Category: South Park

“South Park” duo get animated about censorship
PASADENA, California (Hollywood Reporter) – The creators of “South Park” lambasted Comedy Central Thursday for removing an episode that lampooned Scientology and Tom Cruise from the network’s repeat schedule and for blanking out the image of Muhammad during another episode.
“So there are two things we can’t do on Comedy Central: show Muhammad or Tom Cruise,” Trey Parker said during the MTV Networks portion of the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour.
Parker and Matt Stone said they had no doubt that the “Trapped in the Closet” episode was yanked as a result of Cruise’s starring this summer in “Mission: Impossible III,” the movie from Paramount, Comedy Central’s sister company.
However, a Comedy Central spokesman countered that all episodes get rotated in and out of the schedule on a regular basis and indicated that it was always the plan to restore the episode into the schedule. The episode will repeat Wednesday.
Stone added that the duo chose not to grant any media interviews at the height of the controversy several months ago.
“We didn’t do any press because we were just going to get in a pissing war with Tom Cruise, and we didn’t want to be in the same article as that guy,” he said. “But we picked the wrong guy to parody because we’re going to be asked about Tom for the next two years.”
They added that they have not been contacted by Scientology representatives but did sit down the week after the episode aired with a “very upset” Isaac Hayes, a Scientologist who portrayed the character of Chef. Hayes has since exited the show.
“We didn’t want to be hypocrites,” Parker said. “We thought it could piss Isaac off, but we had to do it for that very reason” of not being labeled hypocrites.
Regarding the decision not to air the image of Muhammad during the “Cartoon Wars” episode, the pair said it was a corporate decision that could become a slippery slope if other groups begin making threats and affecting content. They also noted that Muhammad seems to be off limits, while it is “open season” on Jesus, who happens to be a “South Park” character. (Depictions of Muhammad are strictly prohibited in Islam.)
Comedy Central president Doug Herzog admitted, “It’s tough, but I think I would say we did overreact. … Matt and Trey enjoy a fair amount of creative freedom. History might show that we overreacted, and we will live with that.”
He added that the image probably will not be shown on the DVD version either, but “I look forward to the day when we can uncover it.”

Airwaves Again Safe for “South Park” Scientology Spoof
Comedy Central is finally respecting Cartman’s authoritay.
One week after South Park’s controversial “Trapped in the Closet” episode garnered an Emmy nomination, and nearly four months after it was abruptly pulled from rotation on the cable net, Comedy Central has finally acquiesced and will allow the Scientology-skewering episode back on the air.
And clearly not a moment too soon.
“If they hadn’t put this episode back on the air, we’d have had serious issues, and we wouldn’t be doing anything else with them,” cocreator Matt Stone tells Variety.
The episode reportedly ruffled some high-powered feathers upon its first airing. In addition to an accurate, if cartoon-depicted, primer on Scientology, the show featured a literally closeted Tom Cruise who refuses to come out, only to be joined in his hiding by fellow Scientologist John Travolta and R&B man R. Kelly, whose operatic ballad provided the show’s title.
While Comedy Central failed to publicly disclose its reasons for yanking the program (which is also credited for leading Scientologist Isaac Hayes to jump ship as the longtime voice of Chef), creators Stone and Trey Parker didn’t shy away from broadcasting what they claimed was the network-sanctioned reason.
As the conspiracy theory goes, the Cruise’s camp had a hand in deep-sixing the episode, with the litigious actor reportedly threatening threatened to pull out of promotional duties for Mission: Impossible III. (Viacom is the parent company for both Comedy Central and Paramount, the studio that was releasing Cruise’s film.)
Cruise’s reps vehemently denied such allegations, but the South Park brain trust stuck by its guns.
“I only know what we were told, that people involved with M:I:III wanted the episode off the air and that is why Comedy Central had to do it,” Stone says in Variety. “I don’t know why else it would have been pulled.”
Now, Cruise’s saturation-level publicity tour is over (and proved fairly ineffective, with the sequel grossing a disappointing $133 million domestically) and he is apparently in hiding with his new baby.
As it is, Comedy Central’s decision to reintroduce the episode to its rerun schedule seems as arbitrary an action as yanking it in the first place. But the move is putting the network back into the good graces of Stone and Parker, who have said that their relationship with the network has been tenuous since the spring.
“It’s true we are not as big as Tom Cruise, but we’ve done two movies for Viacom and 10 years of South Park episodes, and this has been our home,” Stone tells Variety.
Stone explains that the episode’s removal was nearly the final straw for the duo, who had been censored by the network on three separate occasions.
“We’ve been through a trifecta of annoyances,” Stone says. “The ‘Bloody Mary’ episode angered Catholics. And we had a big fight when we wanted to show Muhammad.”
Last year, the network declined to rerun the “Bloody Mary” episode after the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights attacked Parker and Stone and protested the program that featured a menstruating statue of the Virgin Mary.
In April, Comedy Central intervened on another episode before another religious group could take umbrage.
“Cartoon Wars,” an episode dealing with the worldwide violence ensuing from a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet, was broadcast with a title card reading “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network.”
At the time, the network defended the decision to censor the show to ward off the possibility of violent reactions.
“The mantra has always been everything is fair game,” Stone tells Variety. “I love [network president] Doug Herzog, but I think he’s dead wrong and made a totally cowardly decision.”
South Park’s “Trapped in the Closet” returns to Comedy Central’s airwaves July 19.

‘South Park’ Cruise Episode Picked by Emmy Voters
The controversial “Trapped In The Closet” episode of South Park, which poked fun at Tom Cruise, is the cheeky installment which earned creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone an Emmy Awards nomination on Thursday.
The parody, which questioned Cruise’s sexuality and mocked his Scientology beliefs, was caught up in controversy when it first aired last November, and reportedly helped lead to South Park regular Isaac Hayes, a fellow Scientologist, quitting the show.
But rather than steer clear of the controversy, brave Emmy voters have embraced it, declaring it worthy of a nod for Outstanding Animated Program.
The controversial episode hasn’t been repeated since the initial furore and a planned re-airing in March was scrapped. South Park will compete with The Simpsons, Camp Lazio, Family Guy and Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends when the Emmys are announced next month.

Tom Cruise Loses “South Park” Fight
South Park’ers Matt Stone & Trey Parker have won their free speech battle, after the cartoon episode which mocks actor Tom Cruise was pulled from British TV. According to IMDB.com, the 2005 episode entitled, “Trapped in the Closet,” was shown at the National Film Theatre in London on Monday, for free, hampering Cruise’s efforts to shut-down the screening. “If we were charging there may have been legal problems,” said a spokesman for the unusual event. “But it was a free event, so it should be fine.” Stone and Parker were also on-hand for fans, to discuss the show and specifically the ‘closet’ episode they defend as a display of free speech.

“South Park” Censored
There was something missing in Wednesday night’s South Park, as a title card explained: “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network.”
It was not a joke.
The scene depicting the Islamic prophet handing a football helmet to a character from Family Guy (at least that’s how another of the show’s title cards put it) really was nixed by Comedy Central.
A source close to the show said safety concerns were behind the move. Earlier this year, Danish newspapers published cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, sparking deadly riots throughout many Muslim nations. Any rendering of the prophet, even a positive one, is considered blasphemous by Muslims.
“In light of recent events, we feel we made the right decision,” Comedy Central said in a statement Thursday.
There was no public response from series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Wednesday’s South Park, “Cartoon Wars, Part 2,” was the concluding half of a story arc in which Family Guy, yes, the Fox animated series, causes international consternation when, in a familiar-sounding turn of events, it depicts Mohammed. (The story line is better understood if one accepts that, as The South Park Scriptorium explained, “Family Guy=South Park.”)
In the South Park version of things, Family Guy makes it to air with the controversial scene, prompting an animated response (literally) from al Qaeda involving Jesus, President Bush, the U.S. flag and bowel movements.
In an interview with the Associated Press, William Donohue of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights attacked Parker and Stone, but not Comedy Central, for the Jesus bit making air. Of the show’s creators, Donohue said, “[They’re] like little whores…They’ll sit there and they’ll whine and they’ll take their shot at Jesus.”
South Park has been winning friends of late with its religious-themed episodes. Last year, Comedy Central ran, but later declined to rerun the episode “Bloody Mary” after Donohue’s group took umbrage with a menstruating statue of the Virgin Mary. Last month, Isaac Hayes turned in his Chef’s hat, saying the show’s satire had gone too far. His departure was seen as a belated response to “Trapped in the Closet,” a 2005 episode that focused on Scientology, Hayes’ religion. Comedy Central pulled a rerun of that episode, too.
An avowed equal opportunity offender, South Park previously depicted Mohammed to little public outcry. In that case, timing might have been everything. The episode, “Super Best Friends,” debuted in July 2001, or two months before the arrival of the post-9-11 world.

“South Park” Roasts Chef, Literally
Trey Parker and Matt Stone have buried the hatchet with–sorry, into– Isaac Hayes.
On Wednesday’s South Park 10th season premiere, Hayes’ Chef character was struck by lightning, impaled, shot, mauled by a mountain lion, eaten by a grizzly bear, and, oh, yes, accused of being a child molester.
An estimated 3.5 million people–the most for a season premiere since 2002–were witness to the carnage, the Associated Press reported.
The episode was the capper to Hayes’ Mar. 13 resignation. South Park chieftains Parker and Stone cranked out the inaptly named “The Return of Chef!” as an answer to the defection.
In an off-screen twist, doubt has been cast as to whether Hayes really meant to depart the animated series. FoxNews.com columnist Roger Friedman reported Monday the 63-year-old “Shaft” soul great suffered a stroke on Jan. 17 and “is in no condition to quit anything.”
“My sources say that someone quit [the show] for him,” Friedman wrote.
Previous reports had Hayes hospitalized Jan. 17 in Memphis for what was said to be exhaustion. The reputed stroke diagnosis was said to be news to Comedy Central.
In his headline-making, episode-inspiring statement, Hayes, a Scientologist, said he could no longer support a show that disrespected religion. The move was widely seen as a response to a Scientology-specific South Park episode that first aired last November. (A rerun of the show, “Trapped in the Closet,” was abruptly pulled from Comedy Central’s schedule last week. Tom Cruise, a Scientologist, and a “Closet” parody target, denied flexing his superstar muscle to keep the episode off the air.)
Thanks to some manipulation of old sound bites (“suck on my chocolate salty balls”) and song snippets (“make love…”), Hayes was heard in Wednesday’s opener. But Parker and Stone got in the last words.
And for the record, not one of Parker and Stone’s words was “Scientology.”
In the completely made-up story, Chef is brainwashed by an organization of child molesters called the “Super Adventure Club.” In order to cure Chef, Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny take their friend to a psychiatrist, a frowned-upon profession among Scientologists.
In the end, Chef dies a million Kenny deaths, only to live on, sort of, as a Darth Vader version of himself.
At his funeral, Kyle urges South Park residents to remember Chef as he was, before the brainwashing. If there is to be anger, he says, don’t direct it at the beloved cafeteria worker.
Rather, says Kyle, “we should be mad at the fruity little club for scrambling his brain.”

“South Park” Chef back after Scientology skirmish
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Soul singer Isaac Hayes may have quit his job as the voice of Chef on “South Park” after a disagreement over religion, but his character will live on when the satiric cable TV cartoon returns to Comedy Central this week, the network said on Monday.
Hayes and his “South Park” alter ego are at the center of an ongoing flap over an episode last November that poked fun at the Church of Scientology and its celebrity adherents, including actor Tom Cruise.
The tenth season of “South Park” will launch on Wednesday with a new episode titled “The Return of Chef!,” marking the “triumphant homecoming” of lusty school cafeteria cook James “Chef” McElroy to the show, the network said in a statement.
Hayes, 63, himself a follower of Scientology, surprised producers a week ago by announcing he was leaving the series because he objected to its “inappropriate ridicule” of religion, though he made no reference to the show’s spoof of Scientology last fall.
Two days later, Comedy Central abruptly pulled a scheduled repeat of that episode, titled “Trapped in the Closet.” Sources close to the show said the rerun was canceled after Cruise threatened to boycott promotion of his upcoming film, “Mission: Impossible III,” for sister studio Paramount Pictures.
Representatives for Cruise and the studio denied this. But “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone fed the furor by issuing a statement suggesting the Church of Scientology was behind the decision to scrap the rerun.
The network has also noted that various religions including Christianity, Judaism and Islam have been targets of the show’s satire since its inception.
The network statement announcing Chef’s return for the “South Park” season premiere this Wednesday was a clear sign that Parker and Stone planned to use the Hayes imbroglio as further grist for their comedy.
“Knowing these guys as I do, I can’t imagine that they’re not going to do just that,” Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox told Reuters. He added that the producers routinely “turn around” new episodes in just six days, leaving them ample time to incorporate last week’s dust-up into their season debut.
Fox said he assumed someone besides Hayes would supply Chef’s voice. Details of the new episode were vague.
But a network synopsis said the fictional town of South Park, Colorado, is “jolted out of a case of the doldrums when Chef suddenly reappears,” leading to new antics by the group of foul-mouthed fourth graders who are the show’s stars.
“While Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman are thrilled to have their old friend back, they notice that something about Chef seems different. When Chef’s strange behavior starts getting him in trouble, the boys pull out all the stops to save him.”