'South Park' Responds: Chef's Goose Is Cooked

A hastily put-together episode titled "The Return of Chef!" kicked off "South Park's" season to replace its Tom Cruise spoof. (Comedy Central)

But Chef heads back over the bridge, only it's struck by lightning and falls apart. Chef plunges down the ravine and is impaled on a large stick and attacked by a mountain lion, then a grizzly bear.

Back in South Park, the townsfolk hold a memorial service for Chef. Kyle tells the residents that although a lot of them don't agree with the choices Chef made in the last few days, they should focus on how much he made them smile and -- here's the money quote -- they should not be mad at Chef but instead at "the fruity little club for scrambling his brain."

We're guessing the episode may still not be enough raw meat for the piranha-esque "South Park" fans, who took to the Internet yesterday urging people to write, phone or e-mail Viacom, or sign their Chef Gate petition, letting the corporation know they and their loved ones will not see "Mission: Impossible III" (due in theaters on May 5) until Comedy Central runs the more direct Scientology-skewering episode "Trapped in the Closet."

(Normally these kinds of petitions are quixotic and kinda sweet, but there's no denying that "South Park's" core demographic -- 70 percent male, 20 percent male teens, 30 percent men age 18-34 -- is a bull's-eye for action flicks such as "Mission: Impossible.")

In the episode, Scientologists become convinced that Stan is the reincarnation of founder L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise shows up at Stan's house seeking praise for his acting work, but Stan pronounces it inferior to "that guy who played Napoleon Dynamite." Cruise, crushed, locks himself in Stan's closet. For the rest of the episode, Stan, his family, celeb Scientologist John Travolta and R&B artist R. Kelly try to get Cruise to "come out of the closet."

Immediately after Hayes made his announcement last week, Stone and Parker claimed in interviews that his exit from the show was entirely about his being a Scientologist. The publicity ginned up by the kerfuffle drove viewers to the show, only to be disappointed when the "Trapped" episode did not run last Wednesday night. That set off speculation it had been yanked because Cruise, or someone acting on his behalf, had said he would stop promoting "M:I3" if it aired.

"We, the loyal viewers of television's 'South Park' do hereby protest against the removal of the episode 'Trapped in the Closet,' " the fans' petition reads.

"We demand that Comedy Central put this episode back on the air and show it as soon as possible; we want everyone, including Tom Cruise, to know that censorship is wrong."

Far more fun are the comments attached to some of the more than 2,000 signatures that had been collected by the time the petition's Web server apparently crashed around 7 p.m. yesterday:

· Stop being girly-men.

· I would expect more moxie from Comedy Central.

· Bad Tommy! No biscuit!