The Secrets of
"201"

by Wild Willie Westwood, with sources from all over the Web

Muhammad's name was censored throughout. When Tom Cruise acquired immunity from him, his name was not censored, though he did walk around as a "CENSORED" pillar. My conclusion is that Comedy Central, not Matt and Trey, censored "Muhammad." CC may well have censored the three speeches from Kyle, Jesus, and Santa to save time. After all, those speeches must have mentioned Muhammad many times, and it's easier to just bleep the whole thing than to sit there and bleep each individual utterance of the name.

On April 22, 2010, Matt and Trey weighed in on the matter at South Park Studios:

In the 14 years we've been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We'll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we'll see what happens to it.

Season 5's "The Super Best Friends" has been removed from the streaming eps because of this.

Fans have been wondering about Pip, since he was such a memorable character in the early seasons. After he got his own episode in season 4, he disappeared from the class, and fans of him were wondering when he'd return. Well, Matt and Trey finally brought him back... and killed him off. Don't look for him to become a second Kenny. Matt and Trey said early on that they hated Charles Dickens, so they never liked his books. They hated Pip.

Mitch Connor/Cartman getting into Mephesto's lab mirrors a similar scene in A Clockwork Orange.

The scenes in Scott Tenorman's lair are taken from Batman: The Killing Joke

Something Cartman said in "Cartoon Wars Part I" may come back to haunt Matt and Trey: "It's simple television economics, Kyle. All it takes to kill a show forever is get one episode pulled. If we convince the network to pull this episode for the sake of Muslims, then the Catholics can demand a show they don't like get pulled. And then people with disabilities can demand another show get pulled. And so on and so on, until Family Guy is no more!"