(Update: Poniewozik has his own column on the connection here.) Comedy Central, which is owned by Viacom, the world’s fourth-largest entertainment conglomerate, massively censored the episode before it aired, using audio bleeps to obscure not only mentions of Mohammed’s name but several entire monologues, including one where Jesus Christ (this is “South Park,” after all)” concludes, “Don’t you see… if you don’t want to be made fun of anymore, all you need are guns and bombs to get people to stop. Liebling remarked, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”Īnother sobering reminder: As pointed out by Time’s James Poniewozik, the 2010 “South Park” episode “201,” which parodied Comedy Central’s decision to censor images of Muhammad from an earlier episode, is still not available to watch in uncensored form, and is not available for streaming anywhere. On April 14 Comedy Central broadcast the 200th episode of South Park, a cartoon that Trey Parker and Matt Stone have produced for that channel since 1997. It was a chilling reminder of the fatal flaw in the U.S.’ commitment to freedom of speech: Where mass media is concerned, that freedom exists only in so far as it is supported by the public corporations that control the means of dissemination. Just as it took a tiny satirical weekly to stand up where major newspapers would not - the Guardian, in reporting on the tragedy, is using pictures of Charlie Hebdo with the potentially offending images digitally obscured - so it took independently owned theaters to step up where major theater chains ran for cover. In the exciting conclusion to this two-part blockbuster celebrating South Park's 200th episode, angry celebrities, violent ginger kids, and Mecha Streisand face off against the Super Best Friends and the South Park faithful. New episodes and clips were added in the early morning hours after the day they air, with an uncensored audio track being added during the weekend, and would remain until the next week, where they would be removed for thirty days for contractual reasons. It is the second part of the 200th episode. Every episode of South Park, except for '201', has been offered for streaming at South Park Studios for some period. When is the season finale of South Park Watch. However, the following South Park episode, ‘201’, a direct continuation of ‘200’, was heavily edited by Comedy Central.
Whether you view Charlie Hebdo’s late cartoonists as martyred truth-tellers or crude anti-Muslim provocateurs, as brave, indomitable or simply reckless, they knowingly placed themselves in harm’s way and stood by the courage of their convictions, which makes the comparatively spineless behavior of the powerful media conglomerates that own Sony Pictures and America’s movie theaters with regard to the threats against “ The Interview” even harder to stomach. '201' is the sixth episode of Season Fourteen, and the 201st overall episode of South Park. Why was episode 201 of South Park edited The group later reiterated that its message about the South Park episode wasn’t intended as a threat, but a prediction.