Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

-Short Attention Span Theater-

"My God, They Killed Chef!"

2006-03-23

South Park has exacted revenge on its former star Isaac Hayes by turning his character Chef into a paedophile and seemingly killing him off. The opening episode of the 10th series, screened in the US on Wednesday, appeared to be a satire on Scientology. Hayes, a Scientologist, quit the animated comedy after a different episode ridiculed the religion.

In the new show, Chef is brainwashed by the "Super Adventure Club" - thought to be a veiled reference to Scientology. The other characters are angry at "that fruity little club for scrambling his brains". Hayes did not participate in the episode but his lines were apparently patched together from previous recordings.

Chef arrives after travelling the world with the Super Adventure Club and repeatedly tells the children he wants to "make sweet love" to them. The children take him to a psychiatrist and then a strip club, where he remembers his love for women and is cured. But he is brainwashed by the Super Adventure Club again - before falling off a bridge and being burned, stabbed and mauled by a lion and a grizzly bear.

At his funeral, one of the children says: "A lot of us don't agree with the choices the Chef has made in the last few days. "Some of us feel hurt and confused that he seemed to turn his back on us. "But we can't let the events of the past few weeks take away the memories of how Chef made us smile."

Soul singer Hayes recently announced he had left the show because of its "intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs". But co-creator Matt Stone said: "In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews. "He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show."

US TV network Comedy Central then pulled a different episode, which mocked Tom Cruise and more explicitly lampooned Scientology. That prompted rumours that Cruise had demanded that the episode be dropped, which were denied by his representatives. Hayes, 63, was admitted to hospital with exhaustion in January.

Posted by:Steve

#7 Last night's episode featured Hayes' voice, but they spliced old dialogue together to do it. There was no attempt for it to be a believable edit - the intonation was unmistakably mismatched from word to word.

Wonder if this was an intentional slam on the clams claiming to speak for Hayes?

Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-03-23 12:53

#6 Last night's episode featured Hayes' voice, but they spliced old dialogue together to do it. There was no attempt for it to be a believable edit - the intonation was unmistakably mismatched from word to word.

And yes, the original "get Tom Cruise out of the closet" episode is one of the funniest things I've ever seen sober. If you're self important, you don't want to be on these guys bad side.

Posted by: Whaque Ebbuger6716 2006-03-23 12:33

#5 Hmmmm... "Woodland Creatures Christmas" is a favorite, as is the one where Jimmy and Timmy join a gang and the sea-people/sea-men episode.

Hard to really nail down an absolute favorite. There are a few I won't watch again, though, like the one where Mr. Garrison gets a sex change.

Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-03-23 11:41

#4 my favorite episode is the one where the kids end up praising Starbucks (it also has underwear gnomes).

Posted by: mhw 2006-03-23 11:35

#3 South Park has exacted revenge on its former star Isaac Hayes by turning his character Chef into a paedophile and seemingly killing him off.

Trust South Park to make sure their skewers are sharpened along their entire length.

I still like their original "Jesus versus Santa Claus" episode the best.

Posted by: Zenster 2006-03-23 11:33

#2 Not "exhaustion." He had a stroke. It's been reported that he did not make any statement about the Scientology episode; the "church" spoke for him.

BTW, it was a really funny episode.

Posted by: growler 2006-03-23 11:23

#1 I think the episode last night still featured the voice of Isaac Hayes.

Also the episode ended with the dead Chef being revived enough to be put into a Darth Vader life support armor type suit and using Darth type speech patterns.

Posted by: mhw 2006-03-23 11:22

00:00