Just Us Nerds

The situation surrounding Isaac Hayes’ caustic departure from South Park grows more and more strange. Here is a blow-by-blow history of the saga to date:

• 3/13 Isaac Hayes leaves the show and issues a press release citing religious bigotry as the cause.
• 3/14 Producers Parker and Stone fire back a press release stating that after years and years of South Park mocking religion, Hayes only left after his own religion, Scientology, was ridiculed.
• 3/15 The Scientology episode scheduled to re-air is pulled in favor of an episode featuring Hayes’ character Chef
• 3/17 Rumors begin to fly about the reasons for the episode getting pulled. Comedy Central says it chose to honor the character of Chef, but the primary rumor is that Comedy Central was forced by Tom Cruise to pull the episode or he would refuse to publicize the new Mission Impossible movie for sister company Paramount. This rumor is denied by Cruise’s people and Paramount.
• 3/17 Hail Xenu!!! Parker and Stone put out a cryptic press release taunting Scientology and saying that Scientology may have won the battle “but the million-year war for Earth has just begun!
• 3/20 Fox releases a story stating that Hayes departure wasn’t about Scientology at all, but because of a stroke he had in January that he is attempting to keep under wraps. They conjecture that the original press release was not even written by Hayes but by someone acting on his behalf.
• 3/20 Parker and Stone announce that the first new episode of the season, airing next Wednesday, will be called “The Return of Chef!” and detail Chef’s return to South Park, though presumably without Isaac Hayes.

If Hayes could not continue for health reasons, then this all becomes terribly sad and Scientology looks worse than it already did. At this point, however, I am starting to get suspicious of the whole affair. Could this be an elaborate joke/stunt? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time that Parker and Stone pulled a fast one on their audience, as those of us who remember the Terrance and Philip April Fool’s episode can attest. Either way, if this is the end for Chef, I hope it isn’t too cruel. He was always one of my favorite characters.