Tom Cruise Forces Comedy central to pull south park episode.

I assume this means that the episode won't be released on DVD either. Then again, I don't know what Cruise would threaten them with. You'd think he'd have grown a sense of humor by now.

Doesn't make sense. So what if he pulled the MI3 ads? It's not like they'd have 30 seconds of dead air without them! There'd be other advertisers.

These pussies should stand up and say "Fine. You never get to appear on any Viacom owned TV station again." I mean who has the real power here?

Way to post a story and not give your sources.

Knowing it's on Defamer, I goto Defamer.com, scan down the page, click on the article in question and.......tada!

http://www.defamer.com/hollywood/tom...eat-161024.php

Again?

I heard this morning on the radio that Cruise threatened to not do any publicity for MI:3 (also distributed by Paramount) if they aired the episode again.

If that's true, it's very short-sighted by Cruise, because his name is all over the movie, not only in acting in it, but producing it as well. He'd be an idiot not to publicize his own movie because he's so protective of Scientology. Of course, if you've already got billions of dollars, I guess the movie would just be a big write off otherwise.

I'm so torn about this movie because on the one hand, Tom Cruise is in it, but on the other hand, so is P.S. Hoffman and Simon Pegg. I was never a huge Tom Cruise fan in the first place, but he has really turned me off the last 4-5 years.

Cruise not doing publicity might not be an altogether bad thing. I know more than a few people who were so put off by his antics on the War of the Worlds publicity tour that they opted out of seeing the movie.

Viacom owns Paramount. Paramount is releasing Tom's movie. The report says Cruise is threatening his own company. He's telling them to choose between promoting one of their biggest blockbusters or airing a South Park repeat. Assuming Cruise has the clout to make good on his threat, pulling the SP episode is obviously in Viacom's best interest.

Parker and Stone were on Letterman a couple nights ago. They talked a bit about Hayes quitting the show because of the Scientology episode but both Cruise and the plot of the episode were not mentioned. May not mean much but it seemed a bit odd.

They also weren't on for that long and the question was the last asked I believe. If they do Leno and don't talk about it then s omething is up.

Paramount should have called his bluff. There is no way Cruise doesn't promote this movie. This is a guy who flew his 7 month pregnant wife to Australia to fend off rumors of a break up. He's all about promotion and nothing would stop him esp. when not promoting it could cost 20+ million dollars.

But Letterman is under the same Viacom umbrella that “South Park” is. I’m not really trying to paint Letterman in a bad light it just seemed like it would be obvious to bring up Cruise. I certainly don’t think Letterman is worried about his bosses, especially after how he let Howard Stern go off on Les Moonves earlier in the week.

It all sounds like unsubstantiated rumors. Unless Viacom has money in MI:3, I can't imagine they would care about losing the ads, anyway.

That being said, the South Park episode is not really appropriate. It's blatantly hateful and that whole "this is what they actually believe" section goes beyond any sort of veil of satire that the creators can usually hide behind. Why don't they do a "this is what Christians actually believe" mockery or one on Islam, etc.?

Scientologists are an easy target. There's little that separates their beliefs from any other religion, though. It's all make believe.

As BobClark pointed out, MI:3 is a Paramount Movie, Viacom owns Paramount, therefore Viacom DOES have a vested monetary interest in MI:3

Didn't they do something akin to this regarding Mormonism? It's been some time since I saw that episode, but I thought it was a pretty good sized slam on how "silly" their beliefs seemed. Although, if I recall, they seemed to make the point at the end that it was okay to be that bizarre sounding because faith is a positive thing to have. Not sure how that episodes compares to what they are doing with Scientology though; it's been a while since I've seen any South Park.

I didnt hear about this, but I noticed that the other episode that was supposed to be paired with "coming out of the closet" was also not what it was billed as.

Any chance this was just a tvguide error or something?

Matt and Trey respond via their lawyers

No, they actually promoted the fact that they would be airing "Trapped in the Closet" on air. It's part of their "most offensive episodes" countdown, I believe.

Here! Here! I concur with you sir!

Not appropriate? For whom, South Park viewers? You obviously don't watch South Park if you can make such an inane statement.

I have an extremely radical idea for you-If you don't like it, then don't watch it.

Didn't I read on CHUD somewhere, possibly in the message boards, that Cruise already stopped it from being shown in the UK?

I did some reading up on Scientology for a report I did in school on fringe religions and even did some correspondence with a few scientologists for said report, and the things that are talked about in the episode are things they believe. So the fuss must be over the gay jokes, I take it. Or they're just embarrassed over the silly shit they believe in.

Yeah, two months ago.
http://chud.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88398

They hate it when their beliefs are "outed". In interviews, Cruise has continually denied that Scientology's belief system has anything to do with aliens, and they've threatened legal action against former members who've spilled the beliefs to the press, and hotly deny that these people know what they're talking about. The most extreme and insane beliefs (as depicted on South Park) are only revealed to those who've achieved high ranks in the "church", and are not to be shared with the outside world. Why? Because, as you say, they're embarrassed. They know exactly how stupid it sounds.

I think "They Are a Bugfuck Cult Created to Con People" applies better, Nigel.

That's it: you're not allowed to see Mission: Impossible 3 now.

Oh heavens. Whatever shall I do?

For Millette, the HUNT IS OFF.

Parker and Stone respond in humorous fashion:

More tidbits.
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/ap/20060317/114265290000.html

Because, really, what kind of religion charges its followers thousands of dollars to find out some half baked truth involving alien ghosts living in our bodies and being responsible for all our problems. Can you imagine someone finding that out that the reason that they severed ties with their loved ones, bankrupting themselves and basically signing away their lives was merely a figment of a deluded, racist, homphobic failed science fiction writer? You'd crack at that point and give up hope too because that's all you have left in the world and hope that someday you can set things right again before its too late.

It isn't even necessary when you look at it. I mean, by Scieno standards, contributions by people like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo DiVinci, etc. must be tainted because they were all full of 'thetans'. And what exactly do they themselves have to contribute? Well, apart from providing lawyers with lots of work and enough unsold copies of Battlefield Earth to have repaired the levies, I can't think of one [useful] thing that's changed our lives for the better apart from joke fodder.

I applaude Matt and Trey and wish them luck in dealing with this cult. Hail Xenu!

What a shock - Scientologists acting like Fundies.

Has the whole world gone cuckoo for Zenu?

One gets the feeling that Scientology has fucked with the wrong guys. You never want to piss off comedy writers. During the height of the age of the Simpsons, anytime a group wrote in to express their dismay at an off-handed comment about them in an episode, the writers would respond by doing an entire episode about them. I'd love to see Parker and Stone work up an entire movie on this, just to fuck with them.

Nah. They've already thrown a good punch and to keep hitting would make them guilty of the bigotry Hayes is accusing them of. Parker and Stone's argument is that they hit everyone equally. To keep hammering away at Scientology would not only make them appear bigotted, but it would start to make Scientologists look like martyrs, which is exactly what they would like.

You're probably right. It's just my personal desire to see Scientology get publicly reamed as often as possible. Maybe somebody should make a movie about Lisa MacPherson.

I think the Thetans have standing orders that if anybody thinks of making a Lisa MacPherson movie, their Thetans must telepathically alert Scientology high command.

While you've got part of a good point there, those religions didn't charge money for their revelations or their beliefs. Scientology is run like a profit-driven business, and they charge for their "services". Christ didn't own a yacht.

Very true of modern religion. But you mentioned the original practicioners, as in the twelve apostles. I don't think that Christ himself was charging for his philosophies. Modern Christianity has very little to do with Christ's teachings. So I guess that in that sense, Scientology is more honest. They're insane, and they're out to get rich, so it's certainly still in line with its founder.

It's really not. Two big differences:

1) You don't have to pay thousands of dollars to learn the tenants of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. Yes, all those religions ask for donations, but they don't deny you the religion if you don't pay.

2) The leaders of non-fundamentalist Jews, Christians, et al. don't abuse those who choose to leave their faith.

The episode in question...

http://www.buzzpatrol.com/news/tv/ba...ode-003546.php

You're right, nobody should bother complaining about abuse of power. We should just sit back and accept it. That's worked really well for us throughout history.

Ah, but it wasn't always like that. Originally, their beliefs were a closely guarded secret till some pissed of ex Scienos (who weren't too happy with Miscaviage's new management) publically outed the whole 'alien' angle in a court case. Scientologists publically deny the whole Xenu story but you know they still feel a bit ridiculed by it being out in the open. Also, they refuse to believe that an autopsy showed that Hubbard, who we all know hated psychiatrists ever since they told him he had an awful lot of problems, had a lot of meds in his system at the time of his death. Not only that, they don't think he died either, rather he 'willingly chose to leave this plain of existence and to return at a later date', which you must admit lends some credence to their claims of recieving powers of time and space itself the further you are into the program...

Guess they've basically become a mainstream religion (hypocrisy and all) in a much shorter time than all the others.

I thought the story was Hubbard is still living on his boat out to sea. I was told that his son sued the organization for not paying him his inheritance, the scientology officals claimed Hubbard was still alive on his boat, and the judge ruled that since Hubbard wouldn't come in to court that the son was entitled to the money.

Ok, I went to winipedia so I know that not what occured, but I recall my teacher talking about it so was there some lawsuit between L. Ron Hubbard's family and Scientology officals?

I saw the south park episode and it was hilarious, Xenu......Xenu?......what about Skeletor and Darth Vader, if it weren't for Optimus Prime and the rest of the Transformers I guess scientology wouldn't be what it is today. Even with the "this is what they actually believe" at the bottom of the screen I still didn't think that was actually part of the religion, then I looked it up and it read the same thing, hilarious. Wasn't L Ron a science fiction writer? and I also read that he said in a tv guide interview the best way to make a lot of money is to start a new religion. Cruise giving Parker and Stone the Matt Lauer treatment continues the comedy. I bet his initial response to the show was the same as when he got squirted with water, 8 fake laughs and then "you're a jerk". Can Travolta please chime in for my entertainment with his Vinnie Barbarino voice ".......like I don't think that's too cool how they're glamourizing Xenu like that". I mean, I personally consider all religions that involve supernatural phenomenons to be a bunch of bs for an ego trip, but the Xenu character is especially funny, is he like the male version of the "warrior princess", somebody needs to do a Lucy Lawless interview.