Airwaves Again Safe for "South Park" Scientology Spoof

From Yahoo courtesy of AlterNet:

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 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."

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For exposing the looney but lawyer-laden and extremely wealthy Hollywood UFO cult known as Scientology for the predatory organization it is, I will now think of South Park as a definitive example of Real Art. Indeed, Scientology is nothing but a money-sucking scam of immense proportions, worthy of only scorn, ridicule, and maybe government action shutting them down for good. Their existence is an insult to anyone in the world with a brain. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who I already liked a great deal, have my eternal respect and admiration for using their show to go after these con-artists.

And Tom Cruise totally deserves this, the big fucking idiot.

Haven't seen it yet? Here you go, via Throw away your TV. It's pretty darned funny; the final lines of the episode, where Stone and Parker speak directly to Scientology lawsuit-command through Stan, is sublime.

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