The idea of parodying Thunderbirds didn’t start with Team America. In fact, Team America owes a huge debt to Super Adventure Team, a little known off the wall MTV series co-created uber-talented Canuck scribe Rob Cohen that ran for one season on MTV in the late `90s. S.A.T. used a combination of marionettes and hand/rod puppets to spoof Thunderbirds and despite consisting of only six episodes (a few which never even made it air) the show still enjoys a strong cult following.

Like Team America, S.A.T. featured lots of puppet vomiting, sexual innuendo, and even the use of live kittens(!). Although Matt Stone and Trey Parker seem to have never seen it, the similarities between the two are pretty remarkable.

A review of the series from 1998 is available over at The Weekly Wire. You can also take a look at this cool flickr set (link via Mike Cane) of screen grabs from the series. They’re especially neat to see since the show has never been rerun or released on video/DVD, although it does circulate on filesharing networks.