Trivia for
Team America: World Police (2004) More at IMDbPro »

• The very first footage screened for Paramount executives was of a poorly crafted puppet in front of a background of a badly drawn Eiffel Tower, prompting one executive in the audience to yell. "Oh god, they fucked us!" This was a prank pulled by the directors and the shot then pulls back to reveal a highly refined marionette manipulating the inferior one, then flies over beautifully detailed Parisian landscape full of believable yet cheesy marionettes. This actually ends up being the opening shot of the movie.
  
  
• The idea for the film came in 2003 when Matt Stone and Trey Parker were watching television and came across re-runs episodes of "Thunderbirds" (1965), which Parker had never seen. Instantly intrigued, the two decided a marionette action film would be "the perfect way to send up all those Jerry Bruckheimer movies".
  
  
• Before Trey Parker and Matt Stone settled on the final plot for this film, one of their original ideas was to do an all-puppet version of Armageddon (1998/I). They had been given a copy of the script and thought it was already funny as was; but thought that if they were to make it into an all-puppet movie; then it would substantially funnier. The main reason why this idea never came to fruition was because of legal problems with the studio who owned the rights to the film.
  
  
• Matt Stone referred to the puppet technique used in the film as "supercrappymation".
  
  
• When Trey Parker and Matt Stone showed the first footage of the film at the 2004 San Diego Comic Convention, it began with the tagline (words flying at the screen) "Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Janeane Garofalo, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Michael Moore, George W. Bush, John Kerry, Kim Jong-Il .... will all HATE this movie!" A teaser trailer shown in theaters used a longer list of names, including Alec Baldwin.
  
  
• Sean Penn was so insulted by his portrayal in the film, that he wrote an angry letter to Matt Stone and Trey Parker about it. The letter was later published by several Newspapers and Magazines.
  
  
• Team America first meets Gary performing in a play called "Lease", an obvious parody of the popular broadway musical Rent in which several of the characters are struggling with AIDS.
  
  
• In the song "America FUCK YEAH" the word "Fuck" is used 37 times
  
  
• A billboard in Times Square reads "Chiodo: You Go Now." The Chiodo Brothers are responsible for the puppets seen in the film.
  
  
• Marc Shaiman composed songs and a score for the movie, but the score was rejected by Paramount execs about three and a half weeks before the movie was released. Harry Gregson-Williams was hired to rewrite the score and compose it at the 11th hour. Shaiman's songs, however, still remain in the finished film.
  
  
• The MPAA gave this film an R rating, accompanied with the specific explanation "For graphic crude and sexual behavior, violent images and strong language - all involving puppets."
  
  
• During the attack on the Panama Canal, the puppets repeat the line "No me gusta" which is Spanish for "I don't like it."
  
  
• All of the puppets in the movie used the same two bodies (one for the males and one for the females) with different heads- except for Kim Jong Il, to make him look that much smaller.
  
  
• In the overhead shot of Gary lying in the giant puddle of vomit, it is actually Trey Parker wearing a pair of fake legs so his proportions more closely match those of the marionettes. The "vomit" was a mixture of soup and beer.
  
  
• The dress worn by Lisa during the film's finale is a near-exact replica of the one worn by Kate Capshaw in the opening moments of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).
  
  
• The tavern scene is an homage to the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in Star Wars (1977). Many of the same camera angles and character positions are used, and many shots are replicated. The band is using the same instruments as the Cantina band and are playing a sound-alike which follows the chord progression of the original "Cantina Band Song."
  
  
• In the style of the "Thunderbirds" (1965) show which the movie is a spoof of, close up shots of hands were not puppet hands but rather real hands dressed up to look like puppet hands.
  
  
• The statue in Kim Jong Il's palace is actually a human in heavy makeup. In the first scene in which he appears, you can see his eyes blinking.
  
  
• All of the male puppet heads consist of nine different servo motors that control the various facial expressions/actions, while the female heads consist of seven in the head and two in the back.
  
  
• The leaves on the palm trees in Hollywood during the F.A.G. meeting are made out of dollar bills.
  
  
• During the film there are hints of how big the puppets actually are. Tree leaves made out of dollar bills, coin belt buckle etc. In Kim Jong Il's singing scene, there is a shot of him in the entrance hall with the statue. The statue is slightly moving and it is actually a real sized person painted bronze.
  
  
• In the opening sequence in Paris when the Team America vehicle slides into a vendor, there are actually pawn chess pieces along the road.
  
  
• When Gary Johnston walks to the tavern in Cairo disguised as a Terrorist, in the background there is a "Coca-Cola" bottle cap mounted against a stone wall.
  
  
• When Lisa is at the Peace Ceremony with Kim Jong Il, Her hair sticks are in fact matches.
  
  
• When Team America arrives in Cairo, the woman in the grey dress with a black mask has what looks like to be oranges in a basket on her head. These are actually goldfish.
  
  
• WILHELM SCREAM: From the Korean guard in the high balcony that Gary shoots when he first walks into Kim Jong Il's palace and says, "Don't worry fellas, I've got my pass right here!"
  
  
• When the Film Actors Guild decides to go to North Korea, the members all shout "Qapla'!," which is Klingon for success.
  
  
• When the camera first shows us the palace in North Korea, several of the smaller buildings are actually Chinese food take-out boxes.
  
  
• As a subtle detail in the opening scene in Paris, the streets are paved with croissants.
  
  
• During the fantasy sequence where several different countries are being destroyed, America is shown and a movie theatre is visible which is apparently showing the films I Heart Huckabees (2004) and Seed of Chucky (2004).
  
  
• The Paramount Logo, which starts the film, runs backwards.
  
  
• The Michael Moore puppet was stuffed with ham before it was blown up.
  
  
• Originally, Matt Damon (who Trey Parker and Matt Stone have admitted is really a "pretty cool guy") was going to be portrayed as intelligent and articulate, but when they saw the puppet, they noted that it made him "look retarded" and decided to portray him as such.
  
  
• When the terrorist is seen by the little french kid, we hear Turkish music - it's a song about a girl whom the singer fell in love with.
  
  
• When Team America arrives in Cairo and they are moving to the tavern, there is a mosque in the background. This is the Mohammad Ali mosque (aka the Alabaster Mosque) in Cairo.
  
  
• Household objects were used as props in order to, according to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, remind the audience the actual size of the puppets. A pair of nail clippers can be seen on a Team America's utility belt in their first scene; in Cairo, a citizen is carrying a basket of Goldfish snacks on his head; and a set of palm trees have leaves made out of dollar bills.
  
  
• In the opening scene in Paris, the Mime resembles Trey Parker.
  
  
• During the palace scene, when the camera pans across the audience, some of the people near the sides and in the back appear to be 2D cardboard cut-outs.
  
  
• North Korea's embassy in Prague demanded that the film be banned in the Czech Republic, saying the movie harmed their country's reputation.
  
  
• In Russian Federation the movie is being shown translated by Dmitry Puchkov, an independent translator who's famous under his nickname "Goblin". All obscenities are translated to Russian obscenities, which is very unusual for movie translations in Russia. The movie has Russian rating "Not for people less than 18 ages old".
  
  
• The motorcycle that the puppet Gary Johnston rides is a remote control red Harley Davidson VRSC, available at all good toy stores.
  
  
• Despite almost getting an NC-17 Rating in the States, the film was promoted as a "kids and family" movie in several European countries, and rated fit for all accordingly.
  
  
• According in an interview with Steve Jablonsky one of the co-composers of the music, he and the others wrote and recorded the score in 8 days.
  
  
• The Team America male puppets have the tails side of an American Susan B. Anthony one dollar coin on the front of their belts.
  
  
• Most of the Korean spoken in the movie is not Korean, but rather Asian-sounding gibberish. Three exceptions are - 1) When the North Korean soldier is torturing one of the team members, he is saying, "Die, you bastard." - 2) When Kim Jong-il tells his soldiers to salvage Team America's planes after the ambush, the soldiers reply with, "Yeh," which is "Yes". - 3) When Gary enters the North Korean palace, the North Korean soldiers are shouting, "Who are you, you bastard?"
  
  
• After the flooding scene in Panama, the puppets that were "drowned" had to be literally wrung out and dried so that they could be used in the next scenes.
  
  
• Due to a puppet sex-scene, the movie was given a NC-17 Rating by the MPAA. The scene was edited twelve times before they received the R rating they were shooting for. Trey Parker later admitted that the scene was originally added to distract the MPAA from the rest of the film's subject matter. On Matt Stone's urging, the scene was reinstated to the "unrated" DVD.
  
  
• The "Montage" song first appeared in the "Asspen" episode of "South Park" (1997). The song is played while Stan is training for a downhill ski race and the lyrics are slightly altered.
  
  
• Bill Pope agreed to be the movie's director of photography because it was a refreshing change from the last few movies that he had done, like The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003) and Spider-Man 2 (2004), where large portions of filming were blue/green screen photography.
  
  
• George Clooney was a driving force in getting Matt Stone and Trey Parker's "South Park" (1997) to air. He also appeared in the show and the subsequent movie. As to their puppetry portrayal in Team America: World Police (2004), both he and Matt Damon are quoted as saying they would have been offended if they weren't in the film.
  
  
• Bill Pope had planned on shooting the film with anamorphic lenses in order to replicate the classic "action film look", but was unable to because there were no anamorphic lenses available that could focus close enough to the puppets.
  
  
• This is the first movie by Trey Parker and Matt Stone to get under an "18" rating in the Republic of Ireland.
  
  
• During the Alec Baldwin and Gary Johnston scene on stage at Kim Jong Il's palace, in some shots the screens at either side of the stage show footage of the real Alec Baldwin in a tux, and Trey Parker recording the voice over.
  
  
• For the voice of Spottswoode, Daran Norris imitates the voice of Charlton Heston.
  
  
• 911 times 2356 equals 2,146,316.
  
  
• Team America was not the first "Thunderbirds" (1965) parody. When Thunderbirds was shown as part of the "Amazin' Adventures" animated syndicated package as "Turbocharged Thunderbirds" in 1994 the dialogue and story were changed to make the show a comedy in the tradition of _What's Up, Tiger Lily (1966)_ with two teenage hosts supposedly controlling the action in the footage. "Saturday Night Live" (1975) did their take in 1997 through 1998 with "The GoLords" taped shorts. MTV's version was a short lived series called "Super Adventure Team" (1998) co-created by Dana Gould.
  
  

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