Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice, Kenny vs. Spenny
A few years back, GSN tried to introduce American audiences to the hit Canadian comedy series Kenny vs. Spenny. But while knockoffs in England and Germany proved popular, nobody stateside tuned in for the real deal. Now Comedy Central is giving the outrageous reality show another shot thanks to an endorsement by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone (they've also signed on as executive producers). The network airs the first episode of the new season of extreme competitions undertaken by "best friends" Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice tonight (12:30 am/ET), before rolling out regular airings Sundays (11:30 pm/ET). TVGuide.com caught
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Matt Stone and Trey Parker by Michael Yarish/Comedy Central
Pay attention, kids — filthy mouths can make you filthy rich. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have inked a deal worth $75 million that renews the Comedy Central staple for a 13th, 14th and 15th season. The deal will also create the animation arm South Park Studios (which will feed content to the like-named website), and hand the fellas a rather unprecedented 50 percent share in any online ad revenue. "Three more years of South Park will give us the opportunity to offend that many more people," Stone quips to the Reporter. "And since Trey and I are in charge of the digital side of South Park, we can offend people on their cell phones, game consoles and computers, too."
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Tom Cruise
Comedy Central's decision to replace a Wednesday repeat of the Scientology- and Tom Cruise-prodding South Park episode with a “Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls” encore has fueled talk that Cruise threatened not to promote Viacom-owned Paramount's Mission: Impossible III if the switch was not made. A rep for Cruise denies the strong-arming and the semiofficial "spin" is that the Chef-centric substitute was chosen as a tribute to Isaac Hayes, who recently quit the series... due to its Scientology riff. But South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone still cry foul, saying in a statement to Variety, "Scientology, you may have won this battle, but the million-year war for Earth has just begun!... You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!" You gotta love those guys.
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Isaac Hayes has quit his job voicing South Park's Chef, saying he can no longer tolerate the series' attacks on religion. "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry begins," Hayes says in a statement. South Park cocreator Matt Stone tells the Associated Press that Hayes' decision stems from the series' recent slam on Scientology, which the soul singer follows. "He's cashed plenty of checks with our show making fun of Christmas," says Stone. "He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin."
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South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have inked a new deal that will keep the duo — as well as Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny — at Comedy Central through the end of 2008. The agreement promises three more 14-episode seasons of South Park, with Parker and Stone continuing to write, direct, voice and edit every @%#$ing one of 'em. The new season premieres Oct. 19.
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South Park
Mr. Hankey made the cut. So did Chef's famed chocolate salty balls. But when Comedy Central's South Park goes into syndication on Sept. 19, don't expect to see all your favorite naughty bits. Distributor Mort Marcus says he has been "nip-tucking" the raunchy 'toon for broadcast, albeit with a little help. "We set up what I call a station board — kind of like a board of directors — and they represent a large cut of our broadcast stations," he explains. "What we do is whenever there is anything that is even a remote issue — and this has been going on for a year, as we have well over 100 episodes [to edit] — we address the board by showing them the clip to see if it's OK and then we offer suggestions for what we think we should cut. And then the station board says yes or no."
It's a process that has never been done with any other series entering syndication. (Leave it
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South Park
Mr. Hankey made the cut. So did Chef's famed chocolate salty balls. But when Comedy Central's South Park goes into syndication on Sept. 19, don't expect to see all your favorite naughty bits. Distributor Mort Marcus says he has been "nip-tucking" the raunchy 'toon for broadcast, albeit with a little help. "We set up what I call a station board — kind of like a board of directors — and they represent a large cut of our broadcast stations," he explains. "What we do is whenever there is anything that is even a remote issue — and this has been going on for a year, as we have well over 100 episodes [to edit] — we address the board by showing them the clip to see if it's OK and then we offer suggestions for what we think we should cut. And then the station board says yes or no."
It's a process that has never been done with any other series entering syndication. (Leave it
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South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone just love raising tempers by spoofing controversial subjects. They riff on the Middle East conflict in their latest big-screen venture, Team America: World Police, filmed entirely with puppets. Their in-your-face antics include a puppet sex scene (yeah, you read that right), which was drastically reduced to obtain an R rating instead of an NC-17 for the comedy.
"It was probably twice as long as it is," Parker says. "A lot of the shots were longer, and it had a few extra special positions of lovemaking that just showed they really loved each other. The MPAA decided that you all weren't adult enough to see that."
"It was the only thing that the MPAA had a problem with in the whole movie," adds Stone. And Parker chimes in: "Which is pretty funny, because it was one of the easier things to shoot. We've all had experience doing that as childr
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