Team America: World Police



"America! Fuck Yeah!\\"

Comin' again to save the motherfuckin' day, yeah!\\ ''America! Fuck Yeah!''\\ Freedom is the only way, yeah! "Theme song"

The guys who made South Park use marionettes to lampoon US foreign policy and the war against terrorism, the action films of Michael Bay, liberal Hollywood actors, and everyone else for that matter.

Gary Johnston is a skilled actor who joins Team America, a group of five counterterrorists whose preferred method involves Stuff Blowing Up. The leader, Spottswoode wants him to go undercover to discover the next terrorist plot, dubbed [[Hiroshima As a Unit of Measure "9/11 times a thousand"]] (911,000).

Unbeknownst to our heroes, North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Il is secretly funding and arming the terrorists. He is also encouraging the Film Actors Guild (led by Alec Baldwin) to shut down Team America and its ultra violent antics.

Notable for using Thunderbirds-style [[Supermarionation marionettes and miniatures for visuals]]. The reduced scale allowed different shots and large scenes on the cheap. Its cartoonish qualities also let it turn up the sex and violence because, hey they're puppets!

The script for this film was actually Plan B from Trey and Matt in making a marionette movie - their first idea was filming The Day After Tomorrow [[What Could Have Been word-for-word with the puppets]]. The idea was that the script was silly enough, and the movie would only improve if it was being filmed with Supermarionation. Them not being able to secure the rights of the The Day After Tomorrow script, led to them making a straighter parody of (and homage to) Thunderbirds.

=== Tropes observed in the movie: === Thunderbirds in rerun for the first time, and learned that the Thunderbirds movie would not be using puppets. "Spottswoode: Remember, there's no "I" in "Team America".
 * Affectionate Parody: Trey and Matt got the idea when they saw
 * America Saves the Day: Well, yeah. It's kind of their theme song.
 * Analogy Backfire:

I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E.: Yes, there is!"

terrorists' vocabulary consists of: durka, durk, ha, sherpa, Allah, Muhammad, and jihad. Everyone who doesn't speak American has their vocabulary similarly chopped. again, even when running away in fear. dying. panthers]]!'' D'aaaaaw. Cantina theme from Star Wars played backwards. A bar patron wears a gas mask that makes him resemble a character in the Cantina scene. "Lisa: Having so little faith in humanity must make you a very"
 * As Long As It Sounds Foreign: Parodied mercilessly. The "Islamic"
 * The French are pretty much only saying "frere jacque" over and over
 * The Panamanian people just say "no me gusta" while
 * Attack of the Killer Whatever: Kim's killer ''[[Slurpasaur deadly
 * Bad Guy Bar: The terrorist hangout in Cairo, Egypt, complete with the
 * Berserk Button: Apparently Kim's roneriness.

lonely man. time anyone figured out his Freudian Excuse. "McDonald's!
 * More like "Worthy Enemy Button", since this was probably the first
 * Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:

(Fuck Yeah!)

Wal*Mart!

(Fuck Yeah!)

Gap!

(Fuck Yeah!)

Baseball!

(Fuck Yeah!)

NFL!

(Fuck Yeah!)

Rock n'Roll!

(Fuck Yeah!)

Internet!

(Fuck Yeah!)

Slavery!

(Fuck Yeah!)"

deleted scene. characters, it's the characters that stop in the air and turn around with the room standing still. loyalty, the homosexual action is essentially off-camera, with only Spottswoode's face visible; Spottswoode is fully dressed and his only reaction to the BJ is to blink once or twice; there are no sound effects suggestive of oral sex. In contrast, the heterosexual action between Gary and Lisa is stark ravin' nude, loud, physically acrobatic, and crosses into kinky (even more so in the DVD version) -- and all of this is accompanied by a power ballad with lyrics that include: Only a woman / Is allowed to touch me there / All I ask is that you're a woman "(as her aircraft is crashing into the sea) "I sense that I'm"
 * British Teeth: Seen on the "BW" (a parody of BBC) newsreader in a
 * Bullet Time: Parodied, it's not the cameras that revolve around the
 * But Not Too Gay: When Gary performs fellatio on Spottswoode to show his
 * Captain Obvious: Sarah's clairvoyance manifests as this.
 * Captain Obvious: Sarah's clairvoyance manifests as this.

going down!" the MPAA from the movie's other offensive elements. It worked perfectly - the film's original rating with the sex scene was NC-17. The theatrical cut only alters this scene to get the R. sex scene, the over-the-top Gary/Lisa sex scene may be interpreted as a satiric protest against the But Not Too Gay double-standard. was first given to him by some random drunk after he quit the team. "Valmorphanizing" vehicles. appears to be to slide from side to side in the most pointless way possible. quite a gory death. "Spottswoode: ''Jesus tittyfucking- [boom]"
 * Censor Decoy: The explicit sex scene was thrown in entirely to distract
 * When paired with the extremely tame and brief Gary/Spottswoode oral
 * Chekhov's Lecture: Gary's infamous "Dicks, pussies and assholes" speech
 * Cliché Storm: Intentional, and mocked constantly.
 * Cluster F-Bomb: America, Fuck Yeah! is the most notable.
 * Cool Car/Boat/Plane: Team America's
 * Cool Chair: Spotswoode's command chair, the sole function of which
 * Credits Medley
 * Credits Montage: The musical version, including a stinger.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Every member of F.A.G. has
 * Curse Cut Short: Subverted.

CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST somberly tell him that he might be captured and wish to take his own life. So they give him... . Gary's side as he drinks himself into depression at a bar, contemplating suicide. politics? You decide! both flavours of this trope. the music climax three times whenever Gary continues vomiting. thousand, three hundred, and fifty six!" Yes, he is that cruel.]] City Wok, and Saddam Hussein from South Park, though he is not a precise expy of any of them. In fact, he may have more in common with the REAL Kim Jong-Il than any of those characters. only by their first names. Only Spotswoode is on a Last-Name Basis. because when he was a teen spoiler: he was gang-raped by the cast of [[Cats.]] Guild members they are FAGs. Team America's computer is named I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E. so they can remark how they have no I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E. when the power goes out. Also, when Spottswoode scolds the computer, saying, "That was bad, I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E! Very bad I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E!" it references the common belief that America got into the war in Iraq based on bad intelligence reports. submachine guns akimbo. [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy Not that Susan hits anyone, though.]]]] attempt, dispatching several soldiers in short order. used to describe seemingly every unlikely technology at the Team's disposal. disaster in Panama was a result of his failure to suspect the non-Middle Eastern Kim Jong-Il in the terrorist plot, promising he'll "never be racist again"... immediately after calling Kim a "goddamn gook". towards Gary, Chris offers to buy him a beer after they stop Kim Jong Il's plans. from a single line of psychobabble, she largely sticks to shooting guns. France. German representative's pickelhaube, no less. you listen to them casually, they sound very patriotic, but if you actually read the lyrics, they are brutally ripping on every Eagle Land cliche in existence and in truth are actually pretty insulting. constantly, despite the fact that even his NAME has an L in it. between R and L, and Koreans constantly use one of those sounds in place of the other when speaking English. It's a legitimate mistake on his character's end, the fact that it's Kim Jong Il with an L doesn't add to the humor of his accent. is located inside Mount Rushmore. can show up at outside the monument and then. feelings for her". "Joe: That's all I ever am! Like a brother!!"
 * Cyanide Pill: Mocked. When Gary is being prepped for a mission, they
 * It turns into a Brick Joke when reappears by
 * Dark Reprise: America, Fuck Yeah (Bummer Remix).
 * Dead Baby Comedy: Too Soon for 9/11 or the perfect wakeup call for broken
 * Destructive Saviour
 * Eagle Land: Essentially, the whole movie's purpose is parodying
 * Ending Fatigue: Invoked in the Vomit Indiscretion Shot scene by having
 * Evil Plan: [[spoiler:Kim Jong-Il is planning "9/11...times two
 * Expy: Kim Jong-Il bears similarities to Eric Cartman, the owner of
 * Fallen-On-Hard-Times Job: Gary, pride of the dinner-theater circuit.
 * Faux Affably Evil: Kim Jong-Il.
 * First-Name Basis: Apart from Gary Johnston, the rest of the team goes
 * Five-Man Band
 * The Hero - Gary
 * The Lancer - Chris
 * The Big Guy - Joe
 * The Smart Guy - Lisa
 * The Chick - Sarah
 * Freudian Excuse: Chris doesn't trust Gary (or actors in general)
 * Friendless Background: Kim Jong Il's Freudian Excuse... and Villain Song!
 * Fun With Acronyms: Alec Baldwin loves to remind his fellow Film Actor
 * Guns Akimbo: [[spoiler:Both Gary and Susan Sarandon draw and shoot
 * Gary is actually able to pull this off rather well during his rescue
 * Hand Wave/Applied Phlebotinum: Parodied with "Valmorphanisation",
 * Hobbes Was Right: What Kim Jong-il believes in.
 * Hypocritical Humor: A deleted scene has Spottswoode, lamenting that the
 * If We Get Through This: As a show of apologizing for being a Jerkass
 * Informed Ability: Lisa is declared to be the team's psychologist. Apart
 * I'm Cold... So Cold...: Carson, Lisa's love interest, who gets killed in Paris,
 * Impaled With Extreme Prejudice: 's demise. On the
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy
 * Irony: The lyrics to America Fuck Yeah in their entirety. If
 * Korean Ranguage: Kim Jong-Il talks like this
 * His real name uses a Korean character that sounds like something in
 * Landmarking the Hidden Base: Team America's headquarters
 * Subverted in the fact that when a group wants to protest them, they
 * Like Brother and Sister: Sarah's response upon learning that Joe "has

"Gary: Okay, a flying limo...now I have seen"
 * Literal Minded:

everything. "Spottswoode: Have you ever seen [[Logic Bomb a man eat his own
 * undefined"

head]]? points out its distance to America. "Paris: 2,258 miles from America." (It's actually the distance to New York). killed and tells Lisa to find somehow who will love her as much as he did. Gary and Lisa falls for each other, but Sarah falls for Gary and Joe falls for Sarah. And then Gary has to spoiler:perform oral sex on Spotswoode to get back onto the team. leaving all the innocent bystanders intact. has some homoerotic fascination with getting oral sex from another man -- and "spots wood" = "notices an erection." actual domestic cats). Once his plans are ruined, the insect crawls out of Kim Jong-Il's mouth and flies away in a miniature shuttle. A credits-only song gives more background story to this: apparently his planet is also inhabited by alien bees, who the cockroaches are in war with and Kim was sent to Earth to nuke it so that the cockroaches could move there.]] Triomphe. Later, the team blows up one of the Pyramids, the Valley of the Kings tomb, and the Sphinx. Still later, Michael Moore blows up Mount Rushmore. automatic, with only few exceptions. firing an SKS carbine fully-automatic. the death of millions. "Mr. Kim". is a parody of Rent. obvious assumptions in a Pstandard Psychic Pstance. At the climax, despite Joe admitting that the team was just humoring her claims of psychic abilities, she uses a genuine Jedi Mind Trick to turn Kim Jong Il's "deadly panthers" on their captors. And it is awesome. confident enough, he can pull off Jedi Mind Tricks, defend others from the same, and pull them on several hundred people at a time. chunk of his appearances have him throwing tantrums for one reason or another. happy endings because they live in the real world ...and then starts a 5 minute coundown that the Big Damn Heroes stop. "Kim Jong Il: "You see, no Prince Charming rode in on a white"
 * London England Syndrome: Whenever they change location, a subtitle
 * And then Panama is located "south from the real America".
 * Love Dodecahedron: Carson and Lisa loved each other, but Carson got
 * Macross Missile Massacre: The desert Chase Scene.
 * Magic Bullets: Sarah enters the Egyptian bar wielding a un, and somehow manages to machine-gun every terrorist while
 * Meaningful Name: Although not necessarily gay, Spottswoode evidently
 * Mega Neko: Kim Jong-Il's panthers are enormous (and also
 * Monster Suit: [[spoiler: Kim Jong-Il is actually an alien cockroach.
 * Monumental Battle: Every action scene.
 * Monumental Damage: The Eiffel Tower falls over and smashes the Arc de
 * More Dakka: Almost every gun fired anywhere in the movie is a fully
 * As a rather odd case, a terrorist in the Cairo Bad Guy Bar is shown
 * My God, What Have I Done?: Gary's acting killed his brother, and then caused
 * Name Order Confusion: Hans Blix calls Kim Jong-Il "Mr. Il". It should be
 * Oh Crap: Or "Jesus Titty-Fucking CHRIIIIIIIIST!
 * One-Woman Wail: During the scene after the dam bursts and everyone drowns.
 * Overly Long Gag: The vomit, and the original cut of the sex scene.
 * Parody: The play "LEASE" with its theme song "Everyone has AIDS"
 * Patriotic Fervor
 * Phony Phony Psychic: Sarah. Throughout the film she makes simple,
 * Pokémon-Speak: MATT DAMON!
 * The Power of Acting: Why Gary got hired. Turns out that when he's
 * Power of Trust
 * Psychopathic Manchild: Played for laughs with Kim Jong-Il, where a good
 * Punctuated for Emphasis: The first two lines of the theme song.
 * Rape As Comedy/Double Standard Rape (Male On Male): Chris' Freudian Excuse.
 * Reality Is Unrealistic: Kim Jong-Il's argues that there are no clichéd

stallion to save the day. This is the real world. '''I'm afraid your world is over!' ...in five minutes.'' like what Americans might assume those places to look like. All of France's monuments are within walking distance of each other, and citizens of Cairo all dress like they're in Aladdin. explicit (especially since they have no genitals.) The vomit scene involved two or three times the volume of vomit as the vomiter's entire body. the stadium. "Gary: We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And"
 * The filmmakers intentionally designed non-American locations to look
 * Refuge in Audacity: Lots of violence. The sex scene is extremely
 * Refuge in Vulgarity
 * Rousing Speech: Gary's Big Speech that changes the mind of everyone in

the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong Il is an asshole. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes who just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is that sometimes they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate -- and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies get so full of shit that they become assholes themselves ... because pussies are only an inch and half away from assholes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know that if you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit! "Lisa: You had me at "dicks fuck assholes"."

of Lease which concludes with a song about how "Everyone has AIDS". Whatcha gonna do when they come for you now]]". marionettes anymore and the movie, while not a bust, fared quite poorly. "Why is everybody so fucking stupid? Why can't they be more"
 * Shout-Out. Tons of them, such as Gary starring in a Broadway production
 * The lyrics of the song "America, Fuck Yeah" include "[[Cops
 * Sequel Hook: An obvious one, however Matt and Trey don't want to touch
 * Small Name, Big Ego: Kim Jong-Il

intelligent, like me? funnier by the fact that a live action Thunderbirds movie came out the same year. to save in the process. followed by the entire planet exploding. show. This was done to freak out the financers (the story goes that one of them yelled "My god, they fucked us!")... but then the camera pans back to show the crude puppet and backdrop are part of a rather more sophisticated puppet's performance. capable of even more complex and realistic puppetry than is seen in the movie, though at times it is deliberately done overly simply, partly because it was simply funnier, and partly because overly realistic puppets slam deep into the Uncanny Valley, which they wanted to avoid. Sarandon in particular. portray Damon as intelligent and articulate, but chose not to do so because his puppet "looked retarded". Damon himself apparently thought it was hilarious, and wished that they'd asked him to do the voice work. injured puppet of himself and put on his wall. out on his character. Specifically, Moore made it seem like they'd done an animation for one of his documentaries (Bowling for Columbine) that was in favor of his position. They didn't, and they weren't. In fact, for the scene where Moore explodes himself in a suicide attack, they stuffed his puppet with ham. song pretty much detailing all the ways it - and Ben Affleck - sucked). has all of its landmarks within blast radius. Arc de Triomphe in Paris. in the World]]: Dicks (who fuck everything), Pussies (who get fucked by everything), and Assholes (who shit on everything). than they originally let on, there. You can see the same speech given by another libertarian luminary, Bill Whittle. He calls it TRIBES, and the three groups are "sheepdogs (protect sheep, attack wolves)", "sheep (protected by sheepdogs, attacked by wolves)" and "wolves (attack everyone)", respectively, but it's the same basic idea. terrorists. Which usually blows up the city as well. planned to make Matt Damon any smarter or dumber than the rest of the actors guild. However, when his borderline-caveman looking puppet came in, they decided on the spot to make him a drooling idiot. musically. ball-breakers. this way. she's giving it to Gary), the L and the I of Lisa are closer together than the other letters, making LISA look like USA. of screen time. limbs for about ten seconds before one of them abruptly stops moving and the other declares victory.
 * Spiritual Successor: To the show that inspired it:Thunderbirds. Made
 * Strawman Political: Both Team America and FAG.
 * Acceptable Political Targets: Michael Moore and the FAG.
 * ...and Team America of course.
 * Stuff Blowing Up: They usually blow up most of the city they're trying
 * Taken Up to Eleven in the opening credits, which themselves explode...
 * Stylistic Suck: Most of the movie, but particularly the opening puppet
 * Some of the DVD extras reveal that the puppeteers were actually
 * Surrounded By Idiots: Kim Jong-Il's song "I'm So Ronery".
 * Take That: Well, yeah.
 * For some reason, Matt and Trey are extremely cruel to Susan
 * And (say it with me now) Matt. Damon.
 * According to the IMDB trivia page for this film, they wanted to
 * Tim Robbins said in an interview that he wanted to frame the burnt,
 * Parker and Stone had a particular beef with Michael Moore and took it
 * The movie Pearl Harbor also gets it pretty hard (there's a whole
 * Television Geography: Done on purpose. Any country that isn't America
 * To the degree that the Eiffel Tower can fall over and land upon the
 * Theme Music Power-Up
 * [[There Are Two Kinds of People in The World There Are Three Kinds of People
 * It seems that Parker and Stone are a bit more "ha ha only serious"
 * There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Often using missiles to destroy lone
 * Throw It In: According to Stone and Parker, they hadn't originally
 * Training Montage: Lampshaded,
 * Trap Door: Kim's preferred method of dealing with nuisances and
 * Try Not to Die: Parodied to the point of becoming a Running Gag.
 * The Unintelligible: Kim Jong-Il's accent sometimes renders his speech
 * Verb This: "Hey, Terrorist! Terrorize THIS!"
 * Villain Song: "I'm so Ronery"
 * Visual Pun Punny Name: On Lisa's Team America business card (when
 * Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Absolutely intentional and takes up 60 seconds
 * Wimp Fight: Fight scenes consist of two marionettes flailing arms and
 * World of Ham
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Kim shoots Alec Baldwin.
 * Not the Baldwins!!