The buzz this week

For those of you that haven't heard, Isaac Hayes has left the vocal cast of "South Park". Hayes provided the voice for "Chef".

Apparently, he wasn't happy about an episode that pokes (a LOT) of fun at Scientology.
Fellow believers John Travolta, Tom Cruise and even R. Kelly were singled out in the episode.

Thursday, Comedy Central was going to re-air the episode but when millions of viewers, (ok....maybe a few hundred?) tuned in, we instead saw a different episode which reps for C.S. later were quoted as saying they wanted to show an episode which showcased "Chef" because Hayes was leaving.

The REAL scuttle-butt was that Tom Cruise himself was to blame for the last minute switch-a-roo. This was further promoted by the fact that the company putting out his latest movie, "MI-3" also owns Comedy Central and Cruise threatened not to promote the movie if the episode, which has a Cruise character hiding in a closet, was ran.

Now, I personally have not heard any news confirming Tom's snit, but my gut instincts say that he seems like the type of guy (after seeing a clip where he is on a Red Carpet event overseas to promote "War of the Worlds", and after getting squirted in the face with water by a fake microphone, goes on a small tirade) can totally see him pulling a stunt like this.

Since when have actors gotten SO big in themselves that they can not, will not,see the humor in parody?
I mean, come on! South Park has been satirizing everything from gays in the military, to the Ku Klux Klan and Hayes has not had a problem cashing his checks. But once Parker and Stone (the creators of S.P.) go after Scientology, put Tom Cruise in a closet and fill almost an entire episode with jokes of "trying to get Tom Cruise to come out of the closet", they've gone too far?
(Ok, I'll admit that that last part does seem like a personal attack on Cruise but DAMN it was funny).

One episode had the S.P. kids trying to build a ladder to Heaven, and showed a Saddam Hussain character having a gay relation with Satan, and that was ok??

As long as there is South Park, and other forms of parodies and satires, there will be people that don't like it. But is it really fair for one or a few entities to have the power and clout to be able to whine "well that doesn't make me look very good. I don't want anyone to be able to see it."

Putting representatives of real-life people can add to the comedy of a situation to remind us that dumb things are happening around us all the time.

"Chef" will be missed.