South Park "Bloody Mary" an immaculate deletion, says Comedy Central

Many Boing Boing readers sent in this Comedy Central email response to complaints over the apparent cancellation of a South Park episode. "Bloody Mary" raised the ire of The Catholic League, which claimed to have successfully pressured the network into canceling re-airings. Here's background on the story. Snip from Comedy Central's autoresponder:

Dear Viewer:

Thank you for your letter regarding the "South Park" episode entitled "Bloody Mary." We appreciate your concerns about the potential influences of outside special interest groups on the media and enterainment industries and particularly Comedy Central. Though Comedy Central did not include the "Bloody Mary" episode in a special year-end marathon of "South Park" episodes in deference to the Holidays, "Bloody Mary" did in fact air in every one of "South Park's" normally scheduled repeat timeslots.

As satirists, we believe that it is our First Amendment right to poke fun at any and all people, groups, organizations and religions and we will continue to defend that right. Our goal is to make people laugh, and perhaps if we're lucky, even make them think in the process.

Despite misleading claims from those who would like to claim victory, we have not permantly shelved the "Bloody Mary" episode from future airings due to outside pressure nor will we exclude it from future DVD releases.

Sincerely,
Comedy Central Viewer Services

(Thanks, TeD Strother, Gary Shuster, Gedeon, Jan VIlhuber, Todd, Mike, chad, ttrentham, and the ten gajillion other BB readers / South Park junkies / First Amendment fans who submitted this)

Previously:

Comedy Central downs "Bloody Mary"

"Bloody Mary" resurrected: censored South Park hits P2P

Bloody Mary: War on Xmas over, War on Blasphemy starts