Part Two of the “South Park” Mohammed Episode – Liveblogged! With Spoilers!

As you’ve probably read, the guys who make the show “South Park” threw down the gauntlet last week to Comedy Central, basically daring them to air an image of Muhammed.

Well, the second part of that episode is tonight and, five minutes in, I’m already laughing. I decided to liveblog the show, so I’m shooting from the hip a lot here. Don’t expect pithy prose, but do expect spoilers.

Here we go.

After a brief recap of Part One, the show announced that Part Two wouldn’t be seen tonight so they could bring us a special presentation of an episode of Terrence and Phillip (anyone remember the fans’ heads exploding when Trey Parker and Matt Stone did that one before?).

That was one huge laugh out loud moment and, for a minute or so, I really wondered if Parker and Stone had thrown us one huge curve ball. That would have been an amazing joke, though I imagine the backlash would have been even worse than the “Who is Cartman’s Mom” debacle from a few years ago.

Not to worry, though. As Terrence and Phillip ride horses on a ranch, they come across..Muhammed! Except they really didn’t. Terrence and Phillip’s cartoon actually showed Muhammed behind a big black block that said “Cencored by the CBC” so you couldn’t see him. That led T&P to a confrontation with the head of the Canadian Broadcasting Commission which I can’t help but imagine wouldn’t be too far from the conversation Parker and Stone might have had with the head of Comedy Central

And, folks, the show really got going from there.

More funny than the “fake show” fakeout was the White House Press Conference that had President Bush defending the writers of Family Guy right to portray Muhammed because of the First Amendment. The reporters act as if it’s a great revelation and ask him if there’s any way he could do something about it. One calls is “bureaucratic jibbery-joo”. No word yet on if that character was based on NBC’s David Gregory.

Then again, there’s a masterful skewering of just about everyone, including network heads, Bart Simpson, the TV show “Family Guy” (written by manatees!). Did you know that manatees are the only animal immune to terrorist threats? Yep, apparently it’s true.

The climax, worthy of any Michael Bay movie, takes place in the office of the President of Fox. “You can’t do what he wants just because he’s threatening you with violence” The executive responds by saying that he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, especially not him.

In the end, though Fox (in the episode) decides to show the Family Guy episode with Mohammed uncensored, Comedy Central did not. All we see are a couple title cards saying that Comedy Central took the decision not to show the image of Mohammed. What astounding courage, Comedy Central. Thank you for diving on the First Amendment for us. Who knows what apocalypse might have been unleashed had we seen a cartoon Mohammed?

Well, Parker and Stone give us a hint. The terrorists of course respond…with a film of their own mocking America and President Bush specifically as feces-flinging rubes even as President Bush surrounded by folks in the Oval Office tells us, because we can’t see it of course, that Mohammed was just standing there.

The point to note here is that the President, despite being portrayed in two different ways in the cartoon, won’t be marching on Comedy Central at all. He won’t be demanding that those who voted for him kill Matt Parker or Trey Stone. In fact, I’d bet a nice dinner that if he saw the episode, he’d be laughing at it right now just as I am.

And just as Muslims ought to be.

Parker and Stone made the challenge. Comedy Central blanched. I think much more now of the former and much less of the latter. I’ll be interested in seeing just how selective their censorship is in the near future.

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Category: Fighting the Islamists