South Park will have five episodes missing from streaming
Fans of South Park in the US will be Thrilled (capital T) to hear that you can now watch almost all of its 23 seasons on HBO Max. We say "almost all" because there are a handful of episodes missing. Five, to be precise.
You might not have noticed given that there's more than 300 episodes to tear through, but for those eagle-eyed viewers who know every inch of the animated sitcom, you might have picked up on the slighter lighter load.
According to Deadline, the missing episodes are:
'Super Best Friends' - season five
'Cartoon Wars Part I' and 'Cartoon Wars Part 2' - season 10
'200' and '201' - season 14
These five episodes all have one thing in common – each featured a depiction of the prophet Muhammad.
In the Islamic faith, Muhammad was chosen by God to receive his divine revelations and spread the word of the lord.
Some Muslims believe that depictions of Muhammad or any of the other prophets – for example in images, drawings, statures or cartoons – are a violation of Islamic beliefs. This is to discourage idol worship.
South Park isn't synonymous with treading carefully when it comes to its no-holds barred style of comedy, but that can't always be said for the networks and platforms that it broadcasts on.
Back in 2010 when season 14's '200' aired, Revolution Muslim, a now-defunct New York-based extremist group, released an ominous statement.
The New York Times reports that the statement posted on the organisation's website named South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and claimed "they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show... This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them."
van Gogh was a Dutch movie and TV producer who was killed by a radical Islamist back in 2004, following a film he made that criticised the treatment of women in some Islamic societies.
The group later reiterated that its message about the South Park episode wasn't intended as a threat, but "a prediction".
However, the following South Park episode, '201', a direct continuation of '200', was heavily edited by Comedy Central.
Doug Herzog, the former head of Comedy Central, told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016 why the decision was taken, saying: "We were protecting everyone who works here. That was the decision we needed to make."
In the same interview, Parker added: "What pissed me off about episodes '200' and '201' was that I thought the episodes ended up being really good... We were so exhausted by it all, we were like, 'F**k it, just get on to the next episode.'"
The Hill reports that the five episodes which depict the prophet Muhammad were not made available for streaming in the deal arranged with HBO Max, and nor were they made available to other streaming services including Hulu.
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