Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride

George Clooney made a guest appearance as Sparky, a small role with no dialog except for dog barks.

Creators Stone and Parker considered it their favorite episode of the first season, noting that it helped elevate the credibility and relevance of South Park during its early days.

At football practice for the school's team, the South Park Cows, Stan's Uncle Jimbo and his friend Ned show up and ask the coach, Chef whether the boys can beat the betting spread of 70 points for the Cows' game against the Middle Park Cowboys.

Intimidated, Jimbo and Ned seek a back-up plan and learn that John Stamos' brother Richard will be singing "Lovin' You" at half-time.

Consequently, they plan to detonate the mascot for Middle Park, by placing a bomb to explode when Richard Stamos sings the high F note in the song.

Returning to the final moments of the game, Stan steps in as the quarterback, passing the ball to Kyle for a touchdown as time runs out.

Although the Cows beat the spread, Richard Stamos appears to prove he can hit the high note that he missed earlier, triggering the bomb and killing the Middle Park team's mascot.

Michael Smith, a childhood friend of Parker and a basis for the Ned Gerblansky character, claimed that Big Gay Al was based in part on a real-life resident of Fairplay, Colorado.

[2] When the episode was under production in 1997, it was relatively uncommon for a television series to openly address homosexuality in such overt terms, especially in a cartoon.

[5] Although the first season of South Park received a lot of criticism from commentators who felt the show was disgusting and offensive, Parker specifically defended the episodes "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" and "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", which he felt included moral values and a "sweet side to it" among the sophomoric humor.

[2] Actor George Clooney provided the small role of the voice of Sparky, which is limited entirely to dog barks.

Parker said they decided to cast a famous actor in the small role of Sparky because "we thought it was funny", and because they wanted to do something different from the animated series The Simpsons, which is known for having prominent guest appearances on a regular basis.

Parker added, "Since South Park is sort of a show that rips on celebrity, we wanted to degrade them in other ways too.

[2] Comedy Central executives were excited at the prospect of having Clooney appear on the show, but Parker said they were disappointed to learn his role was so small.

[2] However, the animation includes some perspective errors, particularly during the football scenes, where Chef stands about as wide as a 10-yard marking on the field.

[2] The speech Big Gay Al gave while taking Stan on a boat ride through his animal sanctuary was based on actual speeches animation director Eric Stough made while working as a "jungle cruise director" at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.

This was done to maintain the show's deliberately crude visual style they first created with construction paper in "The Spirit of Christmas" and the pilot episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe".

The moment when Big Gay Al says, "My work here is done" and disappears into a suitcase is Stone's favorite part of the episode, even though he admitted, "It makes no sense".

This references Grant's arrest in June 1995, when he was caught performing a lewd act in public with a Hollywood prostitute.

[22] This was rumored to have been followed by a line, "since Michael Jackson came to town",[23] or alternately, since the McMartin preschool trial, which was supposedly censored after the broadcast premiere, but there is no evidence of this.

[24] The announcer makes one last politically incorrect remark when he comments on Kyle's play, "I haven't seen a Jew run like that since Poland, 1938!

Although not a major role, Big Gay Al performs a large musical number called "I'm Super (Thanks for Asking)", which was featured on the motion picture soundtrack.

[28] Comedy Central censors were concerned about this portrayal of Jesus in South Park, but did not prevent Parker and Stone from following through with it.

[4] Comedy Central representatives told media outlets that the episode received overwhelmingly positive responses from viewers who identified themselves as gay.

[17] Also in the same year, Rick Marin of Newsweek described the episode as "gleefully offensive and profoundly silly", but praised it as "juxtaposing cute and crude, jaded and juvenile".

[31] In 2007, Lorne Chan of the San Antonio Express-News declared it the second best sport-themed South Park, behind "Up the Down Steroid", praising its satire of gambling on elementary schools and sports events.

In particular, he praised closeted-homosexual Mr. Garrison's claim that gay people are evil and have a "black vomitous fluid" running through their veins, and the moment when Jesus was about to explain his feelings regarding homosexuality only to be cut off by "Marty's Movie Reviews".

[33] Colorado for Family Values, a Christian advocacy group with a history of lobbying against homosexuality, used "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" in its materials when trying to mobilize Colorado to censor South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut in 1999.

According to Westword, a Denver-based alternative weekly newspaper, this anti-South Park effort by Colorado for Family Values was largely ignored and decried by most Coloradans.

[39] Parker and Stone recorded commentary tracks for each episode, but they were not included with the DVDs due to "standards" issues with some of the statements; Parker and Stone refused to allow the tracks to be edited and censored, so they were released in a CD completely separately from the DVDs.