In the South Park episode "Big Gay Al on the Boat Ride," Stan (Trey Parker) gets a brand new dog he names Sparky. Stan loves Sparky and Sparky is well trained, loyal and friendly. Stan, like any dog ​​owner, gets a little anxious when Sparky meets other dogs and humps them in public. Stan's friends, however, notice that Sparky only hangs out with other male dogs and, in that childish, homophobic way, laugh at Sparky's potential weirdness. However, the characters are all eight years old and live in a fairly small community in 1997, so their knowledge of queerness is quite limited.

Stan asks his teacher Mr. Garrison (Parker) what it means to be gay, and the terrified and repressed teacher immediately announces to Stan that queer people are evil. Stan, terrified and scared, runs away. At home, an unemployed Stan laments out loud that his dog is gay, internalizing his teacher's bigoted message. Sparky listens to Stan and runs away. Sparky somehow ends up at an animal shelter in the woods ... an animal shelter for rejected gay animals. He manages it a character named Big Gay Al (Matt Stone).

The early episodes of South Park were based on stereotypes and much of the show's "shock" humor remains shocking to this day, but the ultimate message of "Big Gay Al's Big Boat Ride" is one of tolerance. Stan accepts Sparky for who he is, and they end the episode happy and together again. It was rare for a mainstream TV series, especially an animated one, to discuss queer themes so candidly in 1997. Despite the stereotypes, the episode was groundbreaking in its own waynominated for an Emmy Award and a GLAAD Award.

In a strange casting coup, Sparky's barks and growls were provided by George Clooney.

One may recall that every episode of South Park opens with the disclaimer that all the celebrities who appeared on the show were just bad impersonators. In Clooney's case, show creators Stone and Parker wanted to include the famous actor in their show, but not in a flashy way. According to the episode's DVD commentary track, Parker and Stone noted that they wanted South Park to differ from The Simpsons in this regard. The Simpsons often featured prominent celebrity guests, and often featured celebrities playing themselves. South Park has always aimed to take the piss out of the very notion of celebrity, with Parker and Stone regularly poking fun at famous people just for being famous. Remember when Barbra Streisand turned into a giant mechanical monster and fought Leonard Maltin and Sidney Poitier?

Here's Parker's: "Let's get celebrities involved and make them do small, unimportant things."

As an antidote to The Simpsons celebrity cameo, they offered Clooney Sparky, a non-speaking role. Clooney said yes, having been a longtime fan of South Park since before it debuted. Stone recalled that Clooney was a fan of their 1995 short film The Spirit of Christmas, and the actor's promotion of their short - attached to his Christmas cards - was a big reason Hollywood riots knew who Stone were. and Parker. "The Spirit of Christmas" was one of the earlier viral memes to gain traction in the internet age.

Stone recalled Clooney's proliferation on The Spirit of Christmas well, saying in commentary:

“George thought it was funny too. It was actually easy to get George because he helped South Park get started. When we made the first Spirit of Christmas tape, legend has it that he dubbed it himself 700 times and sent it to people and a big reason it spread around Los Angeles was George, sending it to everyone he knew and not even knew it was funny that short became a show that he supported from the very beginning.

Clooney also participated in the 1999 feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. He played a super-serious (but not very competent) variation of his "ER" character, operating on poor Kenny (Stone) after he set himself on fire. The Doctor accidentally replaces Kenny's heart with a baked potato.

However, his participation did not save Clooney from the ridicule of Stone and Parker. In the "South Park" episode "Smug Alert!", they played clips of Clooney's 2006 Oscar speech, where he said that famous people should use their visibility to advocate for social change. Parker and Stone found the speech self-sufficient enough to be aired on their show and openly mocked Clooney's seriousness. Clooney hasn't spoken out about the lamp, though, so it can't be said for sure if he and the South Park guys are still on good terms.