Jul
23
2007
Flash Animated Philosophy From South Park Creators
Trey Parker, one of the creators of South Park, was raised in Colorado, where his father attempted to teach him Buddhism. Now, years later, Parker and his animation pal Matt Stone have brought to life the teachings of Alan Watts, the comparative religion expert and philosopher. Under the FurryCarlos Productions banner, the two tapped South Park animators Chris Brion and Todd Benson to keyframe three of Watts’ recordings, which can be viewed below.
Life and Music
Prickles and Goo
Appling
I believe two more Watts recordings were animated by this team, but there are no credits – Madness and I.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:21 pm
These are fucking brilliant!
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 pm
I’m with Sean: these animations are brilliant. As a teenager I read The Way of Zen by Alan Watts. Never heard the man speak. Had no idea he had such a great sense of humor – the book I read was rather dry.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:58 am
HA!
Funny and insightful. They’re nutty. I love this guy’s voice too.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Woah, English mysticism, get in! And he looks the part on his Wikipedia page too.
Kind of reminds me of Jake Thackray, though for no other reason than he also had a great voice and a wonderful turn of phrase.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
PRICKLES not pickles
piece out
July 26th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
“Life and Music” is the best. I bet he author hangs out with Doglas Adam (Hitch Hikers guide to the Galxy).
July 27th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Superb.
There’s an Alan Watts podcast you can subscribe to, and I highly recommend it: http://www.alanwattspodcast.com/
July 27th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
these be cool
July 27th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I agree, Life and Music is the best one. It made me angry because of all the time that I’ve wasted chasing illusory goals set up for me by a blind education system.
July 27th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Matt & Trey Rock, and also Zen !
July 28th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
I love it!
Definitely going to look up more of this fellow.
PS- Soulkeeper, you missed the point.
July 29th, 2007 at 2:34 am
Where can we find more of these?
July 29th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Ever hear of Roy Masters and the Foundation of Human understanding??? http://www.fhu.com
Same or similar schtick.
voxcox@msn.com
July 30th, 2007 at 6:20 am
Brilliant
July 30th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
The rocks that come alive are discworld trolls.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:58 am
I love these. I really enjoy how he cracks up as he laughs at the concept of a big crash of a chorus.
The best Watts book I’ve read is Tao: The Watercourse Way, where his sense of humour and wonder really shine through in the writing. Apparently he found real joy at the end of his life.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:41 pm
nothing special,,
August 5th, 2007 at 6:03 am
aw, way to kill it.
I think these’re pretty awesome. You can find the rest of them at http://www.freshminds.com/animation/alan_watts_theater.html
I like the last one on the page called “I” a lot too, it’s pretty funny. SOME of these animations don’t add a lot to the audio, but you’ve gotta respect them for doing something so cool and different.
August 5th, 2007 at 6:06 am
url got cut off:
http://www.freshminds.com/animation/
alan_watts_theater.html
August 8th, 2007 at 1:31 am
Perhaps we’re all starting to ‘get it!’…(there is hope)
An exciting time to be living on this planet.
August 15th, 2007 at 1:49 am
really makes you stop and think.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
I really learned a lot from these. They’re funny and entertaining, but what leaves you with a good feeling after all of it is that they’re true.
August 27th, 2007 at 6:58 am
you can listen to Alan’s podcasts from his website
alanwatts.com
September 6th, 2007 at 3:28 am
Thanks for reminding me of the brilliance of Alan Watts’ recordings…It’s been a long time since WFMU played them at drive time.
Remember, the only way to do a sink full of dishes is one dish at a time….
September 6th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
yes, these are super!!! I agree with you!! The journey is what counts and not the destination!
Susan in italy
September 10th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
here is another at: http://www.yozef.com/theroom.html
December 5th, 2007 at 12:08 am
these are great. thanks for putting them up!
my favorite alan watts book is The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
fhu.com….foundation of human understanding..this reminded me a lot of Roy Master’s teachings. He is a brilliant man.
January 6th, 2008 at 10:43 am
these are fantastic!
January 8th, 2008 at 12:48 am
i thought it kinda sucked. animations were pretty good though
February 10th, 2008 at 11:56 am
- I\’m not exactly sure what this has to do with Disney dvd and video (that\’s what I was searching on MSN when I saw a link here), but I\’m glad I got a chance to read your blog. Thanks!!
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:06 am
[...] Posted by NaterGator By the way, this is great: The audio is an Alan Watts bit: Flash Animated Philosophy From South Park Creators | Cold Hard Flash: Flash Animation News, Videos a… I’ve heard a fair bit of his stuff, its pretty good. He died in the 1970s, I think. [...]
April 7th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
[...] Alan Watts – Flash animations Great flash animations with voice overs taken from Alan Watts’ famous lecture series. [...]
April 15th, 2008 at 9:08 am
hello my friends from across the seas and around the world all i have to say is wow alan watts is the shisnit. Well if your into flash animation checkout offthewall-productions.com
May 5th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
[...] on a couple motion pieces done on Alan Watts recordings ala South Park. Originally posted on Cold Hard Flash. For one the animation is great, I think Trey and Matt would approve. I am not sure who made these [...]
May 18th, 2008 at 9:22 am
[...] от создателей South Park можно посмотреть на сайте coldhardflash.com. И один мультик перевёл Дмитрий Честных [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Check out the Pacifica Radio (KPFK in LA)archives at:
http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/search/search.php?PHPSESSID=76ecdeacd7a0a9247c40ce660e0b6a74&QI0=Alan+Watts&QI2=
For a huge collecion of Alan Watts talks. He’s a great Buddhist “splainer” and a South Park creations are perfect vehicles for slaining Watts’ take on Buddhism.
June 21st, 2008 at 5:24 am
[...] Filosofie s kapkou southparkovské břitkosti [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
[...] and the animation was perfectly done, a very pleasant combination. There is a collection of three of Alan Watts talks produced by the same team here. If you’ve never listened to Alan Watts, I highly recommend downloading a few of his talks [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
[...] Theater cartoons. They were produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame. According to Cold Hard Flash, animators Chris Brion and Todd Benson are the folks who keyframed original recordings of [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 2:16 am
American Dad and Family Guy – Comic-Con Report
September 16th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Keep up the good work; never stop exploring the never ending realms of possibilities of or meager human existence.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:31 am
[...] Sources Flash Animations: Flash Animated Philosophy from South Park Creators [...]
October 7th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
These are great.
I’ve seen the first one on a blog some time ago but I didn’t know there were more .
Thanks for posting them.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:27 am
These are fabulous. Do more of them, package them for children! They would be wonderful learning tools for early education.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Had the blessed privilege of taking silly cybin with Watts in ’69 after he gave a talk at Northwestern. Silly was definitely the operative word as somewhere during the journey someone started making sounds which evolved from loud thunder through all kinds of creature sounds until we started talking at which point we seemed to collectively realize we had just gone through evolution from the big bang to modern talky man. Thought of Watts then as a man of pure delight with the world. He was one of the few writers available in the early ’60′s to read about spirituality. Definitely one of the better and clearer people then writing. Saw him again a couple of years later in Berkeley at a Bly-Snyder poetry reading. This animation is a wonderful way to help explicate his ideas. Beautiful.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Alan Watts – Flash animations Great flash animations with voice overs taken from Alan Watts’ famous lecture series.
March 5th, 2009 at 5:31 am
thanks good flash animations with voice overs
March 5th, 2009 at 5:31 am
good job really
March 12th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
thanks good flash animations with voice overs tskler sana saol bana
July 6th, 2009 at 5:03 am
hello my friends from across the seas and around the world all i have to say is wow alan watts is the shisnit.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:05 am
Had the blessed privilege of taking silly cybin with Watts in ‘69 after he gave a talk at Northwestern. Silly was definitely the operative word as somewhere during the journey someone started making sounds which evolved from loud thunder through all kinds of creature sounds until we started talking at which point we seemed to collectively realize we had just gone through evolution from the big bang to modern talky man. Thought of Watts then as a man of pure delight with the world. He was one of the few writers available in the early ’60’s to read about spirituality. Definitely one of the better and clearer people then writing. Saw him again a couple of years later in Berkeley at a Bly-Snyder poetry reading. This animation is a wonderful way to help explicate his ideas. Beautiful.
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 am
These are fabulous. Do more of them, package them for children! They would be wonderful learning tools for early education.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:11 am
I really learned a lot from these. They’re funny and entertaining, but what leaves you with a good feeling after all of it is that they’re true.
September 9th, 2009 at 1:24 am
[...] “Trey Parker, one of the creators of South Park, was raised in Colorado, where his father attempted to teach him Buddhism. Now, years later, Parker and his animation pal Matt Stone have brought to life the teachings of Alan Watts, the comparative religion expert and philosopher. Under the FurryCarlos Productions banner, the two tapped two animators from South Park Studios, Chris Brion and Todd Benson to keyframe three of Watts’ recordings…” (quoted from source). [...]
September 20th, 2009 at 10:10 am
[...] http://coldhardflash.com/2007/07/flash-animated-philosophy-from-south.html [...]
October 12th, 2009 at 4:05 am
[...] him a Buddhist and both him and Stone worked on a series of animated cartoons illustrating some of Alan Watts‘ speeches), the show comes across as cynical and disruptive, an in-your-face satire always [...]
December 17th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
[...] Flash Animated Philosophy From South Park Creators | Cold Hard Flash: Flash Animation News, Videos a… This site has three really awesome flash vid. I absolutely love Alan Watts. IMHO, he is the absolute best at communicating complex religious and philosophical ideas. His use of analogies rocks! [...]
May 5th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
[...] For more similar (and worthwhile, in my opinion) short Alan Watts animations, clicky click. [...]
August 3rd, 2010 at 7:24 am
Alan Watts – Flash animations Great flash animations with voice overs taken from Alan Watts’ famous lecture series.
August 3rd, 2010 at 5:17 pm
These are fabulous. Do more of them, package them for children! They would be wonderful learning tools for early education.
December 16th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
[...] A series of videos (created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame) were made from some of Alan’s audio recordings. The one I have included below is the one that has resonated with me the most. [...]
April 16th, 2011 at 8:05 am
Alan Watts – Flash animations Great flash animations with voice overs taken from Alan Watts’ famous lecture series.
September 8th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Thought of Watts then as a man of pure delight with the world. He was one of the few writers available in the early ’60’s to read about spirituality. Definitely one of the better and clearer people then writing.
April 17th, 2012 at 11:04 pm
Great visual tool to introduce someone to such interesting man’s ideas. I had never heard of Watts untill I was reseaching a band on WIKI and learned they sampled his voice in many outros of there songs. Then linked to Watts WIKI and read about his life and work. I can’t wait to learn more about him and especially his teachings.
July 10th, 2012 at 8:25 am
[...] P.S. For a cute visual on this, check out Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s animation on Alan Watt’s Prickles and Goo. [...]