South Park - "201" - Talkback [4/21]

And the black censored bar as Muhammed's form was certainly intentional, seeing as it's how Tom Cruise looked like once he "absorbed Muhammed's power".
 
Casa Bonita is a real restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado, right? Did Matt and Trey eat there? I agree that people might be reading too much into its destruction.
 
Yup, I remember going to one when I was younger. There was an (artificial, of course!) waterfall on the inside of it, that's all I remember.

Although I don't know if it's still open or not.
 
I don't know this might be one elaborate prank on the fanbase. A lot of those beeps added a lot to the comedic effect of the episode as if they were intentional.
 
At first I found it strange, then it struck me as possibly intentional. However it's noteworthy that the South Park Studios message references "numerous additional audio bleeps." Most of 201's censored language was the name Muhammad, so we can reach a logical conclusion about that. The censoring of the moral at the end we can only guess at for now though, I think.
 
As bad as Comedy Central is for doing this, the guys from that Muslim Revolution site who threatened them are even worse. Let's make sure our bad guys stay properly prioritized.

So yeah, I'd love to see them do an episode on the website. I wonder how much Comedy Central would chop it up.
 
I think I remember something. Near the end of the first part of the season 1 finale, I think Cartman was having a dream of a Denver Bronco being his father, and I think it looked a little bit like Tenorman's father. I wish I could remember it more.
 
If so, then Comedy Central executives have lied to several legitimate news outlets, as they have been confirming the story throughout the morning.
 
Indeed.

Look, from a business standpoint Comedy Central needs to protect themselves. I know if I was in charge of that network and had religious radicals sending threats to the people I employed I would probably have gone censor happy as well. I wouldn't have pulled all related offensive episodes, but I'd be doing whatever I could to save my skin and the skins of the people who work for me. Allowing this episode to air as-is so soon after the sort of threats CC was receiving - and believe me, these types of people can be unpredictably scary - probably would have been a bad idea.

It's really easy to sit here and scream "South Park should fight back!" or "Their freedom of speech is being violated!" but I think if any of you were in charge of a network of Comedy Central and had to deal with something like this I guarantee you'd be playing it as cautious as possible.

Saying "Screw these guys, we're going to air it anyway and call your bluff" might have been a disastrous move.
 
When I was watching the episode with closed captioning, Muhammed's name was uncensored in the text for about 2/4 of the episode. During the second half, any referenced of Muhammed's name was spelled out as [bleep] on the closed captions.

All in all, if South Park ended today (which won't happen anytime soon, since it's Comedy Central's highest rated show and biggest cash cow), I would pretty much be satisified if it was going to go out with the "201" episode. We got all of these resolutions (such as Cartman's real father's identity) and character returns (e.g. Scott Tenorman, Pip, Mr. Hat, the Super Best Friends, Dr. Mephisto, Tom Cruise, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand, etc.) after 13+ years of build up.
 
But that's letting yourself be controlled by terror. If all radicals need to do to keep us from doing things they don't like is issue shadowy threats of violence, then they -own- us. We're their slaves who can be made to do whatever they want as long as they stay in the shadows and keep us scared. Americans in general feel a need to rebel against this type of attempt at authority through intimidation despite the risks, and that's why so many people are disappointed that Comedy Central didn't.
 
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