For those of you who wanted to know how long it took them to do this episode, here's your answer:
'South Park' Parodies Reno on Raid
By DAVID BAUDER .c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Only four days after the Elian Gonzalez raid, Comedy Central's ``South Park'' aired a parody that depicted Attorney General Janet Reno in an Easter bunny outfit capturing Romanian contortionists.
The cartoon was completed only hours before it was telecast on the cable network Wednesday night, a Comedy Central executive said Thursday.
In the episode, a rifle-toting cartoon Reno drops from a helicopter with a team of commandos to grab Romanian quintuplets from a closet, disabling their new family with tear gas hidden in an Easter egg.
The girls had escaped from a circus, but Reno ordered them returned to their home country after their father - with a gun to his head - begs for them to come back.
As they leave for Romania, the girls have harsh words for protesters who wanted them to stay in America - ``get a life'' - and for the ``South Park'' kids who harbored them.
``You know nothing about Romania, and yet you assume America is so much better,'' one girl said.
With that, they left - for a book tour and appearance on ``Oprah.''
In a perfect world, ``South Park'' creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone give Comedy Central their episodes three weeks in advance. They often push those deadlines, but never as dramatically as this week, said Debbie Liebling, a network senior vice president.
Last Thursday, Parker and Stone told Liebling they were writing an episode that paralleled the Elian Gonzalez case.
But it required some furious rewriting after Saturday's real-life raid. For instance, the rough draft had Reno in a bunny suit, but she wasn't commanding a raid until after Saturday's events, she said.
With the help of computer animation and an extensive ``South Park'' library of images used during their three years on the air, Parker and Stone were able to quickly make the episode. It took two full nights of work, Liebling said.
``This is the first time they've taken such an immediate advantage of a breaking news story,'' she said. ``It's pretty amazing to be able to take animation and be that timely. I don't think anybody has ever done that.''
Like students who don't crack open a book until the night before the exam, Parker and Stone seem to work better on deadline, she said. They cut it so close that Liebling wasn't even able to see the final product before it aired.
``It's been that way more than we'd like,'' she said, ``but in this case it actually worked out very well.''
Parker and Stone weren't able to talk about their handiwork on Thursday.
``They're sleeping,'' Liebling said.