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THE THETAN IS ON

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.

Matt Webb Mitovich

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.