EA is allegedly set to sue over a South Park episode featuring Tiger Woods and his golf-club swinging missus.
According to a "source", soon after the airing of the offending (and hilarious) episode this week (which you can see below) "the top beef were called in, even Peter Moore was informed of the situation."
The source claims: "Before the episode aired the marketing folks were already worried, but now they have a lot more to worry about. while I personally found the episode quite funny, there are definitely a few copyright infringements in there that I'm sure will be dealt with accordingly".
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have of course fended off far scarier lawsuits in the past, so we can't see this becoming massively apocalyptic.
OK, so EA are obviously bent out of shape by this and they don't like to see Tiger and their game represented in such a way... but bringing it to even more public attention with a law suit which they will inevitably lose is supposed to achieve what exactly...??
I'm sure there's some legal document in America that allows you to say what you want and take the p**s out of stupid sex addicts................can't remember what its called for the life of me...........
HAHA i thought it was a great episode esp at the end with the alien wizard had me and my mate laughing for ages. The newer episodes of south park are class
50% of the show was made up of them making motor bike sound effects with their mouths. that was the biggest televison travesty i have ever seen in my entire life. i cant begin to describe how pathetic that episode was, so i wont. the other episodes weren't much better either. only good one was the fishsticks one from that season and cartman stealing jimmy's joke.
they need to cut back on s****ing real life stories. they are cheap material that anyone can do. SP used to be a lot more creative than this. its as if they are running out of ideas, it smacks of pure filler.
Sorry - but you do realise this is South Park we are talking about? That's the show which, in its first episode had a satellite dish coming out of a boys rear-end.
Somewhere along the line you have developed an idea that South Park is "high brow" comedy. It's not. It's South Park! And it's great at what it does.
South Park has always been a satirical show about whats going on in the USA. I loved the biker episode. It was about the rebranding of words.
the great thing about South Park is that it works on so many levels and is never afraid to poke fun at people who deserve it or attempt to make light of delicate issues with a lump hammer.
I'd say my favourite of the newer episodes was the somarlian pirates one. 'ahhh c'est light sabre'.
they could have rebranded words and had an actual storyline instead of them making engine noises with their voices for most of it. that was excruciatingly lame.
only about one in ten episodes lampoon real life - they just get all the limelight in the news.
i see it too as cheap and easy material.
the original stories relevent to the SP world are way superior, and much more creative.
the lampoons are just like spin offs using the SP characters. like i said, anyone could have done the tiger s****, with any bodies characters.
@ SVD South Park has always been a satirical social commentary(even satirising social commentary) and more often then not used direct comtemporary happenings as plots.
I guess EA could sue over the lack of permission for use of their name. But i'm not sure if merely mocking the game is enough for a law suit.
EA can get their knickers in a twist all they want (I said that correctly...right?), but parody (which this clearly is) is protected free speech (per the U.S. Supreme Court).
Then again, if the U.S. Supreme Court's recent antics are any indication, then escalating this to that level could overturn what is (IMO) a common sense precedent.
EA need to get them a big ole bag of sense of humour
As always with these lawsuits they're going to find themselves falling foul of the 1st amendment - with particular regards to the use of satire
They really need to get over themselves - if anybody should sue it's Tiger & Elin Woods as they've broadly denied the allegations of her assaulting him with a club and this could certainly be a case of defamation of character in that regard - but I guess they don't want their s**t aired in public any more than it already has been
Oh - and does anything Grasshopper writes ever make sense? I've been reading here for a couple of years now and that guy - sweet jesus, if he was on tv they'd have carted him off by now
He reminds me of Cartman in the episode where he fakes having Tourrettes - no off switch
'I touched my cousins wiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeenter is a cold month'
@ SVD South Park has always been a satirical social commentary(even satirising social commentary) and more often then not used direct comtemporary happenings as plots.
having seen them all 13 seasons of south park back to back in the last year i can tell you that this is not true. not even near it.
there are far more original stories than these news-headline s**** episodes.
Season 13 was very good though, 12 is easily the worst. It goes like this:
Season(s) : Rank
1-3: Ranging from ok to good 4: Very Good 5-9: Excellent, peak of the series 10: Poor 11: Very good, back on form 12: Worst season by far 13: Very good, back on form again
Yeah, EA are doing well by trying to sue for this...giving the South Park episode that much more attention. South Park is satire, and extremely blunt satire at that. Just let the episode go by, it creates a laugh for the fans, won't affect sales of the game and isn't going to damage Tiger Woods any further than his reputation has already been damaged...
I'm guessing EA must believe this goes beyond parody or they wouldn't be suing. But as said in the article, the creators have fended off worse law suits in the past and will do in the future. As said above, let the creators have their day and it will blow over pretty quickly. Next week is a new episode, and the Tiger Woods one will be in the past, as always happens with South Park.
To SVD..."leeching off the news" is satire. I enjoyed the earlier episodes of South Park that went on about random crap like Anal Probes but what I love about South Park is that it has got better over the years by keeping up to date. Satire of current events in my opinion is what makes the show so good.
@ SVD South Park has always been a satirical social commentary(even satirising social commentary) and more often then not used direct comtemporary happenings as plots.
having seen them all 13 seasons of south park back to back in the last year i can tell you that this is not true. not even near it.
there are far more original stories than these news-headline s**** episodes.
But even the so called original stories or satire. Non of them particuly original either.
think of the pilot for chris sakes. hick town has problem with aliens. Wow that's so original. But it was funny.
What was it taking the p**s out of, middle americas obsession with UFO abductions.
the beefcake episode, makes fun of the american obsseion with the perfect body.
shall i continue. Even the 'original episodes' as you call them are actually poking fun at the american way of life(see satire). Just becasue they don't do it by obviously ragging on a celebrity. which they've done since the first series. anyone remember robert smith beating up barbara streisand or Sally struvers nicking all the aid from the africans.
I'm sorry SVD but if you examine the series on a level deeper than cartman calls kyle a stinkin jew Hur hur hur. There's a lot more to them.
having seen them all 13 seasons of south park back to back in the last year i can tell you that this is not true. not even near it.
there are far more original stories than these news-headline s**** episodes.
I feel in a very much similar way to WHERESMYMONKEY, the 'contemporary happenings' i mentioned don't necessarily have to be worldwide news headlines, but are more of an American culture that is subtle but deep rooted.
They have though been proggressively moving to more high profile headlines as plots, but for me at least, they haven't lost 'the funny' through this.
Who'd of thunked it ay. But this isn't inspired by some guys personal experience so much as whats in the headlines. So attacking celebrity is kind of necessary and funny.
Satire is one of the higher forms of comedy apparently. Unlike fart jokes. which is why South parks so odd.
I think it was because at the end Stan admits the game is boring at the end. South Park really hit it this week though, it would be awesome to see stuff like that happen in game.
I found the episode to just be brilliant. And IMO EA are just plain dumb and stupid. Here you have a WORLD famous golfer that has been ridiculed WORLD wide yet you wing and sue when he has the p**s taken out of him? Get over it, EA should have the responsibility to drop his name altogether!!! They should not continue to promote and proudly display the name of a man that's shagged more women then he has hit golf balls whilst supposedly being happily married. Don't like your wife? Leave her then! It aint rocket science...
And besides most of what South Park said is true anyway about rich successful men having affairs all over the place. But I am a South Park fan, watched it ever since the first ever episode, and then just knew I was hooked when Kyle was having a go at the aliens and I just couldn't stop laughing for ages.
Jeeze svd you really have to put a downer on everything don't you? I agree with all the points wheresmymonkey has made. the earlier ones are funny but not as good as the newer ones "oh my god they killed kenny" etc etc wondered why that isn't in the show anymore? its because its old and got very repetative
SVD, if you've ever raised children (God/Allah/Buddha/*insert your choice of deity HERE forbid), then you should know they would be out of nappies by year three at the latest.
South Park didn't start until 1997--if he was born in 1992, that would mean he would have been either four or five (depending on birthday)...and plenty old enough to start retaining cognitive memories (assuming his parents didn't censor what he watched).
So yeah, he could have remembered the first seasons and grew up with them. It would be rather disturbing (South Park instead of Barney/Sesame Street/Calliou/Mr. Rogers wouldn't be good education IMO), but it's possible and plausible.
Anyway, SVG, no one is saying anything bad about the PS3 in this thread, so why are you here anyway?
Jeeze svd you really have to put a downer on everything don't you? I agree with all the points wheresmymonkey has made. the earlier ones are funny but not as good as the newer ones "oh my god they killed kenny" etc etc wondered why that isn't in the show anymore? its because its old and got very repetative
they stopped it because it was repetitive... so what. does that make the new eps great automatically?!
you agree with everything monkey says... who thinks that biker episode was great.
that episode was the single most worst thing ever to come out of TV, bar none. the only SP not to raise a single laugh.
I thought the episose was hilarious, I was cracking up through it, mostly at the other part of the plot, the sex addiction, but the Tiger Woods thing was great.
Its the funniest episode of southpark since the world of warcraft one, its bloody great, i never stopped laughing at it,lets hope in the real tiger game you get to do it like the man himself and swing
you haven't quite answered my question and don't you think that's a pretty stupid generalisation- only two criteras for the writers to reach for people to enjoy an episode? I'm sure that's why south park became to popular
and if 92 refers to your birth year, you were still in nappies when the best ones were playing.
Iv watched a lot of the first few seasons and I know what you mean by there being a lot of change. I think it just comes down to the type of humour you like. Personally, I find all the controversial episodes appealing, as well as anything that takes recent news stories and rips it out of them. Unless it becomes waaaay to predictable...like the episode with michael jackson...was kinda tasteless. A lot of episodes are really great though
I think this is more a point of suing to not get sued. If they do nothing it looks bad on them from a corporate side, seeing as they work with Tiger Woods and if they left it they would probably take a pounding from TW's lawyers
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