"Cartoon Wars Part II" is 143rd episode of South Park which aired on April 12, 2006. It is part two of a two episode story arc, which concludes "Cartoon Wars Part I".
The Terrance and Phillip episode, "the Mystery at the Lazy J Ranch", includes an image of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, which is censored by their network, the CBC. After the broadcast, Terrance and Phillip go to the head of the CBC to complain about the censorship, saying that Family Guy will be showing Mohammed uncensored later. The head of the CBC says that it doesn't matter, as somebody is probably on their way right now to stop Family Guy. This is where we rejoin the actual storyline.
Having left Kyle injured at the roadside in Part 1, Cartman arrives at Fox headquarters. There he meets Bart Simpson, who, like him, wants to destroy Family Guy, but Cartman convinces Bart to let him do it alone. Cartman meets the executives and pretends to be a Danish kid named Little Danny Pocket, saying his father was killed by terrorists during the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and pleading that they cancel this episode; his story touches the executives, who encourage him to try to persuade Family Guy's writers to take the episode off the air.
Kyle is given a lift to the Fox Studio in a truck; his aim is to save the episode and foil Cartman's plan, but Bart Simpson traps him in a maintenance closet. Meanwhile, President Bush tells reporters that Family Guy's writers cannot be made to change their mind about the episode, and that it is protected under the First Amendment. The reporters act as if this is something completely new to them, asking questions like "How are you going to deal with this 'First Amendment?'" and "This 'First Amendment' sounds like a lot of bureaucratic jibbery-joo."
Cartman is finally introduced to the Family Guy writing staff - a group of manatees. The aquatic mammals, who live in a large tank, pick up "idea balls" and put them into a hole. Each ball has the name of a person, a verb, or a pop-culture reference written on it, and when the balls travel down a shaft, a group of five of them forms a Family Guy joke (e.g. "Laundry" + "Winning" + "Date" + "Mexico" + "Gary Coleman").
The manatees refuse to work if any idea ball is removed from their tank ("either everything's OK, or nothing is" - arguably similar to the South Park creators' unwillingness to work if certain topics, like Islam or Scientology, are off-limits). The manatees are also, apparently, the only mammal not moved by terrorist threats. Cartman instead sneaks in and removes a ball from their tank, causing them to stop working. He then convinces the Fox president that the manatees are spoiled, and are traipsing over the executives. The president decides to pull the new Family Guy episode, with only 25 minutes until its scheduled airtime.
Meanwhile, Kyle has convinced Bart to free him, and wants to rush to stop the Fox president from pulling Family Guy's Mohammed episode. He and Cartman meet and engage in a long fight taking them through several studios. With Bart Simpson's help, Kyle prevails, but both end up in the Fox president's office as he is making the phone call to cancel Family Guy. The boys present their two conflicting views to the network president - Kyle argues in favor of free speech, Cartman threatens him with a gun. The network president decides, despite the threats of violence (from Cartman and terrorists), that Family Guy should be aired uncensored.
Family Guy begins, and Mohammed appears in a cutaway joke, handing Peter Griffin a "salmon football helmet". (However, the scene with Mohammed was censored from South Park by Comedy Central: those few seconds were 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.")
President Bush sees the Family Guy scene and wonders what all the fuss is about - "Hey, that wasn't bad at all. They just showed Mohammed standin' there, lookin' normal". However, the terrorist leader al-Zawahiri (by video) declares, "We warned you not to show Mohammed - but Family Guy did it anyways. So now, here is our retaliation on America!!!!" They release 'an Al Qaeda Films Production', a crude animated video showing cardboard cutouts of George W. Bush, Carson Kressley, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and Jesus, defecating on each other and the American flag. Al-Zawahiri declares "Oh yeah, take THAT! We burned you! THAT WAS WAY FUNNIER THAN FAMILY GUY." This is the end of the episode.
On April 13, 2006, Comedy Central issued a statement which appears to confirm that the network did prohibit the show's creators from airing an image of Mohammed. The statement reads, "In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision". This was the first time Comedy Central - as opposed to their syndicators - censored South Park: syndicated airings of "Fat Camp" (for Kenny's gross-outs), and "Red Hot Catholic Love" (for scatological reasons, i.e. people defecating out of their mouths), had portions cut out and replaced with intertitle cards explaining what had been cut out ("for your protection"), accompanied by soothing music. Those episodes were aired on Comedy Central without such censoring, and they appear uncensored on DVD releases.
An April 13, 2006 interview with South Park executive producer Anne Garefino (on the weblog The Volokh Conspiracy) reveals that South Park's producers continued to fight Comedy Central's executives over the censored scene right up to the night before the episode aired. According to Garefino, the producers were given the choice to censor the scene themselves, or to provide the scene intact and allow Comedy Central to censor it. They elected to write the language of the censoring statement themselves; she said "We wanted everyone to understand how strongly we felt about this". The network's decision was reportedly based on fear of violent reprisal, rather than a desire to protect what Muslims find sacred. A version of the episode featuring an uncensored Mohammed was animated. However, Garefino confirmed that an internet clip, which purported to be the deleted scene, was a forgery.
The plot of the episode can be interpreted as a direct plea to Comedy Central executives (specifically, network president Doug Herzog) to reconsider their position on censorship. Indeed, "Part I" directly challenges Comedy Central not to "puss out" (even though the plot of the show is ostensibly about Fox). Further support for this view can be found in the scene where Kyle attempts to convince the Fox president to air the Family Guy episode featuring Mohammed. Kyle says, "Yes, people can get hurt. That's how terrorism works. But if you give in to that, Doug, you're allowing terrorism to work." The name "Doug" presumably refers to Herzog, who was previously president of Fox TV Entertainment from 1998-99. The final scene, where the terrorists broadcast an anti-American film (which includes an image of Jesus Christ defecating on an American flag), serves to illustrate the hypocrisy of the censorship decision. It raises the question, "Why is this acceptable to air, when an image of Mohammed, 'just standing there, looking normal', is not?"
Perhaps the biggest contradiction was that Mohammed had been shown before in South Park (as a character in 2001's pre-9/11 "Super Best Friends," which has still not been censored in post-"Cartoon Wars" syndication) and even appeared in this episode, in the opening credits.
This episode is filled with many references to the Fox Network, including:
A South Park version of Bart Simpson appears in this episode, wearing a red shirt, blue shorts, having spiked hair, and carrying a green skateboard. The character here occasionally uses old Bart catchphrases such as "Eat my shorts", and writes "I hate Family Guy" repeatedly on a wall outside the Fox Studios, a reference to his chalkboard gags. The character is never mentioned by name; Cartman and Kyle only refer to him as "kid"/"that kid". A difference between the two Barts is that the South Park version of Bart Simpson writes on the wall with his right hand. The Simpsons version of Bart writes with his left hand.
Bart is depicted differently from the way South Park depicted him in "Simpsons Already Did It"; He looks much more like other South Park child characters, whereas before his design was much closer to how he appears on The Simpsons.
When Cartman and Bart are arguing about who is "badder", Bart refers to The Simpsons' episode, "The Telltale Head", and Cartman to the South Park episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die" to win the argument. This scene is similar to a scene in The Simpsons where Bart makes fun of child star Jay North for the tameness of his character Dennis the Menace (in the episode "Take My Wife, Sleaze").
As Cartman enters the Fox TV studio parking lot, a billboard for Family Guy can be seen showing the airdate for Family Guy episodes as "Mondays on FOX". In this episode, however, the new Family Guy installment airs on a Friday. Both of these are in contrast to the real Family Guy, which airs on Sunday.
During Cartman and Kyle's fight, they pass a sign for Cold Age: The Smackdown, a parody of FOX's Ice Age: The Meltdown, which was the #1 movie at the box office at the time. Fox also, at the time, placed static ads for the movie into their shows.
When Kyle and Cartman are both trying to convince the network president to concede to their point of view, Kiefer Sutherland's real face can be seen on a wall poster for "26", a parody of 24.
When Cartman and Kyle fight, they crash through the window of the King of the Hill animation studios. On the wall is a poster which reads "11th season!", a reference to the show's recent unexpected renewal for an eleventh season by FOX. The King of the Hill office is also quiet and calm which is perhaps a reference to the shows style and pacing. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have a friendship with King of the Hill creator Mike Judge[1], who provided the voice for the unmuffled Kenny in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
When Bart hits Cartman with his skateboard he apparently seriously injures him as the tip of the board is seen covered in blood. However in the next scene Cartman appears uninjured.
Other pop culture references
Cartman's "Let this be our final battle" line to Kyle at the beginning of their fight is a reference to the live action Masters of the Universe film, in which Skeletor utters the same line to He-Man as they begin their battle in the film's climax.
When about to pull the second Family Guy episode, the network president begins to enter his presidential approval code, "Zero, zero, destruct." This is a portion of the self-destruct code Cpt. Kirk uses to order the self-destruct sequence of the Enterprise in the Star Trek episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.
Episode criticism and praise
According to Trey Parker, after this episode aired the people behind The Simpsons sent flowers to the South Park staff and the creator of King of the Hill called to say "thanks" to the creators of South Park for their satirizing of Family Guy.[2]
In an interview on Nightline the creators said that by defacing Jesus in the episode they were trying to highlight the perceived contradiction in how making fun of Christianity is no big deal, but to deface Islam is forbidden.
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 even refer to cut away jokes as "manatee jokes".
On the Fox website, the teaser details for the 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'."
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