Now that Issac Hayes has bolted from South Park, and Tom Cruise has threatened not to advertise Mission Impossible III on Comedy Central, the network has pulled a rerun of an episode critical of Scientology.
No worries. I'm sure it will be up on YouTube in no time.
Fine, Comedy Central is free to do what they like. But riddle me this, Time-Warner Viacom: Don't you understand Trey Parker and Matt Stone don't need you anymore?
"So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! 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!!!"The duo signed the statement "Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu."
Comedy genius, and proof positive that a number of execs in the entertainment business clearly don't understand what's happening.
Correction:
Viacom owns Comedy Central. Not Time Warner.
And just to clarify (although I can see where it would be confusing), the story is that Cruise threatened not to do any promotion for Mission Impossible 3 AT ALL, because the studio there is whoever owns Viacom as well. Now, it’s debatable whether that actually counts as a threat given Tom’s rep these days.
You sorta got it mixed up Devin but you’re on the right track.
Paramount Pictures is the distributor of the Mission: Impossible films. Paramount is owned by Viacom. I’m not even sure of the structure of Viacom any more because I believe they split operations and spun the TV operations off from other operations. I could be wrong. But just for reference — Viacom has ownership ties to CBS, CW, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Spike TV among other stations. If Tom “Jump the Couch” Cruise is threatening not to let M:I3 be advertised on Viacom networks — that is a huge hit that the studio would take.