Cartoon Wars Part II
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"Cartoon Wars Part II" is episode 1004 of South Park which aired on April 12, 2006. It concludes the story arc begun in the previous episode, "Cartoon Wars Part I."
Plot
In the beginning of the episode, in a reference to "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus", it is announced that Part II will not be seen, and a Terrance and Phillip episode will be shown instead. The T&P episode includes an image of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, which is censored by the CBC. After the broadcast, Terrance and Phillip go to the head of the CBC to complain about the censorship, saying that Family Guy will be showing Mohammed uncensored. The head of the CBC says that it doesn't matter, as somebody is probably on their way right now to stop Family Guy.After leaving Kyle injured on the side of the road in the previous episode, Cartman races to the headquarters of Family Guy, determined to put an end to the show once and for all. When he arrives at the studio, he finds that he is second in line to meet with the network's executives, behind a character who is never named, but is an obvious parody of Bart Simpson. He convinces the lookalike to let him do the job, explaining that using fear to get what he wants "Isn't like terrorism, it is terrorism". Cartman then meets with the executives, making up a fictional story about being Danish and having his dad killed by terrorists. He tries to manipulate the executives, but they tell him that they have been unsuccessful at persuading the writing staff; they encourage him to try.
Meanwhile, Kyle has caught up with Cartman. He arrives at the Fox Studio, but encounters the Bart Simpson character who, since he is also trying to put an end to Family Guy, traps him in a maintenance closet.
In another scene, George W. Bush is asked questions about the Family Guy episode. He responds that it is protected under the First Amendment. The reporters act as if the First Amendment is something completely new to them, asking questions like, "How are you going to deal with this 'First Amendment?'"
Cartman finally meets the Family Guy writing staff, which, it turns out, is actually a group of several manatees. The manatees pick up "idea balls" from the right side of their large tank, and move them over to a hole on the left side. Each ball has the name of a person, a verb, or a pop-culture reference written onto its face. The idea balls travel down a shaft and are collected; a group of five of these idea balls forms a Family Guy joke (e.g. "Laundry" + "Winning" + "Date" + "Mexico" + "Gary Coleman"). The manatees will not work if any idea ball is removed from their tank (arguably symbolic to South Park creators' inability to continue working if certain topics like Islam or Scientology are off-limits). Since he is unsuccessful in reasoning with the manatees (as they are, apparently, the only mammal not moved by terrorist threats, according to the episode), Cartman removes a ball from their tank, causing them to stop working. He then convinces the Fox president that the manatees are spoiled, and are traipsing over the executives. The president decides to have the new Family Guy episode pulled from the lineup.
Meanwhile, Kyle has convinced Bart to free him. He and Cartman meet and engage in a fight for nearly a minute straight. With Bart Simpson's help, Kyle prevails.
Kyle rushes to find the network's president, catching him moments before both the episode is pulled and its scheduled airtime. Cartman shows up, and the boys present their two conflicting views to the network president. Cartman threatens him with a gun, but Kyle eventually convinces him that submitting to Cartman's will because he is threatening violence is allowing terrorism to win, so the Family Guy episode is allowed to air uncensored.
The South Park episode then proceeds to show the fictional Family Guy segment containing the image of Mohammed. Within the show's reality, the episode appeared uncensored, but the actual footage of Mohammed is replaced in the South Park episode with a black screen showing only centered, small, white print reading, "In this shot, Mohammed hands a football helmet to Family Guy," and successively, "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network."
The terrorists see the Family Guy episode and become infuriated. Their retaliation is a crude animated video showing cardboard cutouts of George W. Bush, Carson Kressley, Angelina Jolie, other Americans and Jesus defecating on each other and the American flag. Finally, al-Zawahiri declares, through captions, "Oh yeah, take THAT! We burned you! THAT WAS WAY FUNNIER THAN FAMILY GUY."
Real-life censorship controversy
Immediately after the episode aired, there was much speculation about whether Comedy Central actually censored the image of Mohammed, as represented within the episode. This is not the first time this has happened - in syndicated airings of some earlier episodes ("Fat Camp", "Red Hot Catholic Love") portions had been cut and replaced with intertitle cards explaining what had been cut out ("for your protection"), accompanied by soothing music.
On April 13, 2006, Comedy Central issued a statement [link] which appears to confirm that the network did prohibit the show's creators from airing an image of Mohammed. The statement reads, "In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision." An anonymous source close to the show indicated that Trey Parker & Matt Stone were informed of the policy several weeks earlier, and wrote this story arc in protest.
An April 13, 2006 interview [link] with South Park Executive Producer Anne Garefino by Jim Lindgren on the weblog The Volokh Conspiracy reveals that the producers of the show continued to fight with the network executives over the censored scene right up to the night before the show aired. According to Garefino, the producers were given the choice to censor the scene themselves, or to provide the scene intact and allow Comedy Central to censor it. The producers elected to write the language of the censoring statement themselves. "We wanted everyone to understand how strongly we felt about this," said Garafino. The network's decision was reportedly based on fear of violent reprisal, rather than out of a sense of religious tolerance.
A version of the episode featuring an uncensored Mohammed was animated. However, Garefino confirmed that an Internet clip [link] which purported to be the deleted scene was a forgery.
The plot of the episode can be interpreted as a direct satirical plea to Comedy Central executives (specifically, network president Doug Herzog) to reconsider their position on censorship. This interpretation is supported by the closing narration of Part I, which directly challenges Comedy Central not to "puss out," even though the plot of the show is ostensibly about Fox. Further support for this view can be found in the scene where Kyle attempts to convince the Fox president to air the Family Guy episode featuring Mohammed. Kyle says, "Yes, people can get hurt. That's how terrorism works. But if you give in to that, Doug, you're allowing terrorism to work." The current president of Entertainment for the Fox Broadcasting Company is named Peter Liguori. The name "Doug" is presumably a veiled reference to Comedy Central's president Doug Herzog, who previously served as president of Fox TV Entertainment from 1998-1999.
In the ending of the episode, terrorist leader al-Zawahiri 'retaliates' to the airing of Mohammed by airing a short cartoon showing Jesus, President Bush, and others defecating on each other and the American flag, satirising American life (al-Zawahiri ends it saying, "We burned you!"). This serves to illustrate the hypocrisy of the censorship decision. It raises the question, "Why is this acceptable to air, while an image of Mohammed, 'just standing there, looking normal,' is not?"
There may also be a relationship between the terrorists and actor and Celebrity-Scientologist Tom Cruise. Existing rumors point towards Cruise threatening Paramount Studios, the producing company behind Cruise's summer vehicle, , with not doing any publicity for the film if the episode Trapped in the Closet were to air again. Paramount put pressure on Viacom which in turn owns Comedy Central to not air the episode. Thus, it can also be read that the comments about terrorism being fear based are inclusive of Cruise, using Paramount's fear of revenue loss if he were not to publicize the film, to get the episode pulled from airing rotation.
FOX references
This episode is filled with many analogies, sight gags, and parodies of FOX properties including:
- A South Park version of Bart Simpson appears in this episode, wearing a red shirt, blue shorts, having spiked hair, and carrying a green skateboard. He, like Cartman, hates Family Guy, a reference to both the fact that The Simpsons creator Matt Groening shares the opinion with Trey and Matt that Family Guy has crude humor and doesn't use relevant jokes that have to do with the subject at hand, as well as the fact that Family Guy is often accused of being a Simpsons ripoff. The character here occasionally uses old Bart catchphrases such as "Eat my shorts", and in one scene can be seen writing "I hate Family Guy" repeatedly on a wall outside the Fox Studios, a reference to his famous chalkboard gags. The character is never mentioned by name; Cartman and Kyle only refer to him as "that kid".
- *Bart Simpson is depicted differently from the way South Park depicted him in "Simpsons Already Did It." In this episode, his character design is altered to resemble that of South Park characters, whereas in the previous episode, his design was much closer to how he actually appears on The Simpsons. The reason for this is that in the previous episode, he existed in the South Park universe solely as a television character, but here, he is an actual living character in the show's world.
- When Cartman and the South Park version of Bart are arguing about who is "badder", Bart refers to The Simpsons' episode, "The Telltale Head." Cartman references the South Park episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die" to win the argument. This scene is virtually identical to a scene in The Simpsons where Bart was making fun of child star Jay North for the tameness of his character Dennis the Menace (in the episode "Take My Wife, Sleaze").
- As Cartman enters the Fox TV studio parking lot, a billboard for Family Guy can be seen showing the airdate for Family Guy episodes as "Mondays on FOX". In this episode, however, the new Family Guy installment airs on a Friday. Both of these are in contrast to the real Family Guy, which airs on Sunday.
- During Cartman and Kyle's fight, they pass a sign for Cold Age: The Smackdown, a parody of FOX's , which was the #1 movie at the box office at the time. Fox was also, at the time, very persistent with placing static ads for the movie during nearly all of their shows.
- When Cartman and Kyle are "fighting", they crash through the window of the King of the Hill animation studios. On the wall is a poster which reads "11th season!", a reference to the show's recent unexpected renewal for an eleventh season by FOX. Curiously, out of the four Fox franchises featured in this episode (along with Family Guy, 24, and Simpsons), it is the only one which the South Park creators chose not to mock (it should be noted that Trey Parker and Matt Stone have a friendship with King of the Hill creator Mike Judge [link], who provided the voice for the unmuffled Kenny in ).
- The scene of the King of the Hill animation studio also seems to be an analogy. While Kyle and Cartman are fighting, the staff in the studio is quietly working along. It seems to be a parable implying that King of the Hill is a show that, very quietly, is entering its 11th season and is continuing on as a successful series despite the countless other shows that have come and gone on the network.
- When Kyle and Cartman are both trying to convince the network president to concede to their point of view, Kiefer Sutherland's real face can be seen on a wall poster for "26," a parody of 24.
- At one point, one can see a statue of Lois Griffin from Family Guy in the background. The only difference is that she is depicted with brown hair and bangs instead of her red hair on Family Guy.
- Cartman quotes, "I am GOD!" could be a reference to The Simpsons episode Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore which aired a few days before this episode.
Trivia
- Despite Comedy Central's ban, Muhammad has been hidden in the opening credits since the episode "Smug Alert!" He is standing next to Satan and Scott Tenorman in the final shot of the sequence. Prior to the ban, Muhammad was also shown in a fifth-season South Park episode, "Super Best Friends."
- Attack of the Show host Kevin Pereira is quoted as saying "If Trey Parker and Matt Stone gave me their censored "Salmon Helmet" clip, I would GLADLY show it on Attack of the Show"
- Some of the "Idea Balls" that can be seen in the tank read: Laundry, Eraser, Colony, Germany, Nicaragua, Nature, Winning, Truth, Mexico, Britney Spears, Arial, Airplane, Genius, Tornado, Fishing, Pizza, Gary Coleman, Date, Riverdance, Headphones, Anorexia, Moisture, Times...
- The Family Guy staff member who shows Cartman the manatees physically resembles Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane.
- This is the fourth multi-part episode arc in South Park, the first being "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut"/"Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut," the second being "Cat Orgy"/"Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub"/"Jewbilee", and the third being "Do the Handicapped Go To Hell?"/"Probably."
- Cartman and Kyle are the only characters from the town of South Park to appear in this episode.
- The episode began as if to play an episode of Terrance and Phillip instead of the conclusion to the previous week's episode. This is a reference to an April Fool's Day prank Parker and Stone pulled at the beginning of South Park's second season when they aired a complete Terrance and Phillip episode ("Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus") instead of the anticipated conclusion to "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut." This provoked an extremely negative reaction from fans who were expecting the second part of the episode.
- Terrance appears to have lost some weight since "", but is still overweight.
- The song that plays during the Terrance and Phillip segment is Frankie Trumbauer's "Singin' The Blues".
- When Cartman is relating how his father's office building was attacked by suicide bombers, it bears a strong resemblance to how Gary related how his goats were supposedly destroyed by "infidels" in Team America: World Police.
- Cartman's line right before the fight "let this be our final battle" echos the words of Skeletor in the movie Masters of the Universe right before the fight between himself and He-Man. The gag here is that after Skeletor says this, he and He-Man clash swords in a dramatic scene, with a bright light in thunder: here, Cartman and Kyle just start slapping each other. The line was used in the episode "Cartman's Incredible Gift" in which several psychic detectives challenge a newly-clairvoyant Cartman to a psychic showdown.
- This is one of several times that Cartman makes a comment about Scott Tenorman.
- William Donohue, of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, argued that Stone & Parker should resign out of principle for being censored, stating, "The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central...it's Parker and Stone. Like little whores, they'll sit there and grab the bucks. They'll sit there and they'll whine and they'll take their shot at Jesus. That's their stock in trade." [link]
- When the man drops Kyle off at Fox studio, he says that he is sick of cartoon shows that are "up its own ass with messages." This is in reference to South Park itself. A similar reference is made in the first scene of the episode when the CBC describes the fictional Terrence and Phillip show as "so preachy and full of messages that it's forgotten how to be funny."
- The "pull this episode" code that the Fox president is giving when Kyle interrupts him is the same as the final destruct code that Captain Kirk used to destroy the Starship Enterprise in : "Zero Zero Destruct Zero".
- When Cartman and Kyle are fighting, it is not like how they were fighting in the preview shown on "Cartoon Wars Part I."
- Unlike in previous episodes, when Cartman and Kyle fight in this episode, they seem to be equally matched. In other episodes, such as "It's Christmas in Canada", Kyle defeats Cartman easily, while in "Damien", Cartman is able to knock over Kyle easily. Kyle also beats Cartman in an off-screen fight in "Goobacks."
- There's a bit of inconsistency in this episode. Terrence gained weight in "", in season 5, but was skinny again in season 6's "The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer", "Simpsons Already Did It" and in season 10's "The Return of Chef." The creators appear to have ignored this. However, it can be argued that Terrence just gained a little of the weight back between "The Return of Chef" and now.
- Another inconsistency surfaces during the fight between Kyle and Cartman. After entering the King of the Hill studios, a clock on the wall says 2:02. However, immediately before then, a network worker stated that there was 25 minutes until the episode aired at 7:00pm.
- It can be argued that even though the Family Guy episode featuring Muhammad was not pulled, Cartman was successful in ultimately cancelling Family Guy. In the middle of the episode, Cartman removes some idea balls, never to be returned to the tank during the episode. Since Kyle did not know how Family Guy episodes were created, and no one else from the staff of Family Guy seems to realize that the idea balls were removed, it can be logically assumed that the "writers" stop working on any future Family Guy episodes.
- The female vice president of Fox resembles Glenn Close's character, the American Vice President in Air Force One in manner and dress.
Quotations from the episode
- A parody of President George W. Bush from the al-Qaeda retaliation video: "And I am the President Bush. I will crap on both of you!"
- A parody of Peter Griffin from Family Guy: "You think that's bad? Remember when..." (he starts most of his sentences out with this phrase)
- A character resembling Bart Simpson from The Simpsons: "Cowabunga, motherfucker!"
- Kyle: "Cartman! Let me out of this stupid net!"
Cartman: "Good Kyle! That's good anger you're showing there, you see that! That's emotional character development based on what's happening in the storyline! Not at all like Family Guy... Now, if you'll excuse me Kyle, I've got some idea balls to remove from a manatee tank."
Kyle: "...WHAT?!" - Bart: "Isn't that like terrorism?"
Cartman: "No, it isn't like terrorism; it is terrorism!" - Cartman: "This is manipulation at its highest level. You should let me handle this."
Bart: "I'm a pretty bad kid."
Cartman: "Really? What's the worst thing you've ever done?"
Bart: "I stole the head off a statue once."
Cartman: "Wow, that's pretty hardcore. Jeez. That's like this one time when I didn't like a kid, so I ground his parents up into chili and fed it to him."
Bart: (skateboards away) "...you got it, man." - Cartman: "I....AM....GOD!!!"
External links
- [The fake deleted clip]
- [South Park Studios]
- AP story about the episode "['South Park' aims at censors, hits Bush, Jesus]"
- Interview with Executive Producer Anne Garefino "[Comedy Central Censored out of Fear, not Tolerance]"
- [Petition to air the episode uncensored]
See also
| Preceded by: Cartoon Wars Part I | South Park episodes | Followed by: A Million Little Fibers |
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