Dark true story behind Chef being brutally killed off on South Park
Even a fictional death can be the consequence of real life actions, as the gruesome demise of beloved South Park character Chef attests to.
Chef was brutally killed off after his actor, Issac Hayes, quit the show following a fall out with co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker in 2006.
Yet his son, Isaac Hayes III, went on to reveal the dark truth behind the feud years later.
August 13 is the 29th anniversary of South Park first swearing and farting its way onto the airwaves in 1997, and it's never been far from controversy in the three decades since.
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Stone and Parker have taken aim at everyone there is to mock over 338 episodes - especially Donald Trump in recent seasons - but one of its most shocking moments remains the pointed way elementary school chef, Jerome McElroy, was killed off.
In season 10, episode 1, 'The Return of Chef,' the character is walking over a rope bridge when it is struck by lightning and set ablaze. Chef hangs on as he's engulfed in flames.
A rock hits him in the head and he falls down a ravine, hitting sharp, jutting out rocks as he goes, before being impaled on a sharp tree branch.
To rub further salt into ever-increasing wounds, he's then eaten by a mountain lion, accidentally shot and torn limb from limb by the big cat and an arriving grizzly bear. In one final indignity, Chef loosens his bowels with typically childish sound effects to confirm his death.
A rather emphatic end but one that went far beyond the TV screen.
Why the actor who played Chef quit South Park
Though not in 'The Return of Chef', soul artist Hayes was the voice of Chef for the first nine seasons. He was also, however, a Scientologist.
As they have done for 29 years, Parker and Stone took aim at the controversial religion and its most famous practitioner, Tom Cruise, in the infamous 'Trapped in the Closet' episode, the 12th of season nine.
Hayes, however, seemingly took umbrage with his own religion coming under fire and left his role after falling out with the co-creators.
Though he did not mention Scientology, he released a statement saying: "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins."
In response, Stone said Hayes had 'no problem' and was happy to take payment when South Park mocked other religions.
"[We] never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology," Stone said in a statement issued by Comedy Central in 2006.
"He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begins."
'The Return of Chef' was the first South Park episode following Hayes' departure – with his lines being patched together from previous recordings – and the writers did far more to Chef than just kill him brutally.
They also had the character brainwashed by the 'Super Adventure Club', a thinly veiled reference to Scientology, who turned Chef into a paedophile. Chef went on to tell the famous quartet of Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny that he wants to 'make sweet love' to them.
In the episode, the children eventually rescue Chef twice and restore him to normality but, just as they're making an escape across the bridge, Chef is convinced by the club leader to turn back, thus leading to his painful end and, as it turns out, resurrection as Darth Chef. Just in case it wasn't quite clear enough that he was evil.
Not everything was as it seemed at the time
Days before 'The Return of Chef' aired in 2006, a re-run of the 'Trapped in the Closet' episode was pulled by Comedy Central. This sparked rumours Cruise had used his influence to get it dropped, which his representatives denied, the BBC reported.
Reflecting on their long run on the 20th anniversary of South Park with the Hollywood Reporter in 2016, the episode and the show's feud with Scientology came up.
Looking back, Stone revealed how Hayes acted when 'Trapped in the Closet' was first broadcast.
"It was like a day or two after, and it was pretty obvious from the conversation that somebody had sent him to ask us to pull the episode," he said.
"It had already gone on the air, and we didn’t tell him because we didn’t want him to be held accountable. Plausible deniability."
Hayes quit South Park via his statement four months after the episode aired.
However, at this point in the interview, his son, Isaac Hayes III, interjected to shed fresh light on the situation.
"Isaac Hayes did not quit South Park; someone quit South Park for him," he said.
"What happened was that in January 2006 my dad had a stroke and lost the ability to speak. He really didn’t have that much comprehension, and he had to relearn to play the piano and a lot of different things.
"He was in no position to resign under his own knowledge. At the time, everybody around my father was involved in Scientology — his assistants, the core group of people. So someone quit South Park on Isaac Hayes’ behalf. We don’t know who."
Stone revealed they didn't realise that full picture until a bit later, as Hayes III insisted his father was not hypocritical enough to 'poke fun' at other minorities and faiths just to become a shrinking violet when Scientology came into the crosshairs.
"It really sucked, the whole thing. This statement put out that he was quitting, it kind of called us bigots," Stone said, while Parker added: "But we knew in our hearts there was something way more rotten going on."
Isaac Hayes died on August 10, 2008, aged 65.
Topics: South Park, TV, Tom Cruise
Daniel Murphy