Zen and the Art of South Park

Jesse Walker | August 15, 2007

A fun curio: A series of animated films produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame, based on excerpts from the lectures of Alan Watts. The clips are actually five or six years old, but they've been bubbling through the Internet again recently and they're worth a look.

On a related note, an exchange from Reason's interview with Parker and Stone:

Reason: How were each of you raised religiously?

Stone: I was raised agnostic. There was no religion in my house.

Parker: I was pretty much the same. My father tried to raise me Buddhist, as in Alan Watts Buddhism, which is Buddhism in a way.

Comments

|8.15.07 @ 10:25AM|#

Cool... a friend recently lent me a CD collection of Watt's lectures and they're quite good.

Stephen the Goldberger|8.15.07 @ 10:27AM|#

I have no idea who this charector is so I don't think i'll be watching a parody of him first. It's like when i saw Spaceballs before watching any of the star wars films. Still great but I didn't appreciate the textual depth of the piece.

|8.15.07 @ 10:31AM|#

I had the same problem with "Robin Hood: Men In Tights."

Jesse Walker|8.15.07 @ 10:35AM|#

Stephen: Watts was a prominent English/American Buddhist. The clips aren't parodies.

Anonymo the Anonymous|8.15.07 @ 11:10AM|#

Did anybody else think "Alan Keyes" when they read that and feel kinda disappointed when it wasn't so? (I guess maybe the pathway was "Watts" -> "J.C. Watts" -> "black Republican". Brains are funny.)

fyodor|8.15.07 @ 11:14AM|#

I like Alan Watts. About 94% of what he says has me thinking, "Yeah, yeah, that's how it is, wow, that's EXACTLY how it is!! You've described it perferctly!!" And the other 6% gets me thinking, "WHAT???? You can't be serious. PLEASE tell me you don't actually BELIEVE that!!!"

Rhywun|8.15.07 @ 11:34AM|#

I don't know who this Watts dude is either, but I went on a couple dates with a hardcore (American) Buddhist once - never again.

robc|8.15.07 @ 11:35AM|#

fyodor,

Those are almost the exact numbers I use to discribe my thoughts about Rand.

dhex|8.15.07 @ 12:00PM|#

watts is interesting to listen to, though my tolerance for the metaphysical is admittedly very low.

he's no osho rajneesh, lemme tell you. now that's a guy i could listen to for days...

|8.15.07 @ 2:16PM|#

Still great but I didn't appreciate the textual depth of the piece.

Since when did Mel Brooks have any depth whatsoever?

|8.15.07 @ 2:21PM|#

Taktix - Blazing Saddles, of course!

Russ 2000|8.15.07 @ 7:58PM|#

fyodor,

That's a pretty good ratio. HEck, I disagree with more than 6% of the stuff I used to believe.