NEW YORK -- What would Kenny think? The creators of "South Park" want to run the Comedy Central cable network.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the University of Colorado buddies who turned the crudely drawn animated series into a sensation, have asked to replace Doug Herzog as president of the network that airs their show.Herzog is leaving early next year to become the chief programmer at Fox.
Parker and Stone met early this week with MTV Networks chairman Tom Freston about the job. MTV's corporate parent, Viacom, owns half of Comedy Central and the other half is owned by Time Warner.
"It was a serious discussion that moved into an enjoyable and very funny lunch," Freston said. "We surely weren't talking about who killed Kenny."
Kenny, one of the animated characters on the show, is killed violently in every episode.
It's an audacious move for Parker and Stone, who also produced the flop movie, "BASEketball," from earlier this year. Both are in their 20s and have no management experience at a TV network.
Insiders say the duo has little hope of getting the job, but Comedy Central's overseers don't want to say or do anything to alienate the creators of the network's most popular program.
A receptionist at Parker and Stone's production office referred calls to Comedy Central, which did not comment on the meeting. A spokesman for HBO chairman Jeff Bewkes, who oversees Comedy Central with Freston, had no comment.
They're expected to name a new president for the network within the first three months of next year, said Carole Robinson, a spokeswoman for Freston.
Among the potential candidates for the job are Van Toffler, MTV's general manager; Larry Divney, executive vice president at Comedy Central; and Robert Morton, former producer of David Letterman's "Late Show."