Comedy Central Again Steals 'South Park' Thunder

"Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network."

Yesterday the network said in a prepared statement when called by The TV Column, "In light of recent world events we feel we made the right decision." A Comedy Central spokesman declined to elaborate.

In Wednesday's "South Park," after the "Family Guy" episode airs, al-Qaeda responds with its own cartoon. It involves the president of the United States, the American flag, Jesus and pooping.

In an interview with the Associated Press, William Donohue of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights -- who totally didn't get the point -- went after Parker and Stone over the Jesus bit, but not Comedy Central.

"Like little whores, they'll sit there and grab the bucks. They'll sit there and they'll whine and they'll take their shot at Jesus," he said.

Stone and Parker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It's the second time in recent weeks that Comedy Central has lost its nerve over this show.

Last month, the network yanked a rerun of an episode that poked fun at Scientology and its most prominent celebrity member, Tom Cruise.

Several days before it was scheduled to air, Isaac Hayes asked to be let out of his contract providing the voice of Chef on the edgy animated series, because he had just noticed that the cartoon series about four precocious potty-mouthed fourth graders in South Park, Colo., makes fun of religious groups.

Stone and Parker fired back in interviews, saying the surprise resignation of Hayes, who had voiced Chef since 1997, had 100 percent to do with Hayes being a Scientologist and the upcoming episode rerun.

A couple of days later, when viewers tuned in to see "Trapped in the Closet," it wasn't there.

Comedy Central said the next day it had decided to pull the episode because "in light of the events of earlier this week, we wanted to give Chef an appropriate tribute by airing two episodes he is most known for."

This, naturally, led to rampant speculation that the episode had been pulled, and Hayes had resigned, because someone speaking for Tom Cruise had let Viacom -- which owns both Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures -- know he was unhappy the episode was about to be rerun. Cruise at the time was out promoting Paramount's upcoming expensive flick "Mission: Impossible III."

That wasn't the first time Comedy Central got squeamish over an episode of "South Park" that addressed religion. Last year the basic cable network yanked the rerun of an episode called "Bloody Mary," featuring a menstruating Virgin Mary statue, when Donohue's faction objected.