'South Park': Bleep the Oscars!

MARCH 3 — Forget Canada--blame the Academy Awards organizers for wanting to stuff a big bar of soap in the mouths behind South Park.

After taking the title for filthiest
movie ever and scoring a coup with the Best Song
contender "Blame Canada," Trey Parker and Matt
Stone have a (bleeping) problem about how to perform
the (bleeping) song from their (bleeping) epic animated
gut-buster South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut for the
72nd annual awards show on ABC.

Most Oscar-nominated songs are belted out as-is, but
"Blame Canada," cowritten by Parker and Marc
Shaiman, includes several, um, adult lines, including
"f***," "fart" and an anti-Canadian curse directed at
"that bitch Anne Murray." In the film, overprotective
parents lash out against our neighbors to the north for
spawning a movie that turned their children into
potty-mouthed shi--, uh, brats. War ensues, people
die--including many beady-eyed head-flapping
Canadians--and Parker and Stone manage to take a
nice healthy jab at censorship and the Motion Picture
Association of America in the process.

The irony is thick enough to make you dizzy.

But the ditty is actually one of the cleaner selections
from South Park's soundtrack. (It would have been a
bigger problem if, say, "Uncle Fukka" or "Kyle's Mom's
a Bitch" got the nod). Still, the song's lyrics led
Academy Awards producer Lili Fini Zanuck to say,
"They need to find a creative solution to the song."

But neither Parker nor Shaiman want to budge, and
they're telling the Oscar folks to go bleep
themselves--literally. "It would be ironic to have to
change the words in a song in a movie about
censorship," Shaiman tells the Hollywood Reporter.

The tune from the toon will go up against Diane
Warren's "Music of My Heart" from Music of the Heart;
Aimee Mann's "Save Me" from Magnolia; Randy
Newman's "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2;
and Phil Collins' "You'll Be in My Heart" from Tarzan.
The Oscar ceremony will be telecast March 26 from
Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium.

The main rub could actually end up being over the other
F-word: fart. While Parker and Shaiman may get the
show to bleep out the cuss words, it's still not known
whether that familiar flatulent slang will also be gassed
from the broadcast.

"We won't tolerate changing the lyrics," Parker tells the
Washington Post. "That's the wrong way to go--the
song got nominated for what it is."

According to Ain't It Cool News, Parker reportedly told
a group at the Directors Guild that even Anne Murray
gave him permission to use the "bitch" comment about
her in the song, as long as it stays in context.

I thought it was damned weird that "Blame Canada" was nominated at all -- I thought if SOUTH PARK had any shot, their nomination would be Satan's ballad "Up There."

But didn't I read that Parker IS rewriting parts of "Blame Canada"? Yes, I did. Just like him to pick a fight with the Academy though. That's what they get for opening the Song nominations to SOUTH PARK, even while closing the Score nominations to it -- and to TARZAN as well (with the result that Phil Collins will win the Oscar for Best Song, though that was preordained as soon as Disney hired him for TARZAN.)