that ripped off an animated short trey parker and matt stone made in college after they turned down Moore's request to do a south park style animation sequence for Columbine. In the edit of columbine, Matt Stone's appearance in the documentary makes it seem as if Stone had something to do with the sequence.
Matt and Trey said they wouldn't do it again because it was such a huge effort to make over a long period of time but they were very satisfied with the result. I think they are proud to have made a block buster movie and an award winning musical. I think they're also proud of their earlier efforts including Cannibal the Musical, Orgazmo and Baseketball. Orgazmo is still my favourite but it felt great going to see this at the cinema when the war on terror was really kicking into gear.
"Dad, I don't think I'm gonna do hamster style anymore."
That's the way it went down man. 😭
Shpadoinkle!
Orgasmo is fantastic
It was specifically the studio oversight that drove them out. They hated needing all their ideas approved by outside executives. Bigger, Longer, & Uncut didn't have this issue because Comedy Central was backing it.
Plus they wanted to prove that you don't need actors to make a good movie. Well, you need pretty good voice actors.
Considering that each of the puppets were a 22 to 24 inches tall, the sets were massive.
I saw this in theaters in 2004 with my dad and we couldn't stop laughing! Probably the hardest I've ever laughed in a theater.
In Captain Scarlet there is an old dude who is the boss of the team, just like Team America. The reason his chair is always sliding all over the place, is that the boss in Captain Scarlet had a similar chair, and it moved around arbitrarily to the point it was distracting. I love that they did such a tribute with this movie, to Gerry Anderson and his shows with “Supermarionation”.
The best thing to a sequel you are gonna get is a 5 minute segment in Stargate SG1s special 200th episode where they use this exact same style of puppet and humor to eviscerate their own first episode. It just amazed me they went through all that effort for a 5 minute skit and the punchline is magnificent. That whole episode was a wonder of madness.
Another SG-1 fan!!
Indeed
"It's spinning!"
George getting tickled is such a mood booster.
George has one of those contagious laughs that just put you in a good mood for sure
Well that was an experience :D There's also a full-length version of the song "America, Fuck Yeah" which is fun.
This is BY FAR my favorite reaction from you two! George got all the jokes, and Simone was appropriately shocked at... all of it, haha. I can see George clutching at his sides during the vomit scene, haha. This movie is just gold from beginning to end.
The vomit scene is by far my favorite in this excelent movie. Slays me every time.
And you know when George gets a joke because he will always say “Oh, I get it.”
George's reaction when the sex scene started was hilarious! 😂
I remember seeing this in theaters when I was in High School. They literally had ushers at the doors of the actual theaters where this was showing to verify people were old enough to see it. I've never seen that before or since with a rated R movie.
It was the other way around for me (in Las Vegas, NV) , I was sitting next to kids and there's no way they were older than 10. That also happened with Bad Santa. People here give zero fucks.
They probably learned their lesson from the South Park movie. Somehow, young kids convinced their parents to take them to see the movie (probably cause it was a cartoon) and they made the R rating very clear early on by placing "Uncle Fucker" at the very beginning of the movie. Needless to say the theater emptied out pretty quickly....LOL.
This film is a masterpiece that only gets better with age.
The marionettes were heavily inspired by Gerry Anderson’s series like Thunderbirds and Stingray - in fact, the sash at around 15:50 is a nod to the sashes in the Thunderbirds uniforms.
Might be worth having a look at some of those shows some day - really excellent shows for their time.
they're still excellent shows today
I would tend to agree.
@@ThreadBomb And then Fireflash Flameout.
I remember seeing this in the theater with two of my friends. We were kind of shocked how many people brought their pre-teen kids in because they heard "puppet movie." There was an elderly couple sitting in the row in front of us and they were laughing as hard as we were, so that was a turn-up for the books.
A couple of weeks after we saw it, one of said friends came to my dorm and I asked her to wait. I'd worked out how to play "I'm So Ronery" on the pennywhistle and gave her a little performance. Good times with this movie.
Also! My Western Civ teacher was this really straight-laced, reserved man from India. He asked me after class one day if I'd seen Team America. Thought it was a little strange, but I said I had. He said he'd seen it that weekend and found the puppet sex scene one of the funniest things he'd seen in years. If my head could have exploded that day, it would have.
It's based on "Thunderbirds" from the 1960s. I loved that when I was a kid in the 90s.
I'm surprised they hadn't seen those sort of puppets before. As you say, this is based on Thunderbirds, but you also had Captain Scarlet, Stingray and Joe 90. I thought they might have seen one of those shows.
One of the most awesome speeches in movie history. Makes me laugh everytime.
Bodies floating… Simone: “Not the chicken!” Me: 🥰🤗
One thing that is great abou the german syncro of this, is that they gave the actors the voices they allways have.
During the closing credits, the movie samples the entire soundtrack... but near the end of the credits, a bonus song plays of Kim Jong-il giving some of his motivation and back story.
“You are worthress, Arec Barwin. You are worthress, Arec Barwin.”
When the oral scene happened and Simone said "Its for America George", I was hoping George to be like "But.. We are canadians"
Everyone is american in their hearts
Trey Parker and Matt Stone write most of the songs used in South Park, and have made multiple musicals. They have multiple Emmys, Tonys, Grammys, and were nominated for an Oscar for the South Park movie.
Stephen Sondheim even wrote Trey Parker a letter, saying he loved Team America, and wondered if he would ever want to do a collab.
16:46 "There's three kinds of people..."
These are likely the wisest words recorded on film. More accurate than anything that Socrates passed on to Plato.
There was documentary that came out a while ago called, "This film is not yet rated" about how inconsistent the rating is. Trey and Matt were interviewed and talked about the sex scene in this movie. They said they took it as extreme as it could go, knowing they would get an nc-17 rating, and then scaled back until they dropped it to rated R. They knew if they started with what the final cut would have been, it would have probably go the nc-17 rating.
They have complained about the rating system forever. They said when they were more independent and making movies like Orgazmo, they got no feedback and were slapped with an NC-17 rating. Then when they made the South Park movie, all of the sudden the ratings people worked closely with them and the studio to make sure they could get an R rating.
@@Willinders01 And if you watch Orgazmo, it's really fucking tame. The worst thing in it is dude butt, and a couple swears (Mainly from A-Cup and Roy). Aside from the concept, it could be made PG-13 with some minor edits.
@@Eidlones It was actually one of the jokes of the movie, that the whole story revolves around porn, but there's no sex and barely any nudity in it. I'd love to see George and Simone react to it, now that I've seen their reaction to Team America.
@@stevensauer8539 I'd love if they did, but I doubt it. It seems to be kindof a forgotten movie, unfortunately.
@@Eidlones A shame really. In this era of superhero films, the world needs the adventures of Orgazmo and his pal Choda Boy.
You should watch 'Swiss Army Man'. It was made by the same people that made 'Everything, Everywhere all at once'. Its proper mental and defo worth a watch.
Absolutely second this!
It's a hidden gem.
This film is SO fu*king brilliant. There are so many levels of jokes. I wish they would do a sequel, but I know they never will (Trey and Matt said this was so difficult to film they'd never do it again).
Parker and Stones BASEketball is an absolute must for you two. Oh, and Orgazmo as well. Just as ludicrous and you'll love them.
Since you enjoyed this, I hope we'll gonna see the South Park movie on here as well some day :)
Bigger Longer and Uncut
The song "Blame Canada" was nominated for a Best Song Academy Award!
@@jamesalexander5623 Uncle Fucker is genuinely a solid ass song
I looked up some responses from the people parodied on the film.
Full quote of Matt Damon's AMA: “I was always kind of bewildered by Team America, I think because it’s hard for us to understand what our images are in public, I think we’re not good judges of that, and when I saw myself on screen just only able to say my own name and not really that well, I kind of wondered “Wow, is that how people perceive me?” At that point I just kind of was like, I’m a screenwriter and an actor, and like really? I can barely say my own name? So I was always bewildered by that, and I never talked to Trey and Matt about that. And Incidentally, I believe those two are geniuses, and I don’t use that word lightly. I think they are absolute geniuses, and what they’ve done is awesome and I’m a big fan of theirs, but I never quite understood that one. But I will say this. Those of us who were parodied in that video were parodied because we were against the Iraq war, and we went on the record against that war, and so history is on my side not theirs.”
Alec Baldwin said it was hilarious. (Wikipedia claims that he offered to voice the role himself but the link is dead; the IMDB trivia page says the same but it doesn't have a source so I'd take it with a grain of salt.)
Sean Penn thought in his letter that "it's all well to joke about me or whomever you choose. Not so well, to encourage irresponsibility that will ultimately lead to the disembowelment, mutilation, exploitation, and death of innocent people throughout the world" and ended it with a sincere f*** y**.
George Clooney: "I must say I would've been offended if I wasn't in it... Those guys, they're friends of mine. I helped them get their show on the air and was Sparky the gay dog and was in their South Park movie. Part of the fun about being up here is that we get to be objects of that."
In 2008, Helen Hunt had become much less vocal about her political statements. In a piece from The Guardian: "[P]erhaps such satirisation explains her nervy shyness today. When asked why actors who make political statements are parodied, she won't even let me finish the sentence, blurting out, 'I don't know, I don't care.'"
The only thing I could find about Susan Sarandon was a tweet from 2017 where she joked that maybe Team America was behind North Korea's failed missile launch.
Stone & Parker said their aim wasn't to insult individuals, but the idea of celebrity expertise: ”This isn’t so much a statement on who they are as people, but it’s the idea that as celebrities, they know everything about everything. You’re actually trying to figure out what’s going on in the world, and then all of a sudden, on your TV news show is Janeane Garofalo. These stars really aren’t authorities on anything.” The exception: Sean Penn.
All due respect to Matt Damon, but if he thinks he was being mocked because he was against the war, he's not as bright as he thinks he is.
Of course Sean Penn reacts with the least sense of humor of any of them.
@@jculver1674 Considering the film was fairly pro iraq war I think it's a fair point.
@@ericpeterson9110I didn't think it pro Iraq war at all. Every side was being satirized
@@A-small-amount-of-peas The american military was being satirised as a bunch of "dicks". But then the movie loops around to the big moral and speech at the end with a "sure, the army are dicks, but we need them to keep the world in check". Matt and Trey tend to play the moral at the end of a story pretty straight. Nearly all south park episodes parody both sides but the ending moral is played straight.
Would LOVE to see you both watch the South Park movie... especially for how much Canada is a part of the story!
The original idea for this movie was to remake Michael Bay's 'Armaggedon' but with puppets. It evolved into this. And as much as people wanted a sequel, making the film was so difficult that the directors said no way.
.
@@robo3715 It was Jerry Bruckheimer films in general they were parodying.
Listen to the music they wrote (specifically “Only A Woman”), and the fact they make fun of Ben Affleck. It was Armageddon.
Simone’s face through this was priceless. Just wide eyed incredulity. 😆
It sort of looked like she was weighing whether to laugh or chuckle at some of the jokes, on camera. Don't want to get heat for laughing at a scene that is deemed "offensive" now.
"I'm surprised they didn't do more..."
It's a LOT of work. (And they come from *animation*...) They had fun, they loved the end result, but the experience was just brutal and something they were not motivated enough to ever do again.
This is such a unique concept for a movie that has yet to be truly topped. Matt and Trey have stated the filming process using puppets was immensely frustrating and would never do so again. Also humorous how Team America was threatened with an NC-17 rating, for that matter.
As a Brit, i was brought up on shows like Thunderbirds, Stingray & Captain Scarlet as a kid which this film was heavily based on & spoofed. Made this film even funnier.
Fun fact: when they first showed the movie to Paramonut executives, the higher management were audibly enraged when they saw the opening shot thinking Matt and Trey had stiffed them by making something that looks that crappy. Then the camera panned out and they sighed with relief.
Matt Damon killed it in this movie! The way he delivered his lines has me shook!
You know a joke is good when George giggles like a girl and Simone just looks shocked xD
16:44 I think you’re like the only person who’s noticed the hammer 😂
In the opening fight when the TA chopper arrives, Chris as he's coming down the rope declares, "Why can't we ever do anything the easy way!"
Chris was voiced by Matt Stone, who put that line in referencing his regret over deciding to do a really really hard to make puppet movie.
Yeah the creators of this said that working with the puppets was so hard they will never ever ever do it again. But they have to realize that they created something special. I can only imagine what what happened now if somebody went to the studio and said they wanted to make a big budget movies with marionette puppets
I've watched so many of your reactions and I can't think of one that made you both laugh so often. This was really fun.
The puppetry is based on Gerry Anderson’s “Supermarionation” puppet series like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlett. Anderson was always working on trying to disguise the strings with extremely thin gauge wires and got upset when people focussed on being able to see the wires, for that reason there was no attempt to hide the puppet in Team America. The International Rescue team in Thunderbirds rescued people but often at the expense of a significant piece of infrastructure being destroyed. One of Anderson’s trademark moves was to blow up a model but the show the explosion repeated from several different camera angles. I am not sure if the parody of Gerry Anderson’s puppet series’ in Team America had anything to do with the fact that a long awaited live action Thunderbirds film also came out in. 2004.
That live action Thunderbirds movie should have never been made.
Little factoid Bill Pope the Director Of Photography on Team America was also the DOP on The Matrix and Shang Chi.
I loved the music in this movie so much I bought the soundtrack.
But the thing I love most about this movie is that they aren't making fun of Muslims, North Koreans, the French, etc. They are making fun of the typical American's stereotypically blind view of the world and their feeling of self importance and exceptionalism.
MATT DAMON!
I love how they kept showing how many miles everything was from the US.
This movie is hilarious and insane.
Call HR I can't believe Gary went through with it. I love how Simone keeps being distracted by all the animals even before the real cats appeared.
It only tangentially relates (via puppets, mostly) but I'd love to see you react to "Being John Malkovich", a hell of a trip of a movie
i almost died in the theater when i saw the throwing up part.
I heard that the cinematographer loved shooting the movie because with everything being 1/3 sized, it let him film as if he had boom cameras 3x the actual size. The puppets (aside from Kim) were about 2' tall.
This is greatly inspired by the Thunderbirds TV show from the '60s and some other similar ones.
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Supermarionation. Top notch model making and fantastic sets.
I was hoping someone knew this.
Ridonkeylous is the word for this film
A lot of shows like Thunderbirds had large mannequins for their shows, it was the best way to shoot such tv series.
There's a fantastic documentary on Netflix about the Supermarionation shows.
The puppets were an homage to Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation TV shows. Most were of very similar production value with sets, vehicles and special effects. This movie has similar themes to one of his best remembered series, Thunderbirds. A kind of father figure calling the shots, working from a hidden base of operations, specialized vehicles, and a small team of main characters involved in some sort of international intrigue. They did an amazing job, and totally pushed it over the top and into the abyss of no holds barred South Parkesque humor! I saw this in the theater when it was released, and when I wasn't picking my jaw of the floor, I was laughing my but off!
George's laugh is so contagious XD
Oh man, the infamous puppet sex scene was such a shocker back in the day. Lol
And originally a lot more explicit.
back in the day? This movie could not be made today.
@@Dularr sausage party came out just a handful of years ago and that has quite a few things in it that some people might consider worse, then you have stuff like The Interview that came out like 7 years ago. I REALLY think people go too overboard with the "this couldn't be made today" comments
@@Goomyx1492 Sausage Party sounds right. It came out in 2016, but was in production for 8 years. I don't think it could be made today. Generally 2017 is when Hollywood changed. After the scumbag Harvey W was outed.
@@Goomyx1492 The Interview 2014. Well before 2017.
I think I heard somewhere that the Alec Baldwin part was supposed to be George Clooney, but they recently made fun of George on the show and it was reported that he thought it was hilarious, so they changed the character to someone who would be more easily offended.
The music in all South Park shows and movies is just amazing. They said this was so hard to do, they'd never do puppets again.
I love the three kinds of people speeches. First, because they're so true, and second, because they perfectly explain the main protagonists and antagonist of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" starring James Stewart, John Wayne and Lee Marvin - a classic western that everybody should see.
Please watch the STAR TREK movies. 🖖
If you haven't seen the South Park movie you should check it out. They spent so much time on the songs and they are amazing.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone actually said they will never do a movie with puppets again after all the difficulties with this one. But if you want more, there's a scene made by the same puppeteer studio in the 200th episode of Stargate SG-1.
"So ronrey". Those guys get away with anything. Love it!
My favorite story about the making is that apparently Alec Baldwin heard about his role and liked the idea so much he offered to play himself but Matt and Trey said no because they thought they did a better impression of him. Also when Sean Penn saw the film he sent the pair a letter outlining how offended he was which pretty much boiled down to his exact dialogue in the film
I wonder if penn knew he was in it before it came out. because they would've been filming before he said it which makes him predictable
Freedom cost a buck o' five 😶
The funny thing is Matt Damon is convinced that the reason they portrayed him like that was because of his political stance on the Iraq war, but in reality Matt Stone & Trey Parker say in the behind the scenes that it’s solely because when the mold of Matt Damon’s puppet came out, they thought it looked like an idiot, so instead of redoing the mold, they used the original one & changed all of his lines to, “Matt Damon.”
I'm sure someone pointed out already that this is a homage/parody of a '60's British show called Thunderbirds. There were also two movies. Thunderbirds are Go and Thunderbird 6. Gerry Anderson also was responsible for several other adventure shows all done with marionettes. All are family friendly and worth a look.
The puppet sex scene was originally way longer and far more extreme. It was basically Parker and Stone seeing what they could get away with.
And while they didn’t have an issue with Matt Damon, it was just because of how the puppet came out, they did have a beef with Micheal Moore
17:21 “What is it?” Trey and Matt confirmed that the puke is pea soup.
There is a documentary on this movie that is fantastic. It answers all the questions that you have.
The puppets facial expressions were actually more detailed in the beginning of the production but Matt and Trey decided to dial it back some.
Great reaction kids.
Matt Damon's puppet came out looking like that, so rather than remake the puppet they changed the script so his character is essentially brain damaged cause of how it looked 🤣
Matt Damon reached out and asked Matt and Trey about it and when they explained he found it hilarious.
Sean Penn on the other hand got so offended he wrote them an angry letter about how they portrayed him, so they published the letter publically to take piss more out of him 🤣
Matt Damon doesn't take himself too seriously, and Sean Penn does. Pretty much the way it's always been.
Didn't Matt Damon appear as himself in J&SB Reboot just to say he played Loki before it was cool?
The week after this movie came out, Alec Baldwin had a bad time dropping his kids at school. All the teenagers kept saying to him "You are worthress, Arec Barrwin"
Daran Norris...Spotswood..."That's riiht. It's pure coffee."
One of the fine details in the intricate miniature sets is that the cobblestones in the streets of Paris, are shaped like croissants.
In the spirit of today's unconventional marionette animated film, I would like to recommend either or both of Wes Anderson's stop-motion films: The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs!
I second this motion! Also I think the guys, particularly Simone, would love these films :)
I've seen some of the "sets" from this movie in person and they're roughly 3-4 feet high if memory serves, so the puppets were around 2 feet tall give or take.
I was crying laughing at the vomit scene with you two! This is hilarious! You’re on a great roll with movies!
The "WOooooooooo!" from Tim Robbins as lay on the floor in flames is one of my favorite moments of the entire movie. Just... AMAZING timing.
The drunk guy's analogy but a-holes still holds up today though. One of the best speeches ever xD xD
Supposedly the puke used for Gary was a mixture of beer and pea soup.
I am writing this before i watch the video. OMFG YES!!! I am so excited, I love you guys!
It's the inspirational music in the background while he was puking that always gets me.
Me and my then bf seen this in the theater when it came out and thought it was so hilarious 😂 😂😂 the theatre was in stitches at the hidden jokes. One of my favorites to this day
In France, the word marionette can refer to any kind of puppet, but elsewhere it typically refers only to string puppets.
"MATT DAMON!" - Matt Damon
Easily one of my favorites all time; it was huge when it came out. It had been just long enough that we could laugh at the topic & everyone needed it then. So fun to watch you enjoy it.
This is probably one of funniest movies I've ever seen. The production is SOOO incredible and the humor is a home run -- just GREAT fun! There is an unrated/uncensored version of the film too you should check out, hehe. Good time! Loved watching your reaction! I die laughing every time I watch the vomit scene, so funny.
Good stuff! They did say that working with puppets was the hardest thing they ever did and that they'd never do it again.