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Team America: World Police is a 2004 movie by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the Comedy Central television program . The movie uses marionettes, rather than animation or live action, by employing a variation of the Supermarionation technique developed by Gerry Anderson in the 1960s (although Stone has jokingly called it "supercrappymation").

table series because of the artistry of the marionettes." Their original idea was to create a parody version of .

The movie uses some fairly advanced marionettes, that make use of servo motors to move the puppets' faces in sync with dialogue and other actions. It also uses clever prop design in animal scenes by replacing panthers with house cats and man-eating sharks with nurse sharks. In addition, while the strings easily could have been digitally edited out of the film, the producers chose to keep them visible for the humorous effect.

The producers reportedly had to tone down a scene of simulated oral sex between two of the marionettes, and eliminate an "explicit" sex scene between two others in order to get an R rating. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) was prepared to give the movie an NC-17 rating until it saw at least nine progressively modified versions of the scene, eventually rating it R for "graphic, crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language; all involving puppets." Parker said he was surprised that the MPAA was not very concerned about violent content in the movie. The film was released on DVD in two different versions: the R-rated version that was shown in theaters, and an unrated version with the sex scenes intact.

The movie theme song, "America, Fuck Yeah", received no radio airplay in America because it uses the word "Fuck" thirty-seven times as well as references to oral sex and sodomy.

The film tells the story of an overzealous gang of anti-terrorist "global peace" enforcers known as Team America. Much of the film is a parody of the Bush Administration's War on Terror. Most of the heroes and villains represent extreme caricatures of both conservative and liberal attitudes towards the war, and American foreign policy in general. The film also heavily parodies the clichés of other action movies (including a song about having a montage).

Despite the teaser trailer's boast that George W. Bush and John Kerry (along with a whole slew of celebrities) are , neither Bush nor Kerry are actually seen or mentioned, although puppets that look similar to them (and their wives) can be seen in the audience of . While the protagonists are fictitious, the real names of several Hollywood celebrities and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, are used. None of them approved the use of their names and likenesses in this movie, for obvious reasons.

The story starts with an attempted terrorist bombing in Paris which is foiled by Team America, although the team manage to lay ruin to Paris in the fight, destroying a number of French landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. , a terrorist—left for dead—rises up and shoots Carson, killing him.

In New York City, Team leader to join the team. After some confusion, Gary joins Spottswoode in a limo, which turns into an airplane and takes them to the Team America Headquarters inside Mount Rushmore. There, Gary is introduced to the other team members: Sarah, an empath who senses the obvious, seems to be from San Francisco, California; (voiced by radio personality Phil Hendrie); and the aforementioned Lisa, to whom Gary is attracted. After some soul searching in Washington D.C. (with a satire of country music playing the background), Gary is convinced to join.

Gary's first mission involves going undercover in a bar in Cairo, Egypt, in an attempt to discover the terrorists' plans. Just as he is about to discover the plans his teammates are spotted and the terrorists run, taking Gary with them. Team America chases after them, almost killing Gary and destroying Egyptian landmarks like the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid along the way. During the firefight, the female team members discuss their love lives.

After rescuing Gary they return to their headquarters and celebrate, convinced that they have foiled the terrorist plan when it was actually an almost complete fiasco that only eliminated a few low level terrorists while the primary targets were alerted and unmolested. This leads to an extended graphic love scene between Gary and Lisa, featuring her giving him a Cleveland Steamer (defecating on his chest), amongst other things.

(the news screen showing "Alec Baldwin - F.A.G."). Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn are interviewed. Hollywood celebrities show themselves. (In a deleted scene shown on the DVD, a news-report states that France and Egypt hate Team America and will probably kill them when they come again).

But the real terrorist plan is masterminded by . Hans Blix shows up at his palace asking for an inspection and threatens to write him an angry letter, but Kim Jong-il feeds him to his sharks.

Meanwhile, terrorists angry about what happened in Cairo bomb the Panama Canal in retribution, killing thousands. The , led by Alec Baldwin, blames Team America for the Panama bombing. Gary, who admires Baldwin, concludes that his acting has once again caused death and quits Team America. Team America goes on a mission but is shot down over the ocean and captured by Kim Jong-il.

F.A.G. protests in front of the Team America headquarters. Michael Moore commits a suicide bomb attack against the headquarters, and Spottswoode is believed dead.

Gary decides he must re-join Team America. Spottswoode survived the attack, and Gary to prove his loyalty. After that Spottswoode takes Gary through an intensive one-day crash course (wherein the song "Montage" is played) in combat skills.

Gary goes to North Korea to rescue the rest of the team, fight F.A.G. and foil Kim Jong-il's plan. He succeeds and Kim Jong-il is pushed off a balcony to his apparent death. A cockroach-like alien, however, escapes from the mouth of Kim Jong-il, with the implication that the dictator's was merely a robot or puppet, controlled by the insect. The roach, taunting Team America in Kim's voice, escapes in a small spaceship. The song played at the end of the closing credits, , explains roach-Kim's motivation. He is from the planet Xiron and his species, the Xipods, are at war with the bee-like Balmacs. Earth, after its human population had been eliminated through war, was intended as a new home for the Xipods. Since that mission has failed, roach-Kim anticipates condemnation to the "pit of Kryok".

While Team America itself is intended to ridicule the perceived gung-ho right-wing attitude that leads American administrations to take unilateral foreign policy action that its critics deride as "policing the world", the titular team's reliance on an actor who is inexperienced in politics, foreign policy or military operations, and the Film Actors Guild (F.A.G.Team America: World Police is intended to ridicule perceived left-wing Hollywood actors who its critics believe act as if they have the answers to the world's problems; their name is a reference to the actual Screen Actors Guild, which is frequently abbreviated S.A.G, and to "fag" a slur for homosexuals. While the film deliberately does not name any American politicians (to avoid being pigeon-holed as simply a movie about the 2004 election, according to Parker and Stone), it does name many Hollywood actors by their real names. For example, Sean Penn is portrayed making the outlandish claim about Iraq that "Before Team America showed up, it was a happy place. They had flowery meadows, and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles." The real life Sean Penn sent a letter to Parker and Stone through the Drudge Report inviting them to go with him on a tour of Iraq. Janeane Garafalo states "Our job as actors is to read the newspapers, and repeat what we've read on TV, like it is our own opinion." In the film, Alec Baldwin, leader of F.A.G., is proclaimed on two different occasions to be "the greatest actor ever."

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore is portrayed as a suicide bomber; Stone explained the reason for this portrayal in an MSNBC interview: "We have a very specific beef with Michael Moore... I did an interview, and he didn't mischaracterize me or anything I said [in Bowling for Columbine]. But what he did do was put this cartoon [titled, written by Moore, animated and directed by Harold Moss and the Idealabs studio] right after me that made it look like we did that cartoon." is credited to Moore and Moss, apparently to clear up confusion.

Aside from Kim Jong-il and Hans Blix, real life politicians are spared satire. Team America acts without any guidance from the White House or the Department of Defense. On the other hand, others see Team America's incompetent and needlessly destructive operations as a jab at current American counter-terrorism policies. Political and social commentor Andrew Sullivan considers the film brilliant in its skewering of both the left and right's approach on terrorism. Sullivan (a fan of Stone and Parker's other work too) coined the term social libertarians. (It should be noted that Parker is a registered Libertarian).

This 2004 film might be thought more favorable to the Right than to the Left in the way its story line departs from the experience of the Iraq War, which began in 2003.

The film also plays on the assumed ethnocentrism of its largely American audience. When a new location is shown, the caption will give the place's name and then an approximate distance from the United States in miles, suggesting Americans' ignorance of geography and sense of America as the center of the World. All landmarks in Paris and Cairo are closely located. Also, other languages are simplified to the point of ridicule. French is reduced to stock phrases such as "sacre bleu", the only Spanish line is "no me gusta", repeated several times, and Arabic is given as a guttural combination of the words "derka", "jihad", sherpa, baklava, "Mohammed", and "Allah". The Korean language was also simplified for the movie. While no real Korean words were actually used in speech, the real verb endings of "~~ㅂ니까 (~~mnikka)?" (sentence ending in a question) and "~~ㅂ니다 (~~mnida)" (sentence ending in a statement) were used after to give the speaking a Korean-like sound. Despite not using real Korean words in speech, real and sensical Korean written characters are used in all Korea writing in the movie. The stereotypical Asian pronunciation of English s is used in reverse heavily by Kim Jong-il, similar to the speech impediment of Elmer Fudd. For example, he greets people with "Herro" and calls Hans Blix "Hans Brix." When Koreans write their names or introduce themselves, they always use their family name first: Kim (family name) Jong-il (given name). Western culture is the opposite. So, when Hans Blix meets Kim Jong-il in Kim Jong-il's palace, Blix addresses Mr. Kim as "Mr. Il".

Film critics had a mixed view of the film. Some praised the film's sense of humor and spirited musical numbers, while others derided it for being a comedy without enough laughs.

Roger Ebert, "An equal opportunity offender, and waves of unease will flow over first one segment of their audience, and then another. Like a cocky teenager who's had a couple of drinks before the party, they don't have a plan for who they want to offend, only an intention to be as offensive as possible.""If I were asked to extract a political position from the movie, I'd be baffled. It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it. The White House gets a free pass, since the movie seems to think Team America makes its own policies without political direction.""Where the film stumbles is with its characters. The Team America squad is a pretty boring bunch with little to no personality. Only super villain Kim Jong-il is fully realized, and he's little more than a Korean version of Cartman from South Park. Still, the shtick works and Kim's plaintive musical solo, "I'm Ronery," is one of the film's highlights.""Without question the finest R-rated puppet action-musical of the past decade...there are plenty of profane, catchy songs and giddily offensive jokes to keep you amused. But like any good satire, this film has a distinct moral point of view. The members of Team America, the square-jawed action heroes who take on Kim and his supporting cast of left-wing Hollywood stooges, may blow up a lot of stuff, but they do it by accident, not by design. And while the movie is happy to mock American bluster, it also expresses a blunt, uncynical patriotism."

Team America made $12 million in its opening weekend; since then the film has made a profit internationally, but domestically only just made back its production costs ($30 million) after over 2 months in release. [2]

Famous puppets are: Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Helen Hunt, George Clooney, Liv Tyler, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Janeane Garofalo, Matt Damon, Michael Moore, Hans Blix, Kim Jong-il, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Jennings, Danny Glover, Ethan Hawke and a puppet suggested to be Osama bin Laden. None of these people gave their likenesses, voice or consent. Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Fred Tatasciore and Maurice LaMarche voiced them instead.

While they may not have given permission, both George Clooney and Matt Damon are quoted as saying they would have been offended if they weren't in the film.