Now that he’s back on the standup circuit, Dave Chappelle has a lot to say. The comic, who walked out on a $50 million deal to continue his TV show and briefly took a respite in South Africa, shattered the Laugh Factory’s endurance record by taking to the comedy club’s stage for six hours and seven minutes on Sunday.
“He was absolutely amazing, for six hours making people laugh,” the club’s owner, Jamie Masada, said Tuesday.
Masada said the previous record of three hours and 50 minutes was accomplished earlier this month by Dane Cook . But until then the mark had stood at two hours and 41 minutes since Richard Pryor set it in 1980.
Chappelle walked out on the third season of his hit Comedy Central show last May, leaving fans and industry observers to question his motives and even his sanity.
He has said since that he didn’t feel he could be himself on the show.
“The bottom line was, white people own everything, and where can a black person go and be himself or say something that’s familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?” he told Esquire magazine.
He has since returned to the standup circuit and released the documentary “Dave Chappelle ‘s Block Party.”
The episode, which is still in production, will have the town at the heart of “South Park” preparing for the arrival of Clinton for a big campaign rally. At the same time, the character Cartman suspects a new Muslim student is behind a terrorist threat – one that includes Clinton as a target.
Comedy Central insiders wouldn’t reveal more of the story line – and also suggested it’s not unusual for content to change several times until the point where the producers deliver the show to the network for airing at 10 p.m.
The episode, “The Snuke,” marks the first time Clinton will be animated on the series, which has made references to her before.
Creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker insist on creating each episode in a week, ensuring that the ideas are fresh and not over-worked. It’s quite possible, indeed, that the show is not yet finished and even they don’t know how it’ll turn out.
Vanessa Grigoriadis looks at Comedy Central’s “South Park” as it enters its tenth season for the cover story of this month’s Rolling Stone. The subhead says it all: “For ten years, ‘South Park’ has been the crudest, stupidest, most offensive show on television. And the funniest.”
Some excerpts:
It’s also the most ideologically opaque political show on television, fostering an open-ended dialogue on difficult questions like whether one has a duty to obey unfair laws or if there is a God in an evil world. Unlike The Simpsons, which is intellectual and pleasantly dumb in its portrayal of American life, using both to further a leftist agenda, South Park offers simple parables — often with an optimistic message — to take aim at all issues without ever showing its hand. “If Matt and Trey came out and said what they were about, all of a sudden people would watch the show with a map,” says Penn Jillette, a close friend. “But you shouldn’t have a map to look at during the ride. You must trust the art and not the artist. They’ll never say what they’re about.”
[...]
Most of South Park’s humor either advocates radical individualism (everyone is stupid, so don’t listen to anyone but yourself) and/or a conservative agenda (this is a great country, and you’re a pussy if you’re down in the mouth about President Bush). Neither Stone nor Parker will delineate his political views, and both contend that the libertarian label, which has been applied to them in recent years, is not entirely appropriate. (As far as the “South Park Republicans” tag that was affixed to their fans a few years ago to define the “cool” part of the conservative movement, they say it’s a dumb notion.) They won’t talk about the war, even to voice an opinion on President Bush’s new troop-deployment plan. “I wouldn’t even begin to say I know enough to say if it’s right or wrong, because whomever is telling you it’s wrong is full of shit too,” says Parker. Neither votes — “like, ever,” says Stone. Parker waves a hand in the air. “Each election is a choice with a douche or a turd, so who cares,” he says. “If Gore had beaten Bush, things wouldn’t be much different.”
While Stone is in fact deeply immersed in politics and a serious reader of nonfiction books about the Middle East, I practically have to wrestle him to hear a smidge of his politics: He’s against the War on Drugs, pro-gay marriage, against socialized medicine and basically in favor of free markets, except in cases like dropping public funding for roads or education. As for Parker, who owns a couple of guns, the closest I can come is his paraphrase of Team America‘s climactic monologue: “There’s a difference between dicks and assholes. Because there are terrorists — assholes — you’ve got to have dicks, people who hunt down terrorists. Dicks are bad, and it sucks to be a dick, but it’s way worse to be an asshole, and because there are assholes, we need dicks. So shut the fuck up, all you pussies!”
Try to argue back to this kind of logic, and the joke’s on you, much to the glee of Stone and Parker. “We went to a party in Malibu on the beach recently,” says Stone, “and this woman came up to us, like, ‘Oh, my son is at the University of Colorado, and I can’t get him to go to class, because he snowboards all the time.’ I’m immediately thinking, ‘Fuck you and your kid,’ because I couldn’t afford to snowboard in college. Then I say, ‘Yeah, I still go to Colorado to visit my family.’ She’s like, ‘So they really are just a bunch of gun-toting hicks out there, aren’t they?’ I’m like, ‘I just told you my mom and dad and sister live there.’ Then Trey walks up to her and says, ‘George Bush is a great man.’ She looked like we’d poured acid in her ear. We were laughing our asses off.”
“That’s the most punk-rock thing you can do in L.A.: say ‘George Bush is fucking awesome’ instead of talking about how lame it is that he’s fighting for oil,” says Parker. “The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they’re the most hardcore that they’re pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, ‘Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you’re a pierced faggot and whatever.’ ” He looks very pleased with himself. “That’s hardcore.”
MTV owner Viacom Inc. sued the popular video-sharing site YouTube and its corporate parent, Google Inc., on Tuesday, seeking more than $1 billion in damages on claims of widespread copyright infringement. Wow!
Viacom claims that YouTube has displayed more than 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, marks a sharp escalation of long-simmering tensions between Viacom and YouTube and represents the biggest confrontation to date between a major media company and the hugely popular video-sharing site, which Google bought in November for $1.76 billion.
YouTube’s soaring popularity has been a cause of fascination but also fear among the owners of traditional media outlets, who worry that YouTube’s displaying of clips from their programs — without compensation — will lure away viewers and ad dollars from cable and broadcast TV.
Viacom is especially at risk because much of its programming is aimed at younger audiences who also are heavy Internet users.
Last month Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips after several months of talks between the companies broke down.
YouTube said at the time that it would comply with the request and said it cooperates with all copyright holders to remove programming as soon as they’re notified.
In a statement, Viacom lashed out at YouTube’s business practices, saying it has “built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google.”
Viacom said YouTube’s business model, “which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws.”
Viacom said YouTube has avoided taking the initiative to curtail copyright infringement on its site, instead shifting the burden and costs of monitoring the video-sharing site for unauthorized clips onto the “victims of its infringement.”
A representative for Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other media companies have also clashed with YouTube over copyrights, but some, including CBS Corp. and General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal, have reached deals with the video-sharing site to license their material. CBS Corp. used to be part of Viacom but has since split off into a separate company.
Universal Music Group, a unit of France’s Vivendi SA, had threatened to sue YouTube, saying it was a hub for pirated music videos, but later reached a licensing deal with the company.
In addition to damages, Viacom is also seeking an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from using its clips.
Google shares dropped $4.82, or 1.1 percent, to $449.93 in Tuesday morning trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, while Viacom’s Class B shares rose 43 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $40 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Sarah Silverman has sex with “God” last night on her eponymous television show. Joe Kovacs of WorldNetDaily has the details.
Comic Sarah Silverman not happy that God is cuddling with her after sex on Comedy Central’s ‘Sarah Silverman Program’ Comedy Central consummated its season of “the Sarah Silverman Program” last night by featuring the title character having sex with God, and then trying to brush him off after a night of lovemaking. Silverman was shown in bed with an amorous Almighty, whom she referred to as “Black God,” portrayed by actor Tucker Smallwood, a former NBC television director who also served in the Army in Vietnam.
The network, perhaps best known for its boundary-pushing “South Park” series, is offering an online clip of the episode, which is slated for rebroadcast tonight at 10:30 p.m. Eastern. (Viewer discretion of the clip and website strongly advised.)
A partial transcript of the morning after the holy sexcapade is as follows:
God: I had a really good time last night. A really, really good time.
Silverman: Thaaaanks (in a disdainful tone). Me too.
God: Come to heaven with me today.
Silverman: Today.
God: You’ll see the past and the future. You can fly, and I will introduce you to Thomas Jefferson.
Silverman: Oh, awesome. I told my friend, Natalie, I’d help her move, though.
God: I can stop time!
Comic Sarah Silverman tries to give God, played by Tucker Smallwood, the brush-off after having sex with him on Comedy Central’s ‘Sarah Silverman Program’
Silverman: That is so sweet. Oh, your pants are over there. I mean, not like I’m asking you to leave. I just mean, like if you can’t see it from this angle of still being in my bed.
God: Right, I should go.
Silverman: OK, um, all right, so, I guess I’ll see you around some time.
God: Do you mean it?! Or are you just saying that?
Silverman: I don’t just say things. I’m a lot of things. I’m not dishonest.
God: Can I get your cell number?
Silverman: I don’t have a cell phone.
At that point, Silverman’s cell phone starts ringing and the embittered God character zips up his pants. At the conclusion of the episode, Silverman knees God in the groin.
Seeing the success of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report,” Fox News is working on a conservative news satire show.
Fox News Channel might air two episodes of a “Daily Show”-like program with a decidedly nonliberal bent on Saturday nights in late January, with the possibility that it could become a weekly show for the channel.
The half-hour show is executive produced by “24′s” Joel Surnow and Manny Cota and creator Ned Rice, who previously wrote for “Politically Incorrect” and “Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” through This Just In Prods. It would take aim at what Surnow calls “the sacred cows of the left” that don’t get made as much fun of by other comedy shows. “It’s a satirical news format that would play more to the Fox News audience than the Michael Moore channel,” Surnow said. “It would tip more right as ‘The Daily Show’ tips left.”
There would certainly be an audience for such a show but the description here does not look promising. For one thing, a once-a-week format is unlikely to work. There are already a flurry of late-night comedians doing their takes on the events of the day, not to mention “Saturday Night Live” and other weekly venues. Immediacy is part of the effectiveness of these shows. Further, it’s not just the format that has done so well for Comedy Central but the hosts. Unless they find someone with the comedic timing and ability to be simultaneously likable and snarky that Stewart and Colbert possess, the show won’t make it.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone have managed to make the news again, this time by making fun of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin on South Park.
The creators of South Park have never been afraid to upset celebrities – and many of the show’s viewers. From jokes about religion and homosexuality to four-letter tirades, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have always mixed shock tactics with satire in the hit cartoon series. But they were accused of hitting a new low last night after lampooning the demise of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin just weeks after his death.
The latest episode shows an animated Irwin in Hell with a stingray poking out of his bleeding chest. Irwin, 44, died in September after he was impaled by a stingray’s barb, while snorkelling near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
The South Park episode called Hell On Earth 2006, which was broadcast in the US this week, shows Satan preparing to host a Hallowe’en fancy dress party. Hundreds of dead celebrities are invited, including rapper Notorious B.I.G., Princess Diana and Hitler.
But at the party Satan receives complaints from his guests that someone is inappropriately dressed up as Irwin. Satan confronts Irwin but the Aussie environmentalist protests it is really him, not a guest in a costume. While characters have been killed off in the series before – spawning the show’s catchphrase “Oh my god, they killed Kenny!” – campaigners are particularly incensed about the stingray still being attached to Irwin’s bloodstained trademark khaki shirt.
[...]
British broadcasting watchdog Mediawatch condemned the episode as “grossly insensitive.” Its director, John Beyer, said: “I think this is in bad taste. Steve Irwin’s family are still grieving.” “To lampoon somebody’s death like that is unacceptable and so soon after the event is grossly insensitive. It is not what the family would want to see.”
I haven’t yet seen the episode but agree that mocking Irwin so soon after his death is rather tacky. Still, Irwin was a celebrity and that’s the path he chose. His death was big news, he was mourned in a giant state funeral, and he’s been mocked publicly.
Indeed, Norm McDonald made fun of the circumstances of Irwin’s death weeks ago on the Jon Stewart Show:
Take a look at some of the related posts below for more controversial topics on South Park.
Jon Stewart dispels rumors that he’s thinking of a run for the White House. There are poeple wearing Stewart/Colbert ’08 t-shirts? Just recently, both George Clooney and Oprah were rumored or “wished in” to a presidential race as well.
Those people wearing “Stewart/Colbert ’08″ T-shirts can stop hoping – Comedy Central’s fake news stars have no intention of making a run for the White House.
Jon Stewart said the T-shirts promoting him and Stephen Colbert “are a real sign of how sad people are” with the state of affairs in the country.
“Nothing says ‘I am ashamed of you my government’ more than ‘Stewart/Colbert ’08,’ Stewart told an audience Sunday at the New Yorker Festival. He was interviewed by the magazine’s editor, David Remnick.
Stewart, who recently hosted Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on “The Daily Show,” said he’s been trying to get top Bush administration officials to appear. “We have requests in there to everyone including Barney,” Stewart said. “Only Barney replies.” Barney is the president’s Scottish terrier.
Stewart scoffed at suggestions that some people actually get their news from “The Daily Show.”
“There’s no way you could get the news from us,” he said. “I’ve seen the show. It couldn’t happen.” source
Dave Chappelle doesn’t regret his decision to walk away from a $50 million deal to continue his hit Comedy Central television show. However, he might miss the money.
Halting his “Chappelle’s Show” two years ago was “one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life,” the comedian said Tuesday while addressing the opening convocation at Central State University.
“Now, economically it makes no sense at all,” he added.
Ya think? But, frankly, it’s not like the man is having trouble putting food on the table.
Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for the image. Claude Brodesser-Akner provides the backstory:
A comedic capstone on all this comes via an full page, hardcover ad in today’s issue of Daily Variety. In a “For your consideration” Emmy Award ad for the infamous Tom Cruise “Trapped in the Closet” episode of “South Park,” the text reads, “C’mon Jews… Show ‘em who really runs Hollywood.”
The genius of “South Park” strikes again.
Here, once again, some video excerpts of the Emmy-nominated “Trapped in the Closet.”
Comedy Central is finally respecting Cartman’s authoritay. One week after South Park’s controversial “Trapped in the Closet” episode garnered an Emmy nomination, and nearly four months after it was abruptly pulled from rotation on the cable net, Comedy Central has finally acquiesced and will allow the Scientology-skewering episode back on the air. And clearly not a moment too soon. “If they hadn’t put this episode back on the air, we’d have had serious issues, and we wouldn’t be doing anything else with them,” cocreator Matt Stone tells Variety.
[...]
As it is, Comedy Central’s decision to reintroduce the episode to its rerun schedule seems as arbitrary an action as yanking it in the first place. But the move is putting the network back into the good graces of Stone and Parker, who have said that their relationship with the network has been tenuous since the spring.
“It’s true we are not as big as Tom Cruise, but we’ve done two movies for Viacom and 10 years of South Park episodes, and this has been our home,” Stone tells Variety. Stone explains that the episode’s removal was nearly the final straw for the duo, who had been censored by the network on three separate occasions. “We’ve been through a trifecta of annoyances,” Stone says. “The ‘Bloody Mary’ episode angered Catholics. And we had a big fight when we wanted to show Muhammad.”
The “Bloody Mary” episode is rather raunchy but hardly over-the-top by “South Park” standards. And, while I understand why “Trapped in the Closet” would be offensive to Scientologists, it’s only because it shows the truth about their belief system.
The full video was available on YouTube for months but has recently been removed. A 7:56 video of excerpted highlights is available however:
The trend of Muslims using threats of violence against those who offend them even slightly continues, with Sienna Miller the latest target.
Sienna Miller has been left fearing for her life after receiving a torrent of death threats. Islamic extremists are furious the actress is starring in ‘Interview’, a remake of director Theo van Gogh’s 2003 thriller. The Dutch director was murdered in 2004 after his controversial film ‘Submission’ sparked outrage among Islamic fundamentalists. Sienna, who is currently shooting the film in New York, is being targeted by similar political groups. She has been sent letters warning her “she will be sorry” unless she pulls out of filming.
A crew member told Britain’s Daily Star newspaper: “Sienna refuses to give in to these threats. The film hasn’t got anything to do with Islam. But because it’s being made as a tribute to Theo, the Islamic fundamentalists have hit the roof.” Her co-star, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ star Steve Buscemi has received similar death threats.
Sadly, this is now so routine that it is hardly shocking.
Comedy Central censored an image of Mohommad in last night’s episode of “South Park” making fun of television networks and others bowing to pressure from Islamist extremists by censoring Muhammad. They displayed the following image during the show:
One might have presumed this was just a gag by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. That would have been my guess (I watched the previous week’s episode but have not watched last night’s, which is in my TiVo) and it was Ed Morrissey‘s presumption. Stephen Spruiell discovered otherwise.
I just got off the phone with a Comedy Central spokesman. I asked him about last night’s episode of South Park in which, at a moment right before the prophet Mohammed was supposed to make a cameo, the words, “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network” appeared on the screen.
I asked him whether this truly was Comedy Central’s decision or whether this was just another gag (with South Park, you never know). He said:
They reflected it accurately. That was a Comedy Central decision.
Just in case there was any confusion, that settles it. Comedy Central censored the image.
Quite bizarre and gutless. Not to mention hypocritical, given that “South Park” continually does vicious parodies of other sensitive topics, apparently without censorship from the network. They will apparently make fun of Christians and Scientologists but yet they are afraid to incur the wrath of intolerant Islamists. Which, again, was the very topic of this two-part episode?
Wow.
Michelle Malkin, from whom I got the above screen cap, has the video of last night’s episode available for download.
Jim Lindgren provides an episode summary and quotes a commenter, “Comedy Central apparently allows South Park to show Jesus defacating on others and being defacated on, but prohibits showing Mohammed ‘just standing there, looking normal.’”
Ironic, too, the week after “South Park” won a Peabody Award:
“South Park” was praised as a show that “pushes all the buttons, turns up the heat and shatters every taboo,” Peabody Awards Director Horace Newcomb said. “Through that process of offending it reminds us of the need for being tolerant.”
Or not.
Update: Matthew Stinson does not engage in the present controversy but has an excellent summary of why this two-parter was classic “South Park.” This passage from the first part is especially fitting in light of the no-show decision:
Cartman: And in just a few weeks from now, “Family Guy†will be off the air forever.
Kyle: Off the air? But, we’re just trying to get the Mohammed episode pulled.
Cartman: It’s simple television economics, Kyle. All it takes to kill a show forever is get one episode pulled. If we convince the network to pull this episode for the sake of Muslims, then the Catholics can demand a show they don’t like get pulled. And then people with disabilities can demand another show get pulled, and so on and so on, until “Family Guy†is no more…
I guess we shall now see.
Update 2: Kevin Aylward isn’t buying it. Caltechgirl points to the following image, which is on Wizbang’s server (but not linked by Kevin):
It’s from the opening sequence for the current 10th season of “South Park.” Among those in the crowd shot are Jesus, a recurring character with his own public access show, Satan (who is gay–not that there’s anything wrong with that–and having an affair with Saddam Hussein) and–in the little box–a figure that looks suspiciously like Mohammed. Interesting.
Update 3 (4/14): AP Television Writer David Bauder has more details.
Banned by Comedy Central from showing an image of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the creators of “South Park” skewered their own network for hypocrisy in the cartoon’s most recent episode. The comedy — in an episode aired during Holy Week for Christians — instead featured an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag.
In an elaborately constructed two-part episode of their Peabody Award-winning cartoon, “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker intended to comment on the controversy created by a Danish newspaper’s publishing of caricatures of Muhammad. Muslims consider any physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous.
[...]
Parker and Stone were angered when told by Comedy Central several weeks ago that they could not run an image of Muhammad, according to a person close to the show who didn’t want to be identified because of the issue’s sensitivity. The network’s decision was made over concerns for public safety, the person said. Comedy Central said in a statement issued Thursday: “In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision.” Its executives would not comment further.
[...]
A frequent “South Park” critic, William Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle for being censored. “The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central — that’s their decision not to show the image of Muhammad or not — it’s Parker and Stone,” he said. “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.”
That’s certainly what the Family Guy manatees would have done.
Viacom claims that YouTube has displayed more than 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon.
