South Park censored by Comedy Central

Posted by Morbid

South Park censored by Comedy Central
Date: April 23, 2010 12:47PM
Posted by: Morbid

Registered: 20 years ago

From [tv.ign.com]

South Park Censored
UPDATED: Matt and Trey speak out on Comedy Central's audio alterations.
by Eric Goldman
LATEST IMAGES
View all 38 images

April 22, 2010 - Last night's South Park was certainly unusual for the show. Oh, sure, we've heard bleeps before on the series, but it is usually for curse words. Last night though, the series instead bleeped out a name – Muhammad. Or to be specific, "Prophet Muhammad."

Last week's episode, "200", featured a plot point where Muhammad appeared, but wore a bear costume the entire time. This was South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker clear satirical take on the fear of portraying Muhammad at all in recent years, after Danish comic strip depictions led to a huge outcry. They'd actually previously acknowledged the issue in the "Cartoon Wars" two-parter a couple of years ago, in a storyline about Family Guy deciding to show Muhammad, and the controversy that causes. The subject is especially notable to Stone and Parker, as they depicted Muhammad, with no controversy, in the "Super Best Friends" episode nine years ago – but that episode debuted just two months before September 11th, and clearly things changed after that.

After "200" aired last week, a US-based website named RevolutionMuslim.com wrote, "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. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them." Van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004, for a film about the treatment of Muslim women.

In the wake of that statement, when this week's "201" aired, Muhammad was now covered by a large black "censored" block and not seen at all – but even more bizarre was that every time the name was said, it was bleeped out. Comedy Central has now confirmed this was their call, not Matt and Trey's.

"201" is not available online at SouthParkStudios.com. Instead there is a message, which appears to be from Matt and Trey, reading, "After we delivered the show, and prior to broadcast, comedy central placed numerous additional audio bleeps throughout the episode. We do not have network approval to stream our original version of the show."

Update: Matt and Trey have now released a longer statement at SouthParkStudios.com.

It reads: "In the 14 years we've been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We'll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we'll see what happens to it."

It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.