Parker said he and Stone did not intend for "Damien" to be offensive to Christians or any other religion: "In "South Park", Jesus is a great guy, he's on our show, and in this episode he's the hero. We're not in the business of offending people. We're in the business of making people laugh." The mean way Damien is treated by his fellow students when he joins the school, as well as Damien's reactions to the treatment, were inspired by Parker's experience of the second grade, when he started at a Cheyenne, Wyoming elementary school in the last three weeks of the school year. Parker said, "It was brutal ... Everybody already had their little groups and the year was almost over, so I wasn't going to fit into any of them, and I just wanted to destroy and kill, which was the inspiration for this show."