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10 years later -controversial South Park episode finally airs on SBS.

After bowing to church pressure for a decade, SBS 2 finally screens a "Bloody Mary" episode of South Park.

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It only took 10years but “Bloody Mary,” a controversial 2005 episode of South Park, finally made its Free to Air debut last night on SBS 2.

In 2006 Melbourne’s Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart wrote to SBS asking them not to air the episode, which features a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding from the rear.

SBS bowed to pressure and withheld the episode, although it did air The Comedy Channel in the same year.

It also caused uproar overseas, with the US Catholic League demanding an apology and insisting the episode “be permanently retired.” New Zealand’s C4 also received howls of complaints from offended viewers and then-Prime Minister Helen Clark issuing a statement saying the episode sounded “revolting.”

In 2010 GO! pulled the episode at the last minute after a report on TV Tonight noting its surprise scheduling. It noted “a very confronting story line which, with the best will in the world, is difficult to defend”.

An SBS source indicated it was high time to debut the episode as part of its “South Park‘s Most Shocking” collection, which also includes Trapped in the Closet, The China Problem and Hell on Earth.

Those still curious to see the offending episode can catch it on SBS On Demand.

7 Responses

  1. In 2005 the church was still respectable and could wield power over the media not to show the episode. But since then we have had the disastrous 2008 World Youth Day in Sydney which wasted over $400million of taxpayer’s money, sent businesses in Sydney broke and sent the NSW Budget deeply into debt from which it only recovered last year. We have also seen the ongoing paedophilia scandals involving the church and its clergy and schools as well as their opposition to gay marriage which according to a Seven News poll is now supported by 85% of the population. The ground has shifted so far from under the ground of the church that if they tried to stop anybody showing the episode nowadays they would be laughed right out of the arena.

  2. In the years since this episode aired, South Park has gone way further than this. It’s a pretty good episode pointing fun at the stupidity of Virgin Mary worship more than anything else. As someone once said in a previous story you ran: If you’re going to believe in fairytales then you better harden up. Spot on.

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