"Damien" was written by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with additional dialogue by Dave Polsky, and was directed by Parker. "Damien" first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on February 4, 1998. It was highly anticipated in part because it was the first new episode of "South Park" in about two months, since the extremely popular Christmas special "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" aired on December 17, 1997. Before "Damien" even ran, Mike Duffy of "Detroit Free Press" said the episode was "certain to become one of the show's signature moments". In fact, Parker and Stone originally intended for "Damien" to be the season's Christmas episode. Although they had long planned to feature a talking piece of feces in the show, called Mr. Hankey, they did not decide to make him a Christmas character until halfway through the filming of "Damien", during which time they decided to make a separate holiday episode instead, centered around the Mr. Hankey character. Nevertheless, they decided to finish production of "Damien" first, even though it would not air until after the "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" episode.