10 Things You Didn't Know About TeamAmerica

[Applause] they are here to stop all the evil wrongdoers of the world and to make it a safe place while blowing up as much as humanly possible they are Team America World place a satirical look at action movies and real life conflicts of the time only all the characters are puppets yep even M demon this hilarious movie is the gift that keeps on giving which was brought to us by the legendary South Park guys Trey Parker and Matt Stone in which the World Police recruits a famed stage actor called Gary to infiltrate a terrorist organization where not only must the team face off against some deadly opponents but also Elite virtuous Hollywood actors and this outrageous and I do mean outrageous comedy classic every now and then you need a slice of LOL pie so 10 things that you didn't know about Team America World Place let's check it [Music] out number 10 Thunderbirds in ired Team America our journey begins with Matt Stone and Trey Parker and of course Thunderbirds when they were young the show failed to grab their attention particularly with Parker who found that the show took itself too seriously and that the dialogue was too slow however after seeing Thunderbirds on TV while being bored one afternoon this prompted the funny guys to inquire about the rights of the show where they discovered that Universal Pictures were already in the process of making a Thunderbird movie and they were really disappointed to discover that this Thunderbirds movie wouldn't be using puppets but liveaction actors so I guess this motivated Parker and stone to make their own puppet action movie only one that was a bit more outrageous than Thunderbirds despite vowing to never work on a movie again after making South Park bigger longer and uncut number nine Stone and Parker's puppet movie became a spoof of Jerry brookheimer films Trey Parker and Matt Stone found movies like Armageddon and day after tomorrow to be unintentionally hilarious be that they are hilarious because they are so bad according to ucks Parker and stone had planned to make puppet versions of either Armageddon or day after tomorrow but the studios who own the rights to those movies put a stop to that so the South Park Duo decided to make up their own movie based on action movie clich shets particularly Jerry brocker movies when coming up with Team America Parker and stone would take inspiration from movies like Top Gun and PE Harbor particularly with Ben Affleck's character as well as study the works of Joseph Campbell who wrote the book The Hero with a thousand faces so they could Perfect The Stereotype of action adventure characters something else that was a huge influence for Team America was the 1982 movie Mega Force which is also really Bonkers Parker and stone would team up with writer and producer Pam Brady as she had previously worked with them on South Park and all L the script would take about 2 years to write number eight Team America was seen as a cost-saving movie now Paramount Pictures had previously distributed Parker and Stone's previous movie South Park bigger longer and uncut and Paramount executive Scott Ruden was really on board for this runchy comedy with puppets however according to Wikipedia there were some Paramount Executives who weren't exactly on board and took some persuading as they didn't think an R-rated puppet movie could be profitable until it was pointed out to them that the same thing was said about South Park only that was cartoons and not puppets and just look at how successful that has become however according to Screen Rant Paramount couldn't scoop up Team America faster and was really enthusiastic about it feeling that making a comedy movie with puppets could be cheaper than making a regular one with actors and set and Wikipedia does also support this claim by saying that the president of Viacom at the time with Viacom being a part of Paramount Pictures really supported the idea of a puppet's comedy movie because it could be made on a lower budget yeah they had no idea what was in store for them it's also said that the studio was really interested in Team America because the script was so Politically Incorrect oh wow how times have changed number seven movie effects Legends created the puppets the puppet characters in Team America World Place were created by the chiato brothers who worked on the creature effects of Critters as well as creating the Large Marge effect in pee's big adventure and the brothers even directed and created the creatures for killer clowns from out of space the puppets in Team America were designed to be 1/3 the size of a human with the puppets being about 2 2 in and each puppet would take about a day and a half to complete the first puppet the chodo Brothers created was the spottiswood character and all the puppets that followed were modeled after that character given how the puppets in Team America have so much character and that there were so many puppets the choto brothers really went above and beyond for Team America seriously top work guys Team America is a big evolution for puppets a huge step forward I mean I don't think we had puppet sex before Team America number six the shoot was a nightmare although it was felt that Team America would be a really easy shoot it was anything but and if anything the fact that puppets were being used for filming made the shoot for Team America even more difficult with Parker and stone having to do constant rewrites due to quote the limited nature of the puppets the crew consisted of 200 people of which it could take up to four people to control just one of the puppets maneuvering the puppets was also very difficult and timely and getting a puppet to do something simple like having a drink could take up to a day and a half to film furthermore constant delays to filming would take place in order for Parker and stone to find the right humor after filming the first scene they felt the humor was wrong and they would have to revise the entire script as the humor was originally coming from the puppets themselves but they felt the real humor would be the puppets acting dramatically in other words puppets telling jokes isn't funny but seeing puppets being all dramatic and talking about sensitive issues is funny and he's not wrong look at the freedom isn't free scene where the Gary character is emotionally looking over the national monuments now if that was filmed with an actor it's basically a Michael Bay movie but use a puppet instead and it's the funniest thing ever however the puppets weren't the only difficulties involved with filming number five further delays took place with an impending deadline yes there was a set deadline for Team America to be completed creating a panicked race to the finish line and yet humor aside more delays in filming would take place on the account that stone and Parker wanted to Perfect The Craft of the movie with many shots having to be redone to the filmmaker's liking each special effect was performed live on film as opposed to adding in CGI which Parker would refer to as a complicated math problem and stone would say that in order to work 20h hour long days he would be using coffee during the day and sleeping pills at night in order to sleep the two filmmakers had their vision of the movie and had to work above and beyond to achieve it and to be fair I don't think a future movie ever quite looked like this before a movie consisting of a puppet cast in an Ultra realis IC miniature World which looked impressive and lifelike with equally impressive set pieces at least not one of this quality not only did they have to perfect the jokes I mean after all this is a comedy movie but also the technical craft of the puppets and other effects Team America really was just barely made in time for its October 15th release and because of this only a 20-minute presentation showing highlights of the movie could be shown at a press screening as the movie just simply wasn't ready both Parker and stone agreed that making Team America was the hardest thing that they have ever done in other words there will be no sequel I don't think they ever want to go near puppets ever again number four story of the actors Team America World place was quite ahead of its time in that it shows us virtuous celebrities who get in on the action otherwise known as the film actor's guild and it's LED by Alec Baldwin the actors are shown to be full of their own huous and self-importance and although this may have gone over people's heads in 2004 I think it's something that really resonates with people these days as I think people have become somewhat largic of grandiose lecturing celebrities but that's just an observation one of the most popular celebrities in Team America was Matt Damon mat Damon of which throughout the entire film The only thing his character was was able to do was say Matt Damon the Matt Damon puppet wasn't originally intended to be like this but the character was to be more articulate however after Stone and Parker saw the puppet they thought it looked really Dopey and incapable of communicating so they felt that they just had to go with it by making him a character who could only say his name n demon another celebrity used was Michael Moore who was shown to be a hot dog chewing buffoon now this one was more personal the unflattering portrayal of Mo was done because Matt Stone gave an interview to Mo for his documentary Bowling for Coline where after Stone's appearance a cartoon called A Brief History of the United States was shown Stone felt like it was presented in a way to make the audience believe that he created the cartoon short which Stone did not so yeah take that Michael Moore however what happens when one of the real life actors start acting just like how their characters do in the movie number three one of the actors was Furious now most of the celebrities who parker and stone make fun of in the movie took it pretty well I mean come on you have to it'll be ridiculous getting all angry and upset hey if they ever paraded me I would be absolutely delighted I mean come on I'm an old bold Australian YouTuber just think of the comedic possibilities George cloney and Alec Baldwin both reacted positively to the movie Clooney even said that he would have been disappointed if he wasn't included and Matt Damon also responded positively to the Matt Damon puppet despite being somewhat confused by it Matt Damon but regardless there was no ill feeling however one actor was seemingly quite pierced about their portrayal in the film and that was Shawn Penn who without seeing the movie but only being told about it wrote Trey Parker and Matt Stone an angry letter which ended with f C the funny thing is Parker claimed that in his letter he was saying things that his fictionalized character was saying in Team America and he writes in the letter like I've been to Iraq we'd already shot that shot where he said I've been to Iraq yeah but I don't think he knew so although this letter was sent to let off some steam pen actually sent validation to his character in Team America the big thing we were making fun of him for was being like I've been to Iraq and you know don't I can you know you don't know what you're talking about I've been there Kim Jong ill was also supposedly not happy with his iCal betrayal in Team America and supposedly asked the Czech Republic to ban the movie and they pretty much replied with nah number two ratings Fiasco so now we get to the infamous puppet love scene yep the scene where those two puppets do the spicy Tango when watching the movie for the first time this scene was painful as it was just so funny well originally the scene went on much longer but Team America was hit with an nc17 rating all because of this Infamous scene so nine cuts had to be made in order to satisfy the MPAA and give the movie the desired R rating wow I mean heaps of R-rated movies have pretty intense love scenes some of them are even considered artistically expressive but hey I guess it's just crossing the line when it's puppets then again the puppet love scene in Team America does feature characters you know look I'm not going to say what they do if you want to know just look it up I don't want to get in trouble here but while Team America was having issues with hard ratings in America the opposite happened in some countries in Europe as it was given a rating for being appropriate for Children and Families it's as if the classification board for those countries didn't watch the movie and just thought oh this movie has puppets well clearly this is a kids movie oh no yeah some of those kids and their parents were in for a shock number one America yeah so Team America World Police was released in October 2004 and its box office intake was somewhat successful as it would go on to make $51 million on a budget of 32 million so it recouped its budget and nearly made $20 million profit however the movie got rave reviews from critics with its satire in particular being praised with it being felt that the movie was clever and makes fun of all political sides whether that's left right or Center so no matter where people stood politically at least for that moment they could all come together and enjoy Team America together which is a wonderful and Powerful tool of both satire and comedy no one gets out unscathed it's very much a product of 2004 as it satz is real real life tensions of that time and it shows that even when times are tough and desperate it's nice to know that every once in a while we can have a comedy that just points out how ridiculous everything is now I would say that a movie like Team America couldn't be made now and to a degree that's true and that's a shame I mean there would be tweets all over the place of people being offended and demanding apologies and sensorship but really the humor of Parker and stone is still going on now with South Park which still into real issues of the time and well just laughs at it and shows how ridiculous things can be which as mentioned is a wonderful and Powerful tribute of satire I can remember watching Team America for the first time it was in a movie theater in the UK and I laughed so much I actually had a panic attack it was in the scene with the Broadway musical with that song Everybody's Got A I completely lost it and because I was in a dark room with strangers and couldn't compose myself I just went into hysterics and well hence the panic attack it was a film that me and all my friends loved and constantly quoted and did impersonations of the funny voices Matt demon and I think the popularity continued to grow with home media to the point where it's now a classic up there with the likes of the producers in that it's a Brave movie which dares to mock sensitive real life issues and be really funny while it's doing it so now more than ever is a good time to remember that when time are tough and there's so much conflict it's good for us all to come together just once in a while and have a good laugh because if we can no longer laugh then what have we got [Music] left I honestly think it's a shame we didn't get a standalone film with the Matt Damon puppet I mean imagine a born Identity movie without the real Matt Damon but that puppet now that would have been comedy gold and I don't care who knows it that would have been comedy gold anyway I'm minty and remember there's no I in team but there is a me awkward see [Music] you [Music] oh

Channel: Minty Comedic Arts

Views: 205,209

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Id: xxaNFNWqmF0

Length: 17min 45sec (1065 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2023