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LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Actor Tom Cruise threatened to boycott promotion of his upcoming Paramount Pictures film unless a sister cable TV network pulled a "South Park" rerun lampooning the Church of Scientology, industry sources said on Friday.

Representatives for Paramount and Cruise, a prominent Scientologist, denied he made any such threats or had anything to do with the Comedy Central network canceling plans to air a repeat of the "South Park" episode titled "Trapped in the Closet," on Wednesday.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of the crudely animated cartoon hit, issued a quirky statement, filled with references to Scientology and the science-fiction writings of church founder L. Ron Hubbard, suggesting Scientology was behind the scheduling change.

"So, Scientology, you have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for Earth has just begun," the pair wrote.

"Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"

Instead of the Tom Cruise episode, the network aired reruns of two "South Park" episodes featuring the character Chef, voiced by veteran soul singer Isaac Hayes, also a Scientologist, who quit the show earlier this week.

Comedy Central, which like Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc., declined comment on the rerun switch, other than to say: "In light of the events of earlier this week, we wanted to give Chef an appropriate tribute by airing two episodes he is most known for."

Two industry sources familiar with the situation told Reuters Comedy Central pulled the "Trapped in the Closet" episode from its "South Park" rerun rotation after Cruise threatened to cease promotion of his upcoming Paramount film, "Mission: Impossible III."

Cruise spokesman Paul Bloch said neither the actor nor his representatives "had anything to do" with the scheduling of "South Park" reruns and that Cruise had never said to anyone he would refuse to promote his film. Paramount spokeswoman Janet Hill denied any knowledge of such a threat.

"South Park," heading into its 10th season next week as one of Comedy Central's biggest hits, centers on the antics of four foul-mouthed fourth-graders in a small Colorado town.

Outlandish religious satire has been a mainstay of the show since its debut in 1997, poking fun at Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Buddhists and Muslims. One early episode featured a martial-arts duel between Jesus and Santa Claus over the true meaning of Christmas.

While Hayes cited the show's ridicule of religion generally as his reason for leaving the series, Stone said in a statement on Monday the soul singer was specifically upset about the "Trapped in the Closet" episode, which first aired last fall.

In it, the character named Stan scores so high on a Scientology test that church followers think he is the next L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise is depicted locking himself in Stan's closet and then refusing repeated requests by various characters to "come out of the closet," including John Travolta, who eventually joins Cruise in the closet.

http://www.cnn.com/2006....ex.html


Damn man, you need to take a freakin' joke.

In other news...


http://us.imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-03-21/

Trey Parker and Matt Stone have filmed a last-minute episode of South Park in response to Scientologist Isaac Hayes' request to be released from his contract because the show mocked his religion. The creators are launching the tenth season of the series on US network Comedy Central on Wednesday, with an episode featuring Hayes' character Chef. Because South Park episodes only take six days to create, Stone and Parker were able to react to the current controversy soon after it happened. According to a Comedy Central press release, the show will feature, "The triumphant homecoming of school chef Jerome McElroy. While Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman are thrilled to have their old friend back, they notice that something about Chef seems different. When Chef's strange behavior starts getting him in trouble, the boys pull out all stops to save him."

Crazy Cruise is at it again eh? That boy needs some sense knocked into him.

I wonder if he knows Scientology is a cult... The founder even admitted he only made it up to cheat people out of their money. (Well, people ARE dumb enough to give a total stranger part of their paycheck, so really it's their own fault.)

south park getting sued.................. not surprised there

I didn't read the whole article, I lost interest.


But, I think that if it's totally ok for anyone and everyone to make fun of Christianity, then Scientology is damn well up for a little ridicule.

well people cannot help if scientology is a made up peice of poop.

I mean... aliens making humans?

Set wrote:Crazy Cruise is at it again eh? That boy needs some sense knocked into him.

I wonder if he knows Scientology is a cult... The founder even admitted he only made it up to cheat people out of their money. (Well, people ARE dumb enough to give a total stranger part of their paycheck, so really it's their own fault.)

well really, any religion can be viewed as a cult

I'm really sick of Tommyboy right now, so I'm just going to cut and paste what I said in another forum:

Apparently Scientologists only have an open mind and good sense of humor when making fun of other religions. I didn't even know what Scientology was until Tom and Ike threw these temper trantrums over it.

I say let Tom boycott his own movie. I'm not going to watch anything he's in after that display of immaturity anyway.

Of course, the only thing Tom and Ike are really doing is giving Trey and Matt more material to work with. It's when someone doesn't try to correct you and instead throws a public hissy fit and demands that you be boycotted and/or banned that you know you've hit the nail on the head as far as messed up religion goes. Look at their media response -- their already going at it!

"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
~George Carlin

Got to love South Park!

Let me show you my cartoon of L. Ron Hubbard wearing a turban that looks like a bomb.

Sheez. Religious fanatics can get so... fanatic.

Absolutely nuts. Is issac hayes actually elaving or was that just another 'hissy fit' too?

becuase if chef goes away.. well. bleh.. you know? he's one of the well-known characters and the voice is imortant in animated cartoons.

Trey and Matt released him from his contract and they've already made an episode allowing Chef's departure. Yeah, his character will be missed, but now that all of South Park's fans know why Chef is leaving, I don't think they'll care too much.

And of course that Scientology episode is going to be the most highly sought-after for downloads. Think Tommy (I refuse to call him by his full name -- he has no right to be referred to as anything that implies he's an adult) will throw another hissy fit when that season DVD comes out?

Renorei wrote:I didn't read the whole article, I lost interest.


But, I think that if it's totally ok for anyone and everyone to make fun of Christianity, then Scientology is damn well up for a little ridicule.

Whats that countries name shows mad at the US for putting up thier god in a cartoon.

Heh. This sort of thing always amuses me. If anything, I'm now interested in buying the aforementioned south park DVD, and I've never really held any interest in the show (or TV in general for that matter). I wonder if they realize that they're only digging themselves in deeper with this. Then again, being scientologists, I suppose I couldn't expect them to be able to work that out on their own.

http://www.deviantart.com/view/31210479/

Made this. Kinda based off this article.

I've always been confused by things like religions... i mean all they seem to be is an excuse for people to piss and moan at eachother about this, that and the other. No matter what your religion is there will always be a way that some else can mock it, so I say people should either take it with a grain of salt, or just become an atheist. I don't think there's anything in the world you can say to a devout atheist about their "religion" that could offend them.


Cruiser... as well as of other scientologists... need to understand that because that it doen't matter what they worship, people are going to make fun of them, as they would any religion. I mean... I'm a therian, i know it isn't a religion, but still. I've acepted that their will be people and life that will mock me endlessly about it.


Long story short, crunchy peanut butter is better then smooth... ahmen.

Lyco wrote:I've always been confused by things like religions... i mean all they seem to be is an excuse for people to piss and moan at eachother about this, that and the other. No matter what your religion is there will always be a way that some else can mock it, so I say people should either take it with a grain of salt, or just become an atheist. I don't think there's anything in the world you can say to a devout atheist about their "religion" that could offend them.


Cruiser... as well as of other scientologists... need to understand that because that it doen't matter what they worship, people are going to make fun of them, as they would any religion. I mean... I'm a therian, i know it isn't a religion, but still. I've acepted that their will be people and life that will mock me endlessly about it.


Long story short, crunchy peanut butter is better then smooth... ahmen.

A religion topic, eh? Ok I'll give you my thoughts an...an...ahh, I'm not going to waste my time on that silly topic. So to make it worth talking about, Peanut butter is good.

Religion is hardly a silly topic. But, Scientologists certainly shouldn't get all pissy when people make fun of them. Christians have been made fun of for years, and so have people of every other religion.

In a perfect world, nobody would EVER make fun of anyone else's religion...people really ought to be a little more sensitive to something that is very important to someone else. But, in this imperfect world, I suppose the best we can settle for is to allow everyone to make fun of EVERY religion.

Well, to an Agnostic like me, its silly.

Hamster wrote:Well, to an Agnostic like me, its silly.

Well, that's true. But, you can probably understand why it's very important to some people. Also, nice comic strip!

Renorei wrote:

Hamster wrote:Well, to an Agnostic like me, its silly.

Well, that's true. But, you can probably understand why it's very important to some people. Also, nice comic strip!

Fanks!


Yeah, I do. Some people need to belive in something to get through life. I use to but I've been &*&* so many times by "god", I just don't know anymore.

Hamster wrote:

Renorei wrote:

Hamster wrote:Well, to an Agnostic like me, its silly.

Well, that's true. But, you can probably understand why it's very important to some people. Also, nice comic strip!

Fanks!


Yeah, I do. Some people need to belive in something to get through life. I use to but I've been &*&* so many times by "god", I just don't know anymore.

As an interesting sidenote.