“They Killed Chef! You Bastards!”
by Jeff Davis
For those unfamiliar, South Park is a bizarre cartoon which started out with a cult following on the Comedy Channel and has recently made its way to network TV. In each episode of the first season, the character Kenny was killed (reappearing in the next episode without explanaton). Each time Kenny met an unfortunate end, the characters Stan and Kyle would yell “They killed Kenny. You bastards!” Some episodes make hamburgers out of liberal sacred cows while other episodes have a nauseatingly liberal slant. The character Chef while frequently funny has unfortunate dating habits which would offend many Americans.
In a fascinating little Hollywood turf war, the weirded-out Church of Scientology cult has declared war on the frequently obscene and often deranged cartoon show South Park. Hollywood scuttlebutt has it that celeb Scientologist Tom Cruise got very upset with an episode entitled “Trapped In The Closet” which has some unkind things to say about him and fellow Scientologist John Travolta. In response, Cruise went into a sulk and threatened not to participate in promotions for his multi-million dollar sequel “Mission Impossible 3″ which is scheduled for release this summer, unless Viacom, which owns Comedy Channel and is a sister company to Paramount which is handling the movie, pulled a rerun of that South Park episode off the air. They complied and yanked the offending episode off the schedule at the last minute. (more…)