{"id":436,"date":"2006-07-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/07\/scientology-south-park-airs-ag.html"},"modified":"2006-07-20T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-20T12:00:00","slug":"scientology-south-park-airs-ag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/07\/scientology-south-park-airs-ag.html","title":{"rendered":"Scientology “South Park” Airs Again!"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

I am not an avid watcher of “South Park<\/a>” though I do catch an episode now and then if it airs leading up to The Daily Show. But I admit I was curious about the now-infamous Scientology-Tom Cruise<\/a> episode, “Trapped in the Closet<\/a>,” which aired in November 2005 and caused all sorts of hype in the media, sparked threats of lawsuits from Cruise, and led the man who played Chef (Isaac Hayes) to quit the show<\/a>. Due to the controversy, the creators decided not to air the episode again, to the dismay of many fans.<\/p>\n

Until last night! They finally put the episode into syndication.<\/p>\n

So, for the first time ever, I intentionally<\/em> tuned in to “South Park,” and, like all other episodes I’ve seen, it was hilarious in that outrageous “South Park” way: Stan plays the alleged reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology’s prophet and founder, and there is a very funny cartoon rendering of Scientology’s “alien secret knowledge,” with a banner on the screen flashing, “This is what Scientologists actually believe” underneath. It’s obvious why Scientologists were upset since the arc of the show is not simply to make fun but to make the point that the entire religion is supposedly a scam.<\/p>\n

The part about Tom Cruise “trapped in the closet and he won’t come out” was very funny at first, but got old pretty quickly when it went on for about 15 minutes of the episode.<\/p>\n

Check it out for yourself. It will come around again soon I’m sure.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am not an avid watcher of “South Park” though I do catch an episode now and then if it airs leading up to The Daily Show. But I admit I was curious about the now-infamous Scientology-Tom Cruise episode, “Trapped in the Closet,” which aired in November 2005 and caused all sorts of hype in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":280,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nScientology "South Park" Airs Again!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/07\/scientology-south-park-airs-ag.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scientology "South Park" Airs Again!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am not an avid watcher of “South Park” though I do catch an episode now and then if it airs leading up to The Daily Show. 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