‘South Park’ comes of age, sort of

“South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone weren’t sure the series would last beyond its initial order of six episodes. But the irreverent comedy show, which first aired Aug. 13, 1997, begins a new season Oct. 4.

So how long can they keep it going?

“We’ve said in a lot of interviews, ‘There’s no way we’re going to be 35 or 40 doing this show,’ and here we are at 35, and we’re doing the show,” Stone said. “Now we’ll say, ‘There’s no way we’re going to be 45 to 50 doing this show.’ ”

“I think when I have kids, it’ll be over,” Parker added. “Because that’ll be the day, we’ll have kids, and then one of us will come in the office and be like, ‘I think we should take the show in a different direction. I think we offended some people last night, and I don’t know that that’s good.’ ”

Stone: “Once we have kids, we’ll do the George Lucas thing, and we’ll go back and change all the old episodes.”

Parker: “All the guns out of people’s hands and stuff.”

Stone: “Get all weird and wimpy.”