Matt Stone and Trey Parker talks about The Book of mormon to Terry Gross on Fresh air (December 30, 2011) The musical numbers has been cut out due to copyright.
I was sort of raised Mormon…mean, my parents were Mormon but were struggling with their beliefs. So we went off and on for the 18 years I lived with my parents, but it never was a MUST attend thing. We also moved around a lot in the 70s and 80s including many years in Micronesia where we always interacting with the Mormon missionaries. With that in mind, I love this musical!!! There are many of the “inside jokes”, but it does show what so many missionaries go through and the cultural shock of serving in a foreign countries. An example of this is one of the islands we lived on, there is big ceremony when a woman has her first child. She is spends 3 days being “healed” with baths, oils.and other things and then comes out…topless…to show everyone she is healthy and fine. (Use to be topless, but that has been changing). It those poor white Mormon boys from Utah who’ve seen that!! Of course, they are told not to go, but I saw them there at times. A long story, but I love this stuff, wanted to share, and Trey and Matt (and everyone else who worked on it) did such a good job on the Book of Mormon.
