ShareThis"South Park" creator Matt Stone won't pretend he's always been comfortable around the disabled.
"It's perfectly natural to feel a little uncomfortable, to recoil," says Stone, who's producing the reality series "How's Your News?," chronicling the whimsical cross-country adventures of seven disabled reporters. ("News" airs 10:30 p.m. EST Sundays on MTV.)
"I don't know anybody who isn't (initially uncomfortable). This series sort of plays in that minefield. But very few people have problems with the show once they see it."
It certainly changed Stone's ideas.
"News" started out as a series of short films at Camp Jabberwocky, the nation's oldest sleepover camp for people with disabilities. With their lively and colorful personalities, the campers were given the task of doing man-on-the-street pieces. Stone, along with "South Park" partner Trey Parker, saw the shorts and invested $5,000 of their own money to develop a documentary on the campers taking a cross-country trip.
A six-part series, "News" follows seven disabled reporters on a tour bus across the country. They cover the red carpet at the Grammys and the South By Southwest music festival. At one stop, they learn to make cheese balls with Amy Sedaris in her apartment. In New Orleans, they cover a pirate convention, an oyster-eating contest and a prison rodeo and talk to local rappers.
The reporters have a variety of disabilities, ranging from Down syndrome to cerebral palsy.
They might be seen as slow, but the series isn't about viewing them pathetically or making fun of them. They are seen as people with heart, drive and humor.
"It's really about the reporters," Stone says of the show. "You really want to keep up with them. They are reporters, in there with reporters.
"We thought, 'Hey, this should be a TV show.' "
He had his doubts. He wondered if such a show could be done respectfully but with humor. "In the beginning, it was a little bit like 'Is this cool?' " Stone says.
Also, he was skeptical about bringing "News" to TV. "I didn't know if MTV would want it really fast-paced or MTV-ized," he says. "But they didn't do any of that. In fact, MTV's notes (to me) were broad."
Stone might seem an unlikely candidate to bring a series about the disabled to TV. On his cynical animated series "South Park," he has two much-beloved characters who are physically challenged -- Timmy, who keeps chanting his own name over and over; and the stuttering Jimmy, who walks with crutches, is foul-mouthed and easily corruptible.
Since "South Park" is known for its irreverent style, the characters were shocking, to say the least, at first.
"Timmy and Jimmy were really inspired by people we met (through the 'News' project)," he says. "It certainly informed our view of people with disabilities. If you watch ('South Park'), Jimmy and Timmy are 100 percent fair game.
"They are one of the kids. They rip on them. Their disabilities are almost secondary."
And that's how Stone sees the reporters of "News."
"Trey and I were a little concerned in the beginning about having our names (associated with this)," Stone deadpans. "We weren't concerned about being associated with them.
"We were worried about them being associated with us."
(E-mail Terry Morrow of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at morrow2(at)knews.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
