How much is Trey Parker worth?
| Net Worth: | $600 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Director |
| Date of Birth: | October 19, 1969 (age 53) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 6 ft (1.85 m) |
About Trey Parker
Trey Parker is a voice actor, writer, and director who has become world famous thanks to the envelope pushing, influential, and controversial animated TV show, South Park. With a penchant for strange ideas and even stranger art design, the writer went on to not just create one of the funniest and weirdest looking TV shows of all time, but also the smash hit comedy movie Team America: World Police.
Parker is also a celebrated musician as he has created the soundtrack for most of South Park, and even won several Tony Awards thanks to co-creating one of the most popular Broadway musicals in history, The Book of Mormon.
Having made a pilot episode of South Park on a microscopic budget, Parker scored a deal with Comedy Central, which would continue to air the show for the next 23 years. The show became one of the most popular animated television series of all-time, and it eventually became an empire made up of video games, toys, and even a Hollywood movie.
The movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, made almost four times its $21 million budget, earning $83.1 million dollars worldwide. Surprisingly, it was even nominated for an Oscar at The Academy Awards, in which Parker attended whilst high on shrooms!
Continuing with strange art direction and based on his childhood love of Thunderbirds, Parker co-created the highly controversial movie, Team America: World Police, in which puppets were used as the main characters. The movie uses outlandish violence and vulgar language to put a spotlight on America, making a statement about foreign policy and a criticism of the Iraq war.
The film makes fun of several celebrities, including Matt Damon and George Clooney, both of whom have said they are delighted to have had their likenesses portrayed in the movie, despite how negative it comes off.
As if film and TV wasn’t enough, Parker was determined to conquer another medium, the stage. Parker co-created the play, The Book of Mormon, which is a comedy musical that makes fun of Mormons trying to convert people they couldn’t possibly. As no project Parker works on is without controversy, The Book of Mormon had a string of them.
The controversies weren’t totally because of the fun they make out of Mormons, but because of the scenes that ensue when two Mormons are shipped off to Africa to try and convert villages who are completely hopeless. Nevertheless, it became a huge success, and it won a record breaking 12 Tony Awards, the most prestigious award ceremony in theater.
Having created one of the strangest and most successful broadway plays of all time, not only did Parker become a well respected play-write, but it made him filthy rich too. The Book of Mormon has made close to one billion dollars since its release in 2011, and it continues to be sold out all over the world even nine years after its release.
Parker is the second richest comedian in the world, even beating out The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, and only losing out to Jerry Seinfeld.
The thing that they all have in common is that they have had extremely long running television shows, whether it be live action or animated, that haven’t aged poorly and continue to make millions of dollars every year from syndication and DVD sales. Seinfeld lasted for nine seasons, The Simpsons is on season 30, and South Park is on its 23rd season with well over 300 episodes.
South Park is Parker’s bread and butter, and though he has many other lucrative outlets, none have made him the tens, even hundreds, of millions that South Park has. In it’s first couple of seasons, South Park only had a niche audience on Comedy Central with considerable controversy that could have been reputation damaging at the time.
However, there was a massive turn around and as South Park became one of the most popular shows of all time, Parker signed one of the most lucrative deals in entertainment history, which was that he and his partner, Matt Stone, would earn 50% of any profits that South Park made.
South Park doesn’t remotely have broad appeal, in fact, it’s unbelievable to think of the resounding amount of viewers it gets week after week due to the insane amount of toilet and sex humor. Even the names of the movie and video game, South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut and The Fractured But Whole, are vulgar puns.
But Parker understands that people who enjoy toilet humor aren’t necessarily the lowest common denominator, and just because audiences enjoy toilet humor doesn’t mean that’s the only thing they want.
It’s due to a strange combination of toilet humor and other things that keeps the show original and envelope pushing.
South Park is both culturally and socially relevant, as it makes fun of celebrities to no end and is very opinionated when it comes to movies, books, and current trends. But it is also very thought provoking and has extremely interesting takes on politics, and Parker has even gone on to serialize the show with politically relevant narratives that last for whole seasons.
With a closet full of awards for varied mediums, Parker is extremely creative and talented in several different art forms. He is a fan of swimming against the rush by using difficult and alternative art styles. Parker has claimed that the rough looking episodes of South Park in its first few seasons isn’t an aesthetic, like many people think, but it looks like that because they couldn’t afford to make it look any better.
He is also musically skilled, as music has been a prominent feature in most of his projects, most notably in The Book of Mormon, but also in South Park, and he was even nominated for Best Song at The Academy Awards.
Summing-Up
Owed to an animated empire, knowing a few slick guitar licks and piano jingles, Parker has become the most successful creator of animated television in history. That’s no easy task, as Family Guy and The Simpsons are high hurdles, but South Park’s thought provoking storylines combined with its hilariously distasteful gags has earned him a mammoth net worth estimated to be $600 million.
That nine figure number may soon become ten, as South Park has been renewed for three more seasons by Comedy Central
