'South Park's Parker & Stone Respond to Comedy Central Censorship

The New York Times has reported a statement issued by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker in response to the alterations made to "201," the episode that aired last night.

The show's creators had received violent threats from Revolution Muslim, a New York-based Muslim group, about Parker and Stone's decision to portray Muhammad on the episode, the second of a two-part story arc celebrating the series' 200th episode. According to Parker and Stone, the network added numerous additional bleeps to the episode prior to broadcast.

Parker and Stone released the following on SouthParkStudios.com: "In the 14 years we've been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We'll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we'll see what happens to it."

The network is not allowing any version of the episode to be streamed online.

Parker and Stone announced last week that their latest project, a musical titled The Book of Mormon, is headed to Broadway in March 2011.

New episodes of South Park air on Comedy Central Wednesday nights at 10:00-9:00 ET/CT.