It was already said about Troy Mclure. I’m still annoyed that a 3rd rate Indian comedian said “Apu is making us all look bad” Ahh yes Apu who is literally the hardest working person (besides Smithers) Apu a man who had 5 women dating him at one time. A man who got the hottest girl ever (The Squishish girl)… They decided that was offensive and against their race.
All I’ve got is “OI MISTER PRIME MINISTER” and “900 DOLLARYDOOS???”
I guess I’m entitled because 900 dollarydoos is fucking hilarious and I love being insulted.
I have some long lost Scottish heritage (ask the English and the Catholic Church why I can’t look up my history) and I Absolutely love everything about Groundskeeper Willie even his creepy phase of filming couples in their cars… "EVERY SCOTTISH PERSON DOS EET’
Don’t forget that Apu was an excellent hard-working, small business owning, immigrant father.
Aside from public remove reason, that character was become boring. I would expected them to remove him anyway
I’m pretty sure ‘dollarydoos’ is honourary Aussie now. It was in Bluey.
Ahh yes Apu who is literally the hardest working person (besides Smithers)
It’s reinforcing a stereotype. Apu was an interesting character when they expanded him, but he dealt with a lot of stereotypes and had a white guy voicing a fairly stereotypical guy.
Hank Azaria (or whoever it is voicing him) is cool with it, maybe check out his perspective
I’m sometimes a bit concerned that I do buy into the “white actors voice them better” trope.
I think last major instance I recall is Widowmaker from Overwatch. The fake French accent is generally much easier to hear their lines through, and they can build their vocal focus on the “sexy spy” theme.
It could be just that English actors are better at understanding cultural expectations to build on for their audience. I’ve had a hard time building investment in some characters with certain heavy native accents, which is tricky to think about.
Making fun of nationalities is fine as long as it is funny enough.
so is lindsey graham
Eddsworld! Neat
Te be fair, Troy McClure stopped appearing after his voice actor was killed.
Same for Isaac Hayes (Chef), though less murdered and more natural causes.
Chef was written out because Isaac Hayes lost his shit when South Park went hard on Scientology. They killed off the character well before Hayes died.
IDK What suit your talking about. Isaac Hayes suffered a stroke after the episode aired, and the Church of Scientology released a statement on his behalf. Hayes’ son set the record straight over a decade after his dad died. Here’s the tweet.
For over 14 years, people have speculated about why my father @isaachayes left South Park. I’m here to set the record straight. My dad did not quit South Park. Scientology did.
After the episode Trapped in the Closet aired in 2005, my father suffered a stroke just a few months later that left him unable to speak or make decisions on his own. He was not in any condition to resign from anything. The truth is, someone else within his Scientology circle made that decision and quit the show for him.
He loved being the voice of Chef. He loved the character. He loved connecting with fans. He would joke with people who recognized his voice, and he truly enjoyed being part of the show.
The narrative that he quit because he was offended by the satire is not true. That was a cover story created by others. My father never got to speak for himself because his health robbed him of that chance.
So now I am speaking for him. He did not leave South Park willingly. He was forced out by illness and by people who did not have his best interest at heart.
This is for anyone who loved Chef. This is for anyone who admired my father’s work. This is the truth about what really happened.
Here is the original tweet. Hayes son has also said this in an interview.
Hayes previously stated that although he didn’t like those jokes, he got them and still liked being a part of the show. I’m pretty sure South Park made jokes about Scientology before this episode. So why wouldn’t he have left earlier if that was what he had a problem with?
Here is even more info about it.
So we can all stop down voting OP for being correct.
No, Chef was removed at the request of one of his family members because of his association with Scientology. Isaac Hayes died two years after the removal of Chef.
didn’t isaac hayes have an argument with matt and trey, because hayes was a massive figure in the scientology space, and south park making an episode criticising scientology? that’s what i heard.
edit: just saw the replies below. Yes, i thought so.
Ah. Thanks
I recall Matt and Trey said he wasn’t all that upset, he just wouldn’t take part in that specific episode. But then after the episode aired there was a falling out. But maybe he had a stroke?
I’m not 100% on the deets, but i know there was something about scientology. He did have a stroke though, but that was after the south park/scientology stuff though.
Yeah details are sketchy on this. But from what Matt and Trey have said it was only after the episode aired there was a problem, and it was probably CoS that told him he couldn’t be on the show anymore.
The episode where Chef is turned into Darth Vader kinda indicates it’s something like this if you read between the lines. Weirdly sad episode because you can tell Matt and Trey missed him and really wanted him to come back.
Lisa Miller is in the latest Scott Pilgrim game.
I haven’t watched the Simpsons in SOOOOO long. They really benched Apu?
Watching this video made me realise that benching Apu was a mistake. Because as a character, he is not punched down on, he is reliably one of the more considerate and nuanced characters in the show. He’s not a Cletus-like character, and the jokes about his Indian heritage are not mean spirited.
Did you watch the documentary itself, or did you just watch that 45 minute takedown of it presented by a white guy wearing USA flag shorts telling us why he thinks Hari Kondabolu doesn’t understand racism?
I did watch the docco, and unfortunately it doesn’t really make it’s case coherently or entertainingly. That’s pretty bad because the creator is meant to be a comedian, and he really should have been able to ruin Shearer’s career but he’s just not all that great.
As for Apu, the reason he sucks is that he started as a caricature but somehow ended up a main character, and the creators have kind of painted themselves in a corner. Is he meant to be a wacky stereotype like the Italian chef, or are we meant to have pathos, like Skinner? Add that to the fact that there just aren’t many Indians on screen, and you have Apu as mostly the only Indian representation on TV.
It’s anachronistic, orientalist, and just a bit lame to do jokes like that. Heck, it was lame when they created the character, that’s why the specific note was not to make him Indian, but Shearer did it anyway.
Evidently you dont know Max, he is very self aware, and is a leftist.
That character you see there on the screen isn’t an animated version of himself, it’s a character - he’s far more pityful than the real Max, and (I think that its in this video) references how his own appearance is going to trigger judgement, as he looks like a skinhead.
In any case, I don’t need to watch the documentary fully, if its ideas are represented fairly, right?
So, then, does it present the ideas of the documentary fairly?
Because you are inferring it doesn’t, even though you likely haven’t watched the video I posted.
The voice actor maybe felt bad about being a white guy reinforcing indian stereotypes, or maybe felt pressured, but either way decided that he wasn’t going to voice him anymore, and they decided not to replace him and instead just never give Apu a line again.
Yeah, all those stereotypes of Indian people being successful business owners, loving husbands, dedicated fathers, and all around decent folks really give the wrong idea about Indian people.
Thanks. Not replacing him was an odd choice, though.
not so much; the topic had kind of become a whole thing within the comedy/entertainment circuit on account of Hari Kondabolu making a documentary about it.
It was a detailed and nuanced discussion about the wider nature of invisible racism, and therefore attracted a ton of kneejerk reactions from people who hadn’t watched it but sure as hell had opinions. In the end it was just easier to let it lie than get tied up in an intractable discussion on whether an Indian person playing up an Indian stereotype for the entertainment of a mainstream audience is still harmful or not
Yep. And Hank Azaria has a fuckton of other characters to voice, and there’s a huge universe, so no Apu isn’t really a show killing problem.
Writing the show while various groups without any sense of humor move goalposts around is what killed the show. Make no mistake, it may still airing, but it’s been garbage for a long time.
no Apu isn’t really a show killing problem
Can’t say the same about the writing tho 😅
FORREAL
I just… sometimes reel when thinking about how long it’s been really bad… like, phoned in, then joked about phoning it in, then cozyed into how lazy it could all be… imho makes a great argument nothing should last 10+ seasons
F
What are you talking about. Apu’s right there. Ice got him.
Nope that’s Gandhi from Clone High.
Who is the handsome cat?
Not sure if serious or not, it’s Pepé le Pew. He’s a rapey skunk and French stereotype (but I repeat myself).
Rapey skunk
But enough about the US president…
Merde…
For anybody not familiar, he was a Loony Tune. His gimmick was he would fall helplessly in love with any black cat who happened to get white paint on her (or possibly his, not here to judge) back.
Pepé was very…self-imposing. To put it mildly. He would not last long in a “No means no” world.
But I’d never thought it’d be 1am, and I’d be a 41 year old man proactively explaining horny skunks to kids on the internet who have never experienced it first hand.
I just thought about the whole pepe thing last week and i don’t really get it to be honest. I loved looney tunes as a kid, don’t really care for it now, and have no reason to defend pepe at all. But ifeel like removing him was just a weak ass attempt to pretend to be the good guys. He was certainty problematic and all, but that was the whole point. He was never the good guy, or the funny guy. Even as a child i realised that he was scummy and odd. I’m oly going off memory here from a show i watched over 30 years ago, but he was never really endorsed or bugs bunny never told him that he’s cool and he ahould just continue to force himaelf on that cat. He was a caricature of a slimebag that probably every girl and woman at least once in their lifetime encounters. Removing him is just like saying these people don’t exist, don’t worry. I know it’s not that deep, but to me it feels like when they removed the D&D episode from community where señor chan painted his face black because he was a dark elf and then felt good about themselves because they solved racism.
It’s easier to erase than to fix
Imagine being a little girl growing up watching that. The message is that someone sexually harassing you and refusing to take a “no” is common and normal. Just an annoyance.
Back then it was common, and if not normal in all places, certainly something everyone just had to “deal with”. However, even some people pushed back against it.
Unfortunately a major political movement is normalizing it again now. Probably better to remember the trope and discuss it rather than bury it. But, it’s a kids show, so it doesn’t need to be in the rotation in every kid’s constantly running digital baby sitter I suppose.
I want to believe a kid isn’t so dumb, but its also possible a boy see it and goes
“Oh wouldn’t it be funny to act like this to my crush?”
Which just reinforces the whole cycle.
Yes, kids are constant emulators, if anything. Except terrible speed and accuracy. Lots of glitches.
Sometimes surprising results though. My kid somehow memorized the lyrics to the SSBU song. I thought they were in Japanese until he sung it…but my ears suck especially at her pitch and with her style.
The truth is, he just wasn’t that popular of a character. He had literally one gimmick and it got old, fast. I don’t think I ever heard anyone say he was their favorite. People skipped his episodes so they needed a reason to get rid of him and the whole “me too” thing was a good way to score political points with the public while also getting rid of a one-dimensional character most people didn’t care about.
I wish I could remember the name of the novel. It’s pretty recent.
Author and hero are both gay men. The hero is fighting a vampire/zombie/cannibal cult. Book is full of massacres, torture, and about a dozen human sacrifices.
There’s a trigger warning about bad language at the start of the book.
One of the moms in my wife’s mom-clique…the one everyone talks about behind her back…is super religious (Catholic). Their kids all go to private school.
They went to go see a movie, I think it was Lightyear, and her daughter (who at 8 is already giving me “this girl will grow up to be a butch lesbian” vibes) asks about the part where a girl married another girl.
Which, if you ever saw the movie, was a huge deal to the religious right, even though it was literally the tiniest part of the whole movie (and ultimately unnecessary to the plot, which is probably why they made such an uproar over DEI).
Anyways the mom immediately shot it down saying that girls can’t fall in love with other girls and they absolutely cannot marry each other.
I feel really bad for that girl. And their older son, who is very likely mildly autistic, an absolutely brilliant kid, but getting a true Catholic school education and will talk my ear off about the great flood. He’s getting pretty suspicious of creationism so maybe there’s hope for him yet.
But alas, I also don’t want to overstep as a parent.
I feel like Fifi from Tiny Tunes was supposed to be a more PC Pepe, but they had absolutely no ideas to make her more of a thing. Did she even have a gimmick? I just remember her name and that she was purple.
Pepe wasn’t meant to be a kids’ cartoon. When he was created cartoons ran in theaters before the main movie came on. The jokes were written on an adult level. The Tiny Toons were supposed to be for children. Kind of hard to put a nymphomaniac into a G-rated show.
Oh I knew that, I’ve seen it before getting to the age of 43 kiddo :)
I just never saw the French attitude because I was French (still is), hence the “merde”.
My name isn’t from that cartoon (Pépé le putois) but from a certain plant… I was a teenager when I choose it. Now that I’m an irresponsible adult I tell people that it’s Skunk the animal and I use cute skunks as profile pictures.
But that’s a lie, let it be our little secret 🤫
Who’s in the red sweatshirt?
Tord from Eddsworld
Tord is back (e.g. in the end or tords next big adventure)in eddsworld and was allways at least a repeated cammeo
Tord from Eddsworld
