TVSquad

Even though the show has been on forever, I still enjoy my weekly dose of the new South Parks. But lately, they seem to be running out of targets or have narrowed their focus too much on one particular evil: reality television.

The season opener featured a rather nasty swipe at Disney's Jonas Brothers. The recent "Dead Celebrities" chortle-fest took a much needed pot shot at Ghost Hunters, aka, "the gayest f#*$ing show on television." And last week launched an all out attack on Discovery's Whale Wars and Deadliest Catch, particularly against Whale Wars star Paul Watson.

The show has always been a bitch to write and making every episode a satirical masterpiece is impossible without suffering a full-on breakdown. But should the show lay off reality TV and take some bolder shots at reality, which as we all know are two completely different things?

If you're a celebrity and you appear on TV's South Park, chances are it's not going to end good for you. You're either going to end up dead, in Hell, or dead and in Hell.

So you can probably imagine the reaction from the family of the late TV pitchman Billy Mays: exuberant joy and ecstatic excitement.

Billy's son Billy Mays III said on his Twitter page that he was "proud" and "honored" his late father was included in their "Dead Celebrities" episode. He's also trying to get a cel of his father's caricature autographed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

He hasn't said if he's gotten it yet or not, but he's reportedly sweetening the deal for the South Park creators by throwing in an extra bottle of Chipotlaway absolutely free. Matt and Trey, call now!

Since we've already covered one television-based iPhone and iPod Touch game with Dexter, I thought I'd try my hand at a different one: the recently-released South Park Mega Millionaire.

The game plays like a missing episode from the television show. Unlike the last game South Park Imaginationland, this one is not based on a pre-existing episode (unless it's one of the upcoming ones). The plot is that the boys appear on a Japanese game show in an effort to win money. Each boy then goes through various mazes on roller skates with embarrassing obstacles along the way.

The funniest bit is the dialogue between the Japanese game show host and the boys. While the game has no sounds (which is my only complaint about the game as I would love to hear Matt Stone and Trey Parker speak the lines), it does have word balloons. From that, you get a sense of how the lines would sound. It wouldn't surprise me if Trey and Matt themselves had a hand in this game. The app also allows you to listen to any audio track on the iPod while playing the game.

The characterizations of the Japanese in the game could be perceived as racist, but anybody who watches the program knows that such crass characterization is in the spirit of the show. Some of the prizes awarded include references to the show such as Chinpokomon. The game itself plays like such classics as Sonic the Hedgehog or one of the Super Mario Bros. games. It's simplistic but fun.

Currently the game is on sale for $1.99 (down from $4.99), possibly in anticipation of the new upcoming episodes. If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch and like South Park, I recommend it.

Is television taking up too much of your time? Do you find yourself spending night after night on the couch, spending hours of quality time clutching your remote in the hopes it will lead you down the primrose path of perfect entertainment? Have you wasted entire days of your life decreasing the firmness of the coils in your couch with your ever increasing ass planted firmly in front of the idiot box?

If so, maybe a more physical activity would perk up your droll and dull life. Why not put down that remote, throw that TV Guide in the trash compactor and pick up that video game controller for a few hours of TV-related interactive entertainment? Because exercise is for people with no creative thought for self-entertainment.

Here is just a sample of some TV show game spinoffs headed to an XBox, Playstation or coffee table near you.

The first time I saw South Park, it was the original "Christmas card," Santa v. Jesus, that was floating around the Internet in 1996. I was living in Buffalo, and my roommates, who were also my bandmates, and also network administrators, had downloaded this new cartoon. As I remember, it took a while to download, more than an hour, possibly two. We watched it before band practice, several times, standing around the guitarist's computer in his room, all of us laughing our asses off.

It was crude in every way - the animation, the language, cheap shots at Brian Boitano for no discernible reason. Of course, rehearsal was repeatedly derailed that evening as we spouted all the wonderful new expletives we'd just learned, and accused each other of ham lust. When it was announced a few months later that Comedy Central had picked it up as a show, none of us could imagine how they would get away with it. It would have to be a completely neutered version of it to even make it on the air.

Russian TV censors have cut a scene from a broadcast of the show South Park in their country, claiming it portrays former President Vladimir Putin as a greedy and desperate leader (the episode first aired in 2005, when Putin was still in the president's office).

Sometimes comedy just doesn't translate overseas. Upon watching the segment, it doesn't feel like they're so much making fun of Putin as simply doing some situational humor involving the economic crisis in Russia at the time (and the only difference nowadays is that it has spread to pretty much every country).

This incident about the episode seems to speak more about the current situation in Russia than about in South Park. Compared to other segments of the show (Mickey Mouse, anyone?), this one is kind of tame.

I leave it for your judgment. The video of the offending segment is after the jump. Feel free to watch the segment and determine if the Russian government should be offended. Unless you're from Russia, of course.

A lot of memories have surfaced of the good times that pop icon and musical genius Michael Jackson provided the world in the wake of his untimely and unfortunate death. However, an elephant in the room has wedged its wide butt in between the happy memories that range from "Billy Jean" to "Rockin' Robin," other than the eye-bleedingly bad Moonwalker movie.

Jackson's life outside of the recording studio and in the blood-soaked pages of the supermarket tabloids provided a lot of fodder for comedies and comedians that turned the man into a punchline just as fast as the radio waves turned him into a legend.

In his breakout role on NewsRadio fifteen years ago, Joe Rogan played Joe Garrelli, a maintenance man with deceptively deep springs of knowledge. In a sense, Rogan has been playing that role for his whole career, hosting Fear Factor and The Man Show, commentating for the UFC, while writing increasingly smart stand-up comedy. Rogan's new special, Talking Monkeys in Space (Spike TV, June 20 midnight), is his best work to date.

Rogan takes on the legalization of marijuana, Dr. Phil, and technology with brutal logic. His last television day gig, Game Show In Your Head, is over but he says he doesn't mind. He's still doing what he loves most - stand-up comedy and commentating for the UFC, and he's got a new Web series on Crackle.com, a sort of Inside the Actors Studio for stand-up comedians, he says will start within the next couple of months.

I spoke with him about all of that, how having a one-year old daughter has changed his perspective, how his personal philosophies have evolved, and the treatment of his frequent rival Carlos Mencia on a recent episode of South Park, in which Mencia was beheaded by Kanye West for stealing a joke he couldn't explain.

When it comes to Family Guy, I really tried. I honestly gave it my best shot. I watched the Sunday episodes, the late night reruns on Adult Swim, and even some of the DVDs from my college-aged brother's collection, including the famed feature-length Star Wars parody. I watched until my eyes started planning a prison break from my skull.

I wanted to like it. It's goofy, occasionally satirical and completely unafraid to be silly and bat#*$& crazy. Alas, I couldn't take it. I didn't find it funny or entertaining. The jumps to the pop culture flashbacks made the whole thing disjointed and screwed up the continuity. The characters are as two-dimensional as the paper the Korean sweatshop animators draw on for each episode. The way the show just drags on certain jokes is downright irritating. We get it. Peter hurt his knee jumping out of The A-Team van. A prom night dumpster baby musical number would be hilariously tragic. It's the one and only time I ever rooted for Cartman in an episode of South Park.

That doesn't mean the show's creator deserves the same contempt.

South Park kicked off their 13th season (dear God, did I just say 13th? I couldn't feel older right now if I had to get my bifocals to read the instructions on a box of Depends) the way the show's longtime fans expect them to kick off every season: by kicking the latest flavor of the month, flash in the pan whatever square in the bean bag.

Sometimes their target is a woman, of course, and that's when they do whatever women call it when they get so mad, they physically want to fight each other. I believe the word is "hot as #*$(ing hell."

I cheated and looked it up on Wikipedia. Sorry.

South Park hasn't been too kind to musicians over their twelve seasons on Comedy Central. You may remember the origins of Bono were less than flattering (seem the U2 singer and Mr. Hanky have something in common). Last season, Britney Spears wound up horribly disfigured. And Richard Stamos (brother of John) never hit that high "F."

When the thirteenth season kicks off Wednesday (March 11, 10 PM), musicians will apparently have their revenge. Kenny takes his girlfriend to a Jonas Brothers concert in an effort to get lucky, but has his plans foiled when the band gives them "purity" rings. Can't wait to see what Matt and Trey have in store for the ubiquitous heart pre-teen heart throbs - I'm hoping it will warm the hearts of any parent you had to take their kids to that 3-D movie.

I know I've been asking this question a lot, but what the hell is going on here? Have we entered the bizarro world? Is up now down? Has black become white? Did Dr. Sanja Gupta accept Barack Obama's offer to be the next U.S. surgeon general after Dr. Pepper turned him down?

Last week, we reported on Apple's refusal to include a new South Park iPhone app. The white hot anger could be felt from coast to coast. We here at TV Squad were worried that the uproar it could have caused could have landed us in "Enemy Combatant Land" for disturbing the peace and inciting a riot, which technically would be Apple's fault.

Then an interesting little story popped into my view that seemed to contradict the claims Apple had made and as always, television helped show me the way.

Everybody knows an iPhone user who flaunts his phone to the world the way anyone of us would if we owned something that we believed contained the awesome power of God.

They are always checking their emails or giving you weather updates you never asked for. They always let their phone ring longer than necessary with some ridiculous sounds such as one of those dumb novelty "Pick me up!" chimes or the theme to Sanford and Son to make sure it grabs your attention. Pretty soon, every time they stroke their finger across that smirking touch screen, it subconsciously sounds like fingernails across a chalkboard.

Now, you can one-up your personal iPhone a-hole with this comforting fact: Their almighty cell phone from God won't let them watch South Park because it thinks it's too offensive for their delicate sensibilities.

The prospect of a news show featuring people with disabilities interviewing celebrities and people on the street sounds like a sick way to spend a Sunday evening. That assumption doesn't help when you see South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker's names under the executive producer heading, two guys who made the phrase "Timmy!" and "cripple fight" part of the American pop culture lexicon.

But as Stone said himself in my soon-to-be awarding winning interview (my boss said he would put a gold star on my next paycheck), How's Your News? -- which premieres at 10:30 tomorrow night on MTV -- aims to change the audience's perspective on more than one level.

It's a journey of self-discovery for both the participants and the viewers and that's a big step for a network that has had a hard time figuring out what it's supposed to be.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker are the modern day equivalent of a young Orson Welles arriving fresh off the boat to Hollywood, only with a lot less farting and jokes about having an ass the size of a mid-sized sedan. That part of Welles' life doesn't parallel Matt and Trey's until post-Touch of Evil.

The creators of Comedy Central's South Park have a rare, carte blanche contract to write, produce, star and create just about whatever they want. If they think it's cool or funny or particularly meaningful, that's enough fuel to get things burning.

One of those projects found its way to the small screen, a weekly travel news show called How's Your News?, which premieres on MTV this Sunday at 10:30 PM ET. It features a band of handicapped reporters talking to celebrities and on-the-street schmoes about anything that's on their minds. It started as a series of short films and turned into a critically acclaimed documentary. Stone told me that this time, the ambition and imagination that fueled this project came from its true stars.