That Time South Park‘s Trey Parker & Matt Stone Dropped Acid At The Oscars

To celebrate the 20th season of South Park, the show's creators are looking back at their wild past. This includes an explanation of their acid-filled Oscars debut. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Trey Parker and Matt Stone once again spoke about dropping acid for the 72nd Academy Awards in 2000, at which "Blame Canada" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was up for Best Original Song. While Parker said the nomination was "a really big validation of South Park" (they lost to Phil Collins' Tarzan track "You'll Be In My Heart"), Stone said that they wanted to find a way to "go, but not go" to the ceremony. "How do you not be a part of it?" Stone told THR. "Drugs." In the 2011 special 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park, the guys revealed that they had eaten sugar cubes doused with LSD a friend had given them right before the show, which they now admit is pretty crazy. Even crazier was that, at the time, their outfits were deemed the most radical thing they had done that night. They showed up on the red carpet wearing gowns that spoofed two of the most iconic awards-show looks. Parker was wearing his own version of the infamous Versace dress Jennifer Lopez wore to the 2000 Grammys, while Stone was in a pink gown modeled after the Ralph Lauren number Gwyneth Paltrow had worn to the Oscars the year before.

While it all seemed like a joke, it actually took a lot of work to get those dresses made. "It takes a lot of energy to be that rebellious," Stone told THR, adding, "We were so, like, punk-rock — you know, like, against all of that stuff." While some thought Parker and Stone's gowns were funny, unfortunately not everyone at the Oscars got the joke. "Some people were stoked when we showed up at the Oscars in those dresses. Michael Caine being one," Stone said. "But I remember Gloria Estefan was super-pissed."