C4 and Southpark

A while back a reader emailed me to say the C4 had not shown two episodes of Southpark- the ones called cartoon wars, dealing with the issue of portraying Mohammed.

This alarmed me if correct, because it would have been incredible double standards to show the Bloody Mary episode which was deeply offensive to many Catholics, but self censor an episode dealing with Mohammed (and not even in an offensive way).

So I finally remembered to call C4 up and ask them about this last week. And as it transpired the two episodes were shown, just out of order. I was delighted to hear this and warmly congratulated the staffer I was talking to for showing the episodes.

I found it amusing when the C4 staffer noted that I might be the only person who has ever rung them up to congratulate them for showing a Southpark episode!

That reminds me of the time TVNZ tried to reduce how often Coronation Street was on. I was a student at the time and wrote in to the Head of Programming congratulating him on the move. His reply thanked me for my letter but noted it was the only one in support and there had been around 120,000 in protest! Sadly they reversed their decision.