When Bill Hader announced that he was leaving Saturday Night Live, the only hint he gave about his future plans was that he would not be doing a Stefan movie. Well now the picture is a little clearer, as Trey Parker announced at Comic-Con yesterday that Hader is joining South Park as a full-time writer for the show’s upcoming 17th season. Hader has been involved with South Park for a while now — first as a consultant, then as a producer — so this isn’t completely out of left field, but it’s still pretty cool.

Here he is a few years ago discussing his work on the show:

I’m good friends with Trey and Matt. They asked me to come in on their South Park retreat. They have these retreats where you go to Seattle. One year we went to Boston. You just go and it’s like a dream. You go to an awesome place and stay in an awesome hotel and just for a couple of hours a day you swim around in South Park ideas. The first retreat I went on they seem to like…it just seemed to gel. It’s mostly those guys. I kind of hang out in the room. That is where I met Vernon Chatman and we started writing stuff together and now we are writing that movie for Scott Rudin. It’s very chill and then in the 13th season they actually brought me in as a writer and I actually wrote on the show for part of that season. I’m doing it again this season too. In April I’m going out there for three weeks. It’s just awesome. You hang out for a couple of hours just working out these ideas. It’s very peaceful. Just a couple of people in a room with Trey and Matt. It’s like a dream come true. But it really is those guys. It’s like they are working out their idea and you are saying, “Oh, that is funny.” Or maybe it’s this or that, you know what I mean? You kind of throw out ideas, they run with it, and make it insanely funny.

I like when people I like are friends. It’s fun and neat. Something something “South Park’s hottest club is something,” etc. etc. etc.

(Splitsider via Pop Culture Brain)