"201" is the sixth episode of the fourteenth season of South Park, and the 201st overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on April 21, 2010. The episode continued multiple storylines from the previous episode, "200", in which a group of angry celebrities demand South Park produce Muhammad. In "201", a superhero-like group of religious figures (The Super Best Friends) team up to save South Park from the celebrities and their monster Mecha-Streisand, while Eric Cartman learns the true identity of his father.
The episode was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker. Like "200", it alludes to several past storylines and controversies from previous South Park episodes, especially Comedy Central's refusal to show images of Muhammad on the network following controversies in 2005 and 2007 when cartoons depicting Muhammad ran in European newspapers, resulting in riots and threats. Prior to the broadcast of "201", the Islamist organization Revolution Muslim posted a warning on their website that Parker and Stone risked being murdered for their depiction of Muhammad. Comedy Central modified Parker and Stone's version of the episode, bleeping all references to Muhammad—to the effect of disruptively obscuring the entire two-minute moral conclusion of the story. Nevertheless, both "200" and "201" were nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program in 2010.
The censorship drew strong criticism of Comedy Central and led to intense debates regarding the extent of free speech on television. Critics said that the network's action would encourage further threats from radical groups, setting a dangerous precedent that could potentially give these groups more power if people were willing to further cave into their demands. "201" was not shown in repeats, has not been made available on the South Park website, and has not been shown in Sweden, Hungary, or The Netherlands. According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was seen by 3.5 million viewers, making it the most watched cable television program of the night.
On January 31, 2014, the original, uncensored version of "201" was leaked when it was pulled from the South Park Studios servers and was posted online in its entirety without approval by Comedy Central.
Plot The episode opens and continues from "200" with Eric Cartman, as his hand-puppet persona Mitch Conner, narrating a flashback to Conner's 1972 medical discharge from his Vietnam War tour of duty in a parody of a scene from the film Apocalypse Now as the song "Time of the Season" by the Zombies plays in the background. Back in the present, Mr. Garrison's hand puppet, Mr. Hat, refuses to reveal the identity of Cartman's father and instead sends Cartman to Dr. Mephesto. Meanwhile, the Ginger Separatist Movement and the townsfolk are negotiating the handover of Muhammad when Mecha-Streisand begins to attack South Park, killing Pip Pirrup in the process. Muhammad, who is visually obscured throughout the entire episode by a black box superimposed with the word "CENSORED", is taken by Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick to Mephesto's lab so he can clone him. The gingers arrive and take Muhammad and Cartman captive. The Super Best Friends are called to South Park to help; after their powers fail to subdue Mecha-Streisand, they pacify her by having Krishna adopt the form of Neil Diamond and providing her the opportunity to perform a duet with him on a stage constructed by Jesus.
The gingers contact the celebrities and offer to share Muhammad in exchange for access to the "Rob Reiner goo transfer machine", which will transfer Muhammad's power to remain free from ridicule to a target individual. Tom Cruise is the first subject to the process, gaining a "CENSORED" bar identical to Muhammad's, but further transfers are interrupted when the Super Best Friends arrive to free Muhammad.
Meanwhile, Cartman is taken to the ginger lair to meet Scott Tenorman, the Head ginger and leader of the Ginger Separatist Movement. After his parents' death, Scott became mentally deranged and spent some time in a mental institute, obsessed with taking revenge on Cartman for murdering his parents and planned to torment Cartman, both physically and mentally, with the true identity of his real father.
Depicted as a melodramatic madman, Scott has decorated his lair to represent the Chili Con-Carnival from "Scott Tenorman Must Die" which Cartman built to get revenge on Scott by tricking him into eating his parents. Scott tells Cartman that his real father was a former right tackle for the Denver Broncos, and the inhabitants of South Park covered up his identity to protect the football team from a scandal over the affair between him and Liane Cartman. He reveals to Cartman that they shared the same father, Jack Tenorman, meaning that by getting Farmer Denkins to shoot Jack as an act of revenge against Scott, Cartman unknowingly orchestrated the death of his father and fed him to his half-brother.
The fight between the Super Best Friends, celebrities, and gingers spills over into the lair, and Tenorman flees in the confusion, vowing he will one day return to exact his revenge. During the fight, Seaman leaps upon Cruise's back, leading Stan to observe, "Tom Cruise has Seaman on his back." The "CENSORED" bar over Cruise disappears after others join in ridiculing Tom Cruise, and all present continue to make jokes based on the fact that the words "Seaman" and "semen" sound the same. Cruise questions why they can do this, which leads to a monologue from Kyle, Jesus Christ, and Santa Claus. In all official releases of the episode, the entirety of this speech is censored.
As the town begins to rebuild following the Mecha-Streisand attack, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny find an overly despondent Cartman, crying uncontrollably near an ambulance. Kyle attempts to reassure Cartman, conceding that the revelation of his and Tenorman's shared father must have been "tough to hear". Cartman reveals the true source of his misery: not that he facilitated the murder and cannibalism of his father, but that he carries a recessive "ginger gene" due to his father being ginger, leaving the boys dumbfounded. Mitch Conner attempts to cheer up Cartman: reminding him that, while he is indeed half ginger, this also means that he is "half-Bronco", observing that this makes him "pretty cool". Realizing this, Cartman concurs as Connor departs. The boys subsequently find Cruise sinks into a deeper depression, distraught and ashamed over his mistakes and asking the boys for his revelation: to longing for a place in which he can live without fear of ridicule. Kyle informs the actor that he knows of such a place, and the boys promise to help Cruise get there. The episode's closing shot is of Cruise's corpse lying on the Moon's surface alongside the corpse of Willzyx, the titular orca whale from "Free Willzyx".
Production Written and directed by series co-founder Trey Parker, "201" was rated TV-MA-LV in the United States. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on April 21, 2010. The episode continued multiple story-lines from the previous episode "200", the 200th entry of the series. Parker and fellow co-creator Matt Stone decided to celebrate their 200th episode by revisiting several subplots that had been featured throughout the show's 14 seasons. Multiple celebrities have been lampooned throughout the series' history, inspiring Parker and Stone to have all the past celebrities join in a class action lawsuit against the town of South Park. The ginger kids—children with fair skin, freckles and red hair—have been featured in several past episodes, where they were ridiculed by Cartman, who views them with prejudice. Cartman uses a hand-puppet con-artist named Mitch Conner who originally appeared in the seventh season episode "Fat Butt and Pancake Head", in which Cartman pretends his hand is Jennifer Lopez and uses many Hispanic stereotypes in his portrayal of her.
"201" also included several characters and subplots that were not featured in "200", such as the return of Dr. Alphonse Mephisto and Kevin, characters that had not been featured on South Park for about 10 years. Other previously recurring characters made appearances in "201", including Mr. Hankey, Big Gay Al, Mr. Slave and Pip Pirrup. Scott Tenorman, and the references to the death of his parents, were from the fifth season episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die". At the end of "201", the dead body of Tom Cruise lies alongside the corpse of a killer whale, a reference to the ninth season episode "Free Willzyx", in which the South Park boys help an orca escape a marine amusement park and flee to the moon, believing it to be a paradise. Pip Pirrup, who became a background character after his own eponymous episode and made only two speaking roles after before completely disappearing from the show in Season 11, makes a brief appearance and is killed off when Mecha-Streisand steps on him.
Muhammad storyline
One of the most prominent storylines from "200", which continued into "201", was the characters' efforts to bring Muhammad into public view. This is based on two past controversies in 2005 (Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy) and 2007 (Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy), when European newspapers published cartoons of Muhammad, resulting in riots, global protests, and death threats toward the artists. As a result of those incidents, many publications and television studios have refused to broadcast images of Muhammad in any form, which was the inspiration behind Tom Cruise's efforts to harvest Muhammad's apparent immunity to satire and ridicule. Parker and Stone have previously voiced dissatisfaction that images of Muhammad had been censored on the show despite the fact that his image was shown during the 2001 episode "Super Best Friends", without any censorship, before the cartoon controversies began. "201" continues the theme from "200" that argues against fear and censorship, and calls for support of free speech, both of Muhammad's image and any subject considered taboo.
Threats and censorship
In the week between the broadcasts of "200" and "201", the website for the New York-based radical Muslim organization Revolution Muslim posted an entry that included a warning to creators Parker and Stone that they risked violent retribution for their depictions of Muhammad. The entry stated that they "will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show." Van Gogh was a filmmaker who was murdered by a man named Mohammed Bouyeri in 2004 for making a short film on violence against women in some Islamic societies. The posting provided the addresses to Comedy Central in New York and the production company in Los Angeles. The author of the post, Zachary Adam Chesser, said it was meant to serve as a warning to Parker and Stone, not a threat, and that providing the addresses was meant to give people the opportunity to protest. The entry included audio clips of a sermon by al-Qaeda imam Anwar al-Awlaki calling for the assassination of anyone who has defamed Muhammad, saying, "Harming Allah and his messenger is a reason to encourage Muslims to kill whoever does that." Subsequently, the website for the organization was hacked, temporarily redirecting web traffic to images of Muhammad with a bomb on his head and an older Muslim man passionately kissing a young boy.
Before "201" aired, the New York City Police Department increased security at the Comedy Central headquarters in direct response to the threats. Law enforcement officials said Revolution Muslim itself was "all talk" and had never engaged in any actual violence but they were concerned that the website post could inspire violence from others.