Category: South Park

Muslim group warns ‘South Park’ creators of death
NEW YORK ñ A radical Muslim group has warned the creators of “South Park” that they could face violent retribution for depicting the prophet Muhammad in a bear suit during last week’s episode.
The website RevolutionMuslim.com has since been taken down, but a cached version shows the message to “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The article’s author, Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, said the men “outright insulted” the religious leader.
The posting showed a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was shot and stabbed to death in an Amsterdam street in 2004 by a fanatic angered by his film about Muslim women. The film was written by a Muslim woman who rejected the Prophet Muhammad as a guide for today’s morality.
“We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” Al-Amrikee wrote. “This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”
The posting listed the addresses of Comedy Central’s New York office and Parker and Stone’s California production office. It also linked to a Huffington Post article that described a Colorado retreat owned by the two men.
CNN, which first reported the posting, said the New York-based website is known for postings in support of jihad, or holy war, against the West and Osama bin Laden.
Al-Amrikee told The Associated Press that the posting was made to raise awareness of the issue and to see that it does not happen again. Asked if Parker and Stone should feel threatened by it, he said “they should feel threatened by what they did.”
He said he was disappointed that publicity about the posting focused more on the potential danger to the producers but admitted, “I could shoulder some blame” for it.
He said he “can’t answer that legally” when asked if his group favored jihad. But he praised bin Laden.
“We look up to him and admire him for the sacrifices he has given for the religion,” he said.
Last week’s episode, the 200th for the cheeky and often vulgar cartoon, was intended to feature many of the personalities and groups that Parker and Stone insulted during the series’ run.
In 2006, Comedy Central banned the men from showing an image of Muhammad on their show. They had intended to comment on the controversy created by a Danish newspaper’s publishing of caricatures of the Islamic leader. Muslims consider any physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous.
Instead, “South Park” showed an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag.
Comedy Central and the show’s producers would not comment.

‘South Park’s’ 200th episode: Class-action lawsuit
In the 200th episode of “South Park,” the gang faces “every celebrity the town of South Park has ever p***** off joining forces to get revenge.”
“Our day has come. A class-action lawsuit from every celebrity this town has ever mocked!” roars Rob Reiner, standing between Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson. Even Mecha-Streisand is there!
That sounds excellent, but it also sounds a little bit like the series finale of a popular NBC comedy from the 1990s. We hope our four little intrepid “South Park” boys don’t end up in jail like Elaine, George, Jerry and Kramer did.
We also wish it wasn’t merely a half-hour episode. This sounds like a celebrity skewering of epic proportions. Shouldn’t it be like a feature-length movie? It’s about time they did another one of those anyway.
“South Park’s” recent 199th episode was another excellent outing by the Trey Parker-Matt Stone show. It took a shot at the phenomenon of Facebook.

‘South Park’ begins 14th season by taking on Tiger
NEW YORK ñ Golf clubs in hands or not, the kids of “South Park” are ready to take on Tiger Woods.
Creators of the Comedy Central cartoon have long since proven that no subject is sacred to them. So for the opening of its 14th season on Wednesday, the troubled golfer encounters Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman in their animated Colorado town.
“It’s such an important issue in America right now ó the sex addiction outbreak,” Matt Stone, who makes the series with partner Trey Parker, said on Friday. “We’re all really concerned about him and hope he gets better.”
Sex addiction, the intersection of powerful men and willing women, late-night phone calls to the police and bad public relations gave them so much fodder they could have made an entire Tiger-centric season, Stone said.
Since the Peabody Award-winning show’s first episode in 1997, Parker and Stone haven’t worried about lines between good taste and bad if they can get a laugh. They mocked the Church of Scientology to the point of annoying Tom Cruise, and depicted Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag.
“There’s a delicacy in talking about (Woods) that we don’t have to worry about,” Stone said.
He wouldn’t give many details about the episode, in part because he and Parker were still writing it on Friday. Stone said he was fascinated and disgusted by Woods’ public apology, so it’s likely that will be worked in.
“South Park” is airing its 200th episode next month.
“We can’t even believe we’re still here doing this,” he said.

Kanye says ‘South Park’ put him in check
NEW YORK ñ “South Park” may have accomplished the impossible ó getting Kanye West to check his ego.
The Comedy Central show skewered the famously self-important rapper on its show Wednesday night, painting him as a narcissistic figure so out of touch with reality he couldn’t even take a (very politically incorrect) joke.
West’s love of himself and his work has been almost as integral to his image as his music: Just last year, he told The Associated Press that he was the “voice of this generation.” Also recently, he was quoted as saying his greatest regret was not being able to see himself perform live.
Yet, on his blog Thursday, West appeared chastened, and ready to turn over a new leaf.
In typical all-caps mode, he wrote: “SOUTH PARK MURDERED ME LAST NIGHT AND IT’S PRETTY FUNNY. IT HURTS MY FEELINGS BUT WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM SOUTH PARK! I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MY EGO THOUGH. HAVING THE CRAZY EGO IS PLAYED OUT IN MY LIFE AND CAREER.”
West said that he started stroking his ego long ago to build up his self esteem ó but he now realizes he needs to “GET PAST MYSELF.”
In the self-reflective post, he said that people won’t take him seriously if he keeps it up (perhaps referring to his well-documented meltdowns at awards shows when he didn’t win what he expected).
“I JUST WANT TO BE A DOPER PERSON WHICH STARTS WITH ME NOT ALWAYS TELLING PEOPLE HOW DOPE I THINK I AM,” he said.
And perhaps to show that he’s really serious about making that change, he provided a link to one of the most biting moments from the “South Park” show, and thanked the writers as well.

Ford Denies LaBeouf Will Take On Indiana Role
Actor Harrison Ford has denied reports his Indiana Jones sidekick Shia LaBeouf will replace his role as the action hero in a new installment of the franchise film.
LaBeouf starred alongside the 66-year-old actor as the whip-cracker’s young friend Mutt Williams.
And the Star Wars actor insists there are no plans for the young star to take on the role he made famous, despite the open ending in summer blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Ford brushed off the rumours, sparked after he passed the archaeologist’s trademark hat to LaBeouf’s character, alluding to the switch.
He tells Moviefone: “No, that’s never been (the idea)… I think it just doesn’t work that way. And there’s definitely a distinction between passing the fedora and someone picking it up.”
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South Park’s Spielberg Parody Sparks Controversy At TV Network
An episode of controversial cartoon series South Park has sparked outrage after depicting Hollywood director Steven Spielberg in a rape scene with Harrison Ford.
The show made its season 12 debut on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur on Thursday.
In the opening episode, entitled The China Problem, the show’s characters have flashbacks of Indiana Jones star Harrison Ford getting raped by Jewish director Spielberg and his fellow filmmaker George Lucas.
Anti-Defamation League spokesperson Myrna Shinbaum tells the New York Daily News, “South Park has been offensive and has had very anti-Jewish pieces in the past. We understand that the show is trying to satirise, but it may get lost on those who are haters.”
According to reports, bosses at Paramount Pictures have scheduled a meeting with executives at its parent company, which produces the Comedy Central series.
Comedy Central’s Senior Vice President Steve Albani says, “We don’t comment episode by episode on South Park or whether they cross the line, but South Park has a history, and people know what they are getting into when they watch it.”
Paramount have declined to comment on the episode.

Outraged, disrespected Canadians go on strike on ‘South Park’
Canada-baiting has been a hilarious feature of the popular “South Park” animated show for years, and now Canadians on the weekly series are saying enough is enough.
In an episode airing Friday night entitled “Canada on Strike,” outraged Canadians go on strike when “Canada Appreciation Day” in the U.S. does not bring their native land the respect they think it deserves.
With echoes of the recent Hollywood screenwriters’ strike, the head of the World Canadian Bureau leads the country into the protracted strike. They’re quickly replaced by Danes – calling themselves the “Canadians of Europe” – who show up to cross picket lines and take their place.
It’s up to Cartman and the gang, longtime Canadian sympathizers, to negotiate a settlement for the long-suffering Canucks. In the meantime, flatulent Canadian duo Terrance and Phillip are conflicted about whether to join the strike, instead working to uncover the truth behind the cost of the walkout.
The show airs Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET on the Comedy Network.

“South Park” duo ink lucrative deal
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – An animated series is redrawing the lines of television mega-deals.
The eye-popping $75 million pact announced Monday by Comedy Central and the creators of “South Park” may be the most prominent example of the Internet as a bona fide backend window alongside syndication and DVD. The duo of Matt Stone and Trey Parker will get a 50-50 ad split on digital platforms but not on television.
The new extension will bring three more 14-episode seasons — the same volume Stone and Parker re-signed for in 2005. “Park” is in place now through 2011, bringing its stint at Comedy Central to 15 seasons going back to 1997.
“Three more years of ‘South Park’ will give us the opportunity to offend that many more people,” Stone said. “And since Trey and I are in charge of the digital side of ‘South Park,’ we can offend people on their cell phones, game consoles and computers too.”
Stone and Parker already have negotiated a share of the hundreds of millions of dollars “Park” has poured in to the network via the backend, not to mention a robust licensing and merchandising revenue stream.
But this time around, they are poised to haul half of the unknown — but up to now quite modest — sum awaiting them on the Internet, where “Park” footage has been a fixture of Comedy Central’s dot-com strategy, not to mention illegal file-sharing.
Also part of the deal is the formation of a digital animation studio launched jointly with the Viacom-owned channel, which would participate in any new programming spawned under the venture. South Park Digital Studios would come under the Web site it launched earlier this year, Southparkstudios.com.
The deal represents a coup for Kevin Morris, attorney for Parker and Stone, and Doug Herzog, president of MTV Networks Entertainment Group, who ran Comedy Central when “Park” became the channel’s first breakout hit. Parent company Viacom also could use a boost in the digital domain, where the company has been criticized on Wall Street.
Abel Lezcano, a lawyer at Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein & Lezcano whose clients include “Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry, was less impressed by the ad split than the total value of the pact.
“To me that’s not as big a deal as if Comedy Central had given them a share of ad revenue from TV broadcasts, but the total amount is pretty big,” he said. “The Big Four networks still won’t let you share in any form of advertising (broadcast or Internet) because they sell ads across all platforms and don’t want to separate it out, so in that respect, it’s different.”
Dan Black, partner at Greenberg Traurig in Santa Monica, agrees that this is not a precedent-setting deal.
“I’ve seen deals like that before with Web site revenue splits,” he said. “The paradigm is familiar, but the $75 million is recognition of the success of the show.”
But with the ink still drying, speculation already has begun as to what will be the next TV franchise to command a payday of similar scope. Bigger franchises from “The Simpsons” to “Saturday Night Live” also have established online presences that could complicate future negotiations.
Sameer Mithal, consultant for media and content at BusinessEdge Solutions, believes that only A-list content players will get a slice of the digital pie. “A lot of people are going to ask for it, but very few are going to get it,” he said. “Someone just starting out doesn’t have the leverage of the ‘South Park’ guys.”
Lightning may well strike twice at Comedy Central, which already may be negotiating with another Internet darling: “The Daily Show” anchor Jon Stewart, whose current four-year contract expires at the end of 2008. The current deal for “Park” was also scheduled to elapse late next year.
James Dixon, who manages Stewart, applauded the “Park” pact but said his client is not concerned. “We’ll see what happens with his next deal, but ‘Daily’ is a different animal than an animated series,” he said. “A lot more than digital needs to be discussed.”

“South Park” creators look back 10 years
LOS ANGELES – Talk about a star-studded arrivals line. There they were: Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Steven Spielberg and Paris Hilton. Mel Gibson even showed up.
But this was the launch party for the 10th season of “South Park” and the celebrities were A-List ó A for artificial. As in cardboard.
No matter, the smiling caricatures still loomed large along the red carpet at the Thursday-night affair to celebrate the controversial Emmy- and Peabody-winning animated Comedy Central series. The program first aired Aug. 13, 1997, and begins its new season Oct. 4.
Series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone topped the Hollywood back-lot party’s real A-List, as in authentic.
“I remember when we started the show, we had an order for six episodes, and we’re like, `This is great, because, when we’re older, we’ll always have these six shows,'” Parker told AP Television.
“And, it was actually Brian Graden (the executive who commissioned the original short film that became “South Park”) who told us, `I think some day these will be six of 100.’ And we’re like, `You’re crazy. There’s no way.’ And we’re up to 150-something.”
“South Park” spins around four elementary-school boys who slog out their days and nights in the quiet Colorado mountain town of South Park. Over the last decade, the boys have had to grapple with everything from problematic parents to the apocalypse.
Virtually everything and everyone in politics, pop culture and religion have been fair game for Parker and Stone’s sharp satire. Tom Cruise and John Travolta got it on the chin in last season’s Emmy-nominated “Trapped in the Closet” episode, which took on the Church of Scientology.
“We have not personally heard from any of them,” Stone said.
“No, Tom hasn’t called,” Parker added.
“No, hasn’t called us. We used to go over to his house for Friday-night dinners, but not any more,” Stone joked.
Yet for all its craziness and cussin’, the “South Park” franchise is nothing to laugh at, with top-selling DVDs, CDs, dolls, albums, a movie, reruns in worldwide syndication and soon-to-be 10 years and counting on Comedy Central’s prime-time schedule.
Coinciding with next month’s 10th-season launch is a DVD of Stone and Parker’s 10 favorite “South Park” episodes, “South Park the Hits: Volume 1,” which arrives in stores Oct. 3.
“We’ve said in a lot of interviews, `There’s no way we’re going to be 35 or 40 doing this show,’ and here we are at 35, and we’re doing the show,” Stone said. “Now we’ll say, `There’s no way we’re going to be 45 to 50 doing this show.'”
“I think when I have kids, it’ll be over,” Parker added. “Because that’ll be the day, we’ll have kids, and then one of us will come in the office and be like, `I think we should take the show in a different direction. I think we offended some people last night, and I don’t know that that’s good.'”
Stone: “Once we have kids, we’ll do the George Lucas thing, and we’ll go back and change all the old episodes.”
Parker: “All the guns out of people’s hands and stuff.”
Stone: “Get all weird and wimpy.”

‘South Park’ celebrates with best-of DVD
LOS ANGELES – “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker say that choosing their favorite episode would be like choosing between their children. Not that they’re above that.
Stone and Parker hand-picked their 10 most beloved episodes of the long-running Comedy Central show to appear on the new “South Park The Hits: Volume 1” DVD, in stores Oct. 3.
The new DVD also includes four bonus episodes and “The Spirit of Christmas,” a never-released animated short.
“South Park” first aired Aug. 13, 1997. It begins its tenth season on Comedy Central on Oct. 4.

‘South Park’ guys plan two films
A high school comedy and giant monster pic are on tap
Subversive animation kings Trey Parker and Matt Stone have a pair of live-action films in development at Paramount.
According to Variety, the “South Park” creators are producing two comedies through their re-named Important Pictures shingle. Up first will be “My All-America,” followed by the more excitingly titled “Giant Monsters Attack Japan!”
“My All-American” was written by Jeff Roda, while J.F. Lawton penned “Giant Monsters Attack Japan!” Details about both comedies are scarce, but the industry paper says that Parker will be the credited director on each film, while Stone will produce.
Both films will feature real actors — a first for the “South Park” guys since “Orgazmo” and “Cannibal: The Musical!” — though “Giant Monsters” will also feature thespians in big rubber suits.
The plan is to begin shooting on “All-American” next year when Parker and Stone go on “South Park” hiatus.
Since “South Park” launched, Parker and Stone have limited their creative cinematic output to “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” and “Team America: World Police.” They also acted together in “BASEketball.”