`PARK' RANGERS; COMEDY DUO GETS INTO THE MOVIE GAME WITH `BASEKETBALL''.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Daily News Film Writer

Just a couple of years ago, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were living in a run-down dump on Santa Monica Boulevard, about five feet from a freeway on-ramp, contending with fungus infestations and wondering how to turn five bucks into two or three meals.

Things weren't going quite as planned since they left Boulder and their friends at the University of Colorado for Bigger Things in Los Angeles. They got an agent at William Morris on the strength of a short titled ``Cannibal: The Musical,'' but they could never get him to return their phone calls. They had an idea for a cartoon series about a bunch of foul-mouthed, mixed-up third-graders, but the networks passed. Some TV executives offered encouragement, others were blunt.

``The people at Fox told us `South Park' would never work,'' says Stone, who at age 27 is younger than Parker by a year. ``They told us we'd better find a new line of work.''

These days, work is the last thing Parker and Stone need. In fact, it's all they can do to hang out in a bar once a month and have a beer. ``South Park,'' which airs on Comedy Central and picked up an Emmy nomination for best animated program, is a certified cultural phenomenon that will soon spawn a record album (coming in the fall) and a feature film for Paramount (due next March). The two also star in David Zucker's new comedy, ``BASEketball,'' more or less playing themselves, as a couple of loser dudes who stumble onto a national obsession. Parker's directorial feature debut, ``Orgazmo,'' will arrive in theaters this fall.

On top of that, Comedy Central has renewed ``South Park'' through the year 2001 (``We could drop 300 percent in the ratings and still be their highest-rated show,'' Stone says), which means that Stone and Parker will spend a good, solid year working on nothing but new songs for Chef and new ways to kill poor little Kenny.

Not that they're complaining.

``Yeah, the idea of this much `South Park' is a little scary, but what's even scarier is the idea of not doing it,'' Parker says. ``The idea of Cartman not being alive ... you create these lives and it's frightening to think of them ending.''

If that sounds a tad sentimental from a guy who gave the world alien rectal probes and sexually confused family pets, it's perfectly in character. Parker and Stone look like the merry pranksters that they are - Parker with his baggy, plaid pants and bottle-blond hair, Stone with his crazy, broccoli-top mane and wrap-around glasses. But dig a little deeper and you actually find a couple of intelligent, quiet and - could it be? - thoughtful guys who are virtual encyclopedias of comedy.

``I've always been envious of the guys that had Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy before they became hot, and now I feel I got lucky with Trey and Matt,'' says ``BASEketball'' director David Zucker. ``For every gag in the movie, they had dozens of different ideas. And if we didn't have a gag, they would come up with one.''

We talked to Parker and Stone recently to get their takes on comedy in the '90s, the ``South Park'' movie and the fallout from their big-screen kiss. And unlike their cartoon kids, they didn't break wind once during the interview.

Daily News: Word has it that you battled Paramount to make sure the ``South Park'' movie would get an R.

Parker: Oh yeah, it's in the contract. Otherwise we told them we'd raise the money ourselves or go to another studio.

DN: Did they raise a fuss?

Parker: They were bringing out charts and graphs, giving us the whole dog-and-pony show about how much more money we'd make if it was PG-13. But we don't need the money. The difference between $1 million and $15 million isn't that important.

Stone: It's much more important to us to keep ``South Park'' cool and be excited about doing the movie. Besides, the way television is going these days, a PG-13 movie would be tamer than a TV-MA show. If we put some of the ``South Parks'' on film and gave them to the MPAA, they'd probably rate them R. So what are we going to do, go backward?

DN: So what can we expect from an R-rated ``South Park'' movie?

Parker: There are lots of things we still can't do on TV. We had a whole episode we wanted to do about language and how ridiculous it is that people get upset just because you use the F-word.

Stone: And there are other places that Comedy Central won't let us go only because of fear for our lives. Like making fun of the Nation of Islam. They wouldn't let us do that, even though we've made fun of Christianity and Judaism. They're like, ``No, no, no. We have a $1 million investment in you guys - and you can't die.''

Parker: It's just going to be a more epic version of the show. It's cool because we're not two animators who have only done TV. We come from a feature background, so we can make a story sustain itself for 90 minutes. It's going to have a whole different structure.

DN: Is there anything you won't do?

Stone: We have an absurd view of everything. And you can't start picking and choosing your targets. But both Trey and I grew up in good homes, and our parents are still married, so we come to the humor from a good place and treat everyone with respect.

Parker: And then we just turn that on its (rear).

DN: ``BASEketball'' follows ``There's Something About Mary.'' Both are rated R. Both are often pretty gross. Are we seeing a sea change in comedy here?

Parker: I think it's going to start a trend. Studios are going to open their eyes and see the money that can be made.

Stone: The problem is we just had all these bland comedies for so many years. I think there's a place for PG comedies, but for a long time, because of the PG-13 rating, studios wanted everything to be brought down a little so they could make more money.

Parker: Yeah, and if you look at a lot of the great comedies - ``Blazing Saddles,'' ``Animal House,'' ``Stripes,'' ``Caddyshack'' - they were all rated R. Because that's what comedy is all about - pushing people's buttons.

Stone: A classic example is ``Liar, Liar,'' which could have been a movie for forever and instead, maybe because of Jim Carrey's price tag, they had to bland it down. Yes, it was successful. But it was a truly forgettable movie.

DN: Is the big kiss between the two of you in ``BASEketball'' part of pushing people's buttons?

Parker: Totally. Now there's no way people can come out of this movie and think, ``Oh, that was just a frat movie, a T&A piece.'' The kiss just dispels that.

Stone: It just blows people's minds. And it totally sucked to do. It was the worst thing. My stomach was tied in a great, big knot. They gave us this great big thing of Listerine and we both just chugged it. And my dad was on the set that day, too.

DN: Maybe you should have stuck to kissing Yasmine Bleeth or Jenny McCarthy?

Parker: That's what was originally in the script. But we wanted to take a macho step down from that. Like in this movie we made about a guy in the porn industry, ``Orgazmo,'' there's no female nudity in it. Otherwise, it becomes just another Showtime (T&A) piece.

Stone: It's kind of a dangerous concept. That's why we're trying to get the word out about it. Otherwise, you're going to have all these guys rioting who showed up at a movie called ``Orgazmo'' looking for flesh.

DN: So you want to avoid a repeat of the time when you promised to reveal the identity of Cartman's father on ``South Park,'' and then failed to deliver?

Parker: The reaction to that was amazing. We couldn't believe it. People tune in to ``South Park'' because they're into rebellion and breaking the rules, and then we break our own rules and they get pissed off.

Stone: That's the thing. We would love that if someone did that to us. And people were like: ``Kenny didn't die. Chef didn't sing. So it SUCKED!'' We fell victim to people feeling comfortable in the ``South Park'' universe.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Irreverent creators of `South Park' debut on big screen in `BASEketball'

(2) Trey Parker, left, and Matt Stone take time out from ``South Park'' to star as creators of a new sport in ``BASEKetball.''