Matt Stone and Trey Parker met while attending college in Colorado. They worked together in making film shorts for school. One of which was a short film about 4 foul mouthed boys trying to kill Frosty the Snowman (it has now been dubbed the "Frosty" episode). Later they were offered $2000 by a fox executive to make a video Christmas card. They took the idea from their "Frosty" skit they had done and improved the animation a little (since they had money to work with). The finished product turned out the be "The Spirit of Christmas", this time the 4 foul mouthed boys were involved in a fight between Santa Claus and Jesus. They gave it to the guy and he loved it. He sent it out to his friends, who then sent it to their friends, and so on until somehow George Clooney got a hold of a copy. He watched it and liked it so much he sent out between 300 and 700 copies to everyone he knew. Eventually top executives for various networks saw the skit and the calls started pouring into Matt and Trey with offers to sign them on to make a series. Matt and Trey originally wanted to make a series about talking poo (Mr.Hankey). Comedy Central won the bidding war and signed them. However, they made then change the idea for the show and it became the South Park we know today. Then they made the first episode "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" which was too long and vulgar, so it got chopped down and changed a little and that was the first episode to air. And the rest is history.