South Park Skit with Saddam Defiling Dale Earnhardt Axed
Apr 26, 2006, 07:27
ANAHEIM, Calif. - A skit in which Saddam Hussein defiles a caricature of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt has been pulled from tonight's broadcast. The decision was announced by a Comedy Central spokesperson late yesterday after a focus group in Longview, Texas, had reacted violently to the proposed skit.
“We tested several plot line options on a typical conservative Christian audience in Longview,” reported South Park writer Trey Parker. “The good people there agreed to screen several plot lines during their annual Hush Puppy Festival last weekend.”
“It was perfect,” interjected Parker's co-writer, Matt Stone. “You couldn't have asked for a more typical example of evangelical right-wing Christians.”
The festival participants sat quietly munching their hush puppies while they viewed scenes in which Mrs. Hankey had a partial-birth abortion, Kenny exploded from a high colonic gone awry, and the Vatican sponsored the first annual Running of the Altar Boys.
“Nothing seemed to faze them—even when we showed the Holy Week episode in which Jesus defecated on President Bush and the American flag,” said Parker. “Sure, they thought it was pretty blasphemous—they took up a collection to save our souls—but they agreed it was an exercise in free speech protected by the American constitution.”
“They sure love the constitution down there,” said Stone. “Especially the right to bear arms.”
“We went too far, though, with the Dale Earnhardt episode,” said Stone.
Still looking dazed at the memory, Stone reported that the audience erupted into angry, blood-curdling screams when Saddam positioned himself to defecate on the caricature of Dale Earnhardt.
"No dignity to a nation where Dale is blasphemed!" cried out one woman as she hurled a Tupperware bowl of nine-bean "trash" salad at the screen. "That's what comes after insulting our sacred values!" she continued.
The melee escalated throughout the night as dozens of mobile homes were overturned and set ablaze.
“I lost my business that'd been in the family for forty years!” cried Earline Spencer of Earline’s Day Care & Firearm Repair Center. “But we're alive and we can thank the good lord for that.”
More than thirty small children required treatment for injuries sustained after being struck by missile-like hush puppies.
“When we saw Dale being insulted like that, all hell broke loose,” reported an anonymous participant. “The little ones got caught in the crossfire and didn't stand a chance.”
The following morning while the local mayor applied for federal disaster relief, a spokesperson for Earnhardt's fan club said that the rioting would surely spread unless Parker and Stone agreed to nix the Earnhardt depiction.
“We sure learned our lesson on that one,” said Parker. “You can blaspheme their ‘Lord and Savior’ all you want, but you damn sure better not mess with the memories of NASCAR heroes. That’s holy ground, especially since this Saturday would have been Dale's fifty-fifth birthday if he were still alive."
In related news, Parker and Stone are working on a Brokeback Mountain episode of South Park starring football legends Troy Aikman and Brett Favre.
