Cartoon Wars Part II

"Cartoon Wars Part II"
South Park episode
Censorship message (see article for more details about this).
Episode no.	Season 10 Episode 4
Directed by	Trey Parker
Written by	Trey Parker
Original air date	April 12, 2006
Episode chronology
← Previous "Cartoon Wars Part I" Next → "A Million Little Fibers"
List of South Park episodes

"Cartoon Wars Part II" is episode 143 of South Park which aired on April 12, 2006. It is part two of a two-episode story, which starts with "Cartoon Wars Part I".

[edit] Plot

At the beginning of the episode, it is announced that Part II of "Cartoon Wars" will not be shown. Instead, an episode revolving around Terrance and Phillip will be broadcast (in reference to the Cartman's Mom Is a Dirty Slut cliffhanger from seasons 1-2 of the show).

The Terrance and Phillip episode in question, entitled "The Mystery at the Lazy 'J' Ranch", includes an image of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, which is censored by their network, the CBC. Terrance and Phillip complain, saying that Family Guy will be showing Muhammad uncensored later, but the head of CBC replies that that does not matter, as somebody is probably on his way right now to stop it.

Eric Cartman arrives at the Fox studio, where he pretends to be a sickly Danish kid with a broken leg, telling the Fox executives that his father was killed by terrorists during the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy (even though a terrorist attack never happened) and pleading that they pull the Family Guy episode. His story touches the executives, who encourage him to try to persuade the writers to yield.

Kyle Broflovski arrives at the Fox Studio to foil Cartman's plans, but is knocked unconscious by an ally of Cartman's, a kid resembling Bart Simpson (possibly Bart himself) who, also wanting to destroy Family Guy, restrains Kyle in a supply shed.

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush tells reporters that Family Guy's writers cannot be persuaded to change their mind about the episode, and that it is protected under the First Amendment. The incredulous press exhibits complete ignorance of the First Amendment, acting as if the Bush Administration originated it.

Cartman is introduced to the Family Guy writing staff, who turn out to be a group of manatees. The aquatic mammals, who live in a large tank, pick up "idea balls" from a large pile of them, each of which has a different noun, a verb or a pop-culture reference written on it, and deliver them, five at a time, to a machine that then forms a Family Guy cutaway gag based on those ideas. For example, "Laundry" + "Date" + "Winning" + "Mexico" + "Gary Coleman" becomes a clip of Lois asking Peter to do the laundry, after which Peter recalls winning a date in Mexico with Gary Coleman.

The manatees refuse to work if any idea ball is removed from their tank, making censorship an unfeasible practice with them. They are also, a Fox staffperson tells Cartman, the only mammals unaffected by terrorist threats. Cartman secretly removes a ball from their tank, causing them to stop working, and then convinces the Fox president that the manatees are spoiled, and abusing the executives' generosity. Cartman convinces the president that they need to show them who's boss. The president decides to pull the new Family Guy episode shortly before airtime.

President George W. Bush at Fox Studios.

Cartman feels victorious, but Kyle has convinced the Bart-like kid to set him free. After a physical altercation with Cartman, Kyle and Cartman both go to the Fox president's office. Kyle tells the president that Cartman has duped him into pulling the episode, and despite Cartman's brandishing of a gun, Kyle implores the president not to censor the episode. The network president ultimately decides, in spite of threats of violence from both Cartman and Islamic terrorists, that Family Guy should be aired, and without censorship.

The Family Guy episode airs, and features Muhammad in a cutaway gag, handing Peter a "salmon football helmet". (The scene with Muhammad is censored from South Park, however, by Comedy Central: these few seconds are replaced by a black screen and the words, "In this shot, Mohammed hands a football helmet to Family Guy. Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network.")

Despite President Bush's observation that the use of Muhammad was not inflammatory, terrorist leader Al-Zawahiri declares afterwards that America was warned not to show Muhammad, and will face retaliation. Al-Zawahiri releases a crudely-animated Al Qaeda video depicting George W. Bush, Carson Kressley, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and Jesus Christ defecating on each other and the American flag. Al-Zawahiri declares a victory over the US, asserting that his cartoon is much funnier than Family Guy.

[edit] Real-life censorship

On April 13, 2006, Comedy Central issued a statement confirming that the network prohibited the show's creators from airing an image of Muhammad, saying, "In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision."^[1] Kyle's impassioned plea to the President of Fox was directly taken from the creators' own arguments against the censorship of Muhammad. Kyle even calls the president 'Doug', a reference to Doug Herzog, a Comedy Central executive.^[2]

Muhammad had previously appeared in the episode "Super Best Friends" and has appeared briefly in the opening sequence since that episode, including in both episodes of "Cartoon Wars", despite the controversy surrounding the two-parter.^[3][4]

[edit] Reception

Brent Bozell, founder of the conservative organization Parents Television Council, criticized Viacom for celebrating insults to Christianity through the satirical anti-American scene in this episode, as well as another animated series insulting Catholicism, Popetown, which aired on MTV Germany, another Viacom-owned network.^[5] William A. Donohue, of the Catholic League, criticized writers Stone and Parker. Parker and Stone subsequently made Donohue a villain in "Fantastic Easter Special". In an interview on IGN.com, the creators claimed that they were highlighting the double standard by which they were allowed to show disrespect to Jesus while depicting Mohammed is forbidden.^[6]

Q: Have you heard any reaction back from Seth MacFarlane or anyone from Family Guy over the jokes you made about them on "Cartoon Wars"? And is it safe to say your feelings on Family Guy are the same as Cartman's?
Matt Stone: We haven't heard anything. I think they're just swimming around in their [tank].
Trey Parker: I think he's a Scientologist, actually.
Matt Stone: What I know about Family Guy, I'm sure they have a sense of humor, so...
Trey Parker: What I can tell you that was pretty interesting, was the day after that episode aired we got flowers from The Simpsons. We got calls from King of the Hill, saying we were doing God's work. It's not just our opinion.

—IGN interview^[7]

The creators of Family Guy have apparently taken the episode's treatment of their show in good humor, even making references to the episode in the commentaries on the show's season-four DVD box set, stating that, when South Park depicted them moving random jokes around, "That's pretty much how it is." They point out jokes and state "this was originally for [another episode] but it ran long, so we moved it to this one" on several occasions. They have even taken to referring to cut away jokes as "manatee jokes". On the Fox website, the teaser details for the Family Guy episode "Peter's Two Dads" states, "This week, the manatees picked out topic balls reading 'Peter's real father lives in Ireland and Peter goes there to find him.'"

Eric Goldman of IGN gave the episode a perfect review, 10 out of 10, saying, "The really ironic thing here is that South Park actually already did show Mohammed prominently, in the "Super Best Friends" episode in [2001]. Clearly Matt and Trey are also commenting on how times have changed, and how the acts of select extremists can create such specific fears in the powers that be; hammering home their point was the episode's conclusion, which featured terrorists responding to Family Guy with a cartoon of their own, showing Jesus defecating on George W. Bush and the American flag, which pointedly was shown without being censored." This episode also won an IGN Editors Choice Award.^[8] The fact that Mohammed had previously been shown with no controversy was commented on in the fourteenth season episode "200".

[edit] Cultural references

In the scene in which the Bart Simpson-like character and Cartman are discussing their bad deeds, Bart says he stole the head off a statue once, a reference to the Simpsons episode "The Telltale Head" (which was previously referenced in the South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It"). Cartman responds by relating an anecdote in which he exacted revenge on a kid he disliked by having his parents ground up into chili and feeding it to him, a reference to the Season 5 episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die".

[edit] See also

• Criticism of Family Guy
• Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Cartoon Wars Part II

• Cartoon Wars Part II Full episode at South Park Studios
• Cartoon Wars Part II Episode guide at South Park Studios
• AP story about the episode "'South Park' aims at censors, hits Bush, Jesus"