[1] The season was headed by series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who also served as executive producers along with Anne Garefino.

The season continued to focus on the exploits of protagonists Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny in the fictional Colorado mountain town of South Park.

Continuing their practice from previous seasons, Parker and Stone wrote and produced each episode within the week before its broadcast date.

They produced the first half of the season simultaneously while working on the show's film adaption, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

The third season satirized such topics as the Waco siege, tropical rainforest conservation, and sexual harassment, films such as Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Tron, and Gettysburg, and television shows such as Scooby-Doo and Pokémon.

It also continues the show's tradition of lampooning celebrities, which in this season include Cher, Pat Robertson, and Rod Stewart.

The season features a guest appearance from both the nu metal band Korn and Friends actress Jennifer Aniston.

This is the final season to feature Mary Kay Bergman as a series regular, who provided many of the female voices on the show.

[3] They took the advice of friends in the television industry and let other writers on the staff write scripts and take more control of the show, which they later regretted.

"[8] The third season was produced simultaneously with the film adaptation of the series—South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut—and came at a time when the duo began learning more about story structure and character development.

[21] After completing the dialogue for the aforementioned episode, Mary Kay Bergman, the voice actress behind many of the female characters on South Park, was found dead of suicide.

Parker and Stone, shocked by the news, made the remaining episodes in the third season revolve around mainly male characters, beginning with "The Red Badge of Gayness".

Parker and Stone had spent several weeks with composer Marc Shaiman, whom they had worked with on Bigger, Longer & Uncut, to create an entire album of South Park-themed holiday songs.

[24] "World Wide Recorder Concert" fulfilled their contractual obligations with the network, and required the team to come back after the Christmas break to complete it.

[17] Parker and Stone were at first unreceptive to the offer, but became more excited when the idea came to portray them in a cheesy fashion, like the appearances of the Harlem Globetrotters in The New Scooby-Doo Movies.

To prepare, the show's writing staff sat down and watched episodes of the Pokémon anime, which they regarded as nothing more than marketing to buy trading cards.

[24] Cartman and Kenny mistake a colon infection for their menstrual cycle, prompting Kyle to lie about "getting his period" and Stan to ingest hormone pills so he will not feel left out.