The Book of Mormon: South Park Creators a Hit On Broadway

There are two things we at Yell! Magazine usually avoid like the plague. The first is musicals, the second is cartoons. Well, cartoons of the Saturday morning variety anyway.

South Park was an exception. Its adult-oriented themes and biting humor, we are embarrassed to say, frequently brought tears to our eyes from the laughter it invoked.

Creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who conquered prime time television with the series moved into film and repeated their glory. Films like South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, Team America: World Police, and to a lesser extent, BASEketball, took their satire and farce onto the big screen.

Not satisfied with those two mediums, the two geniuses decided a few years back to bring their lampooning out of the studio and put it on display in a live performance. The results are now a major hit on Broadway.

Opening to the general public yesterday, The Book of Mormon, is now showing at the Eugene O’Neil Theater on West 49th Street in NYC. It tells the story of two young missionaries taken out of the comforts of Salt Lake City and put into the strange lands of continental Africa.

The show stars Andrew Rannells as clean-cut Elder Price, and Josh Gad as the ignoramus Elder Cunningham. Both are thrown into the poverty-stricken, war ravaged, AIDS infected Uganda and are expected to make an impact. Let’s hope Broadway survives the offensive language and crude jokes, and Mormonism’s practitioners take the jabs with a grain of salt.