The Station That Censors Muhammad May Give Jesus His Own Show

Comedy Central has a show in the pipelines for the future that may perk some ears up:

“JC”

A half-hour animated show about JC (Jesus Christ) wanting to escape his father’s enormous shadow and to live life in NYC as a regular guy. A lot has changed in 2000 years and he is the ultimate fish out of water. Meanwhile his all-powerful yet apathetic father would rather be playing video games than listening to JC recount his life in the city. JC is a playful take on religion and society with a sprinkle of dumb. Executive produced by Reveille (“The Office”), Henrik Basin, Brian Boyle (“American Dad”), Jonathan Sjoberg and Andreas Ohman.

Isn’t this the same station that censored the image/mention of Muhammad on South Park for unnamed (but easy to think of) reasons? Doesn’t this show have the potential to be far more offensive to most people that the image/mention of Muhammad ever would have been?

When asked if the show might draw some fire, especially coming on the heels of the network’s decision to censor the Muslim faith’s religious figure on “South Park,” [head of original programming Kent] Alterman said its too early in the show’s development to be concerned about such matters.

“We don’t even know what the show is yet,” he said.

I would assume, though, that jokes about religion would be a big part of it.

It’s this sort of attitude that frustrates Christians and cedes victory to radical Muslims: They’re potentially violent, so let’s stay away from them… and we’ll stick to making fun of Christianity.

But here’s my guess as to what will happen if this show gets made.

Christians will boycott it without having even seen an episode.

They will raise awareness of the program and the media frenzy around it will be huge leading up to the show’s debut.

There will be huge ratings that first night. And if the show is actually funny/smart, it’ll last. Most shows don’t do that, but a select few do.

Would I watch? Maybe if JC had a best friend named Mo…

(via Kate Shellnutt)

Tom T

I think they should give development of the show to Seth MacFarlane of The Family Guy and American Dad fame.

He’s always had hilarious takes on Jesus in some episodes of TFG. Seth’s never been afraid of nailing (!) religion to the proverbial wall. 🙂
Greg

Wow.

What annoys me the most is that this time, Christians actually are being (or perhaps rather are likely to be) persecuted against. All religions should be treated equally. If you can’t show pictures of Muhammad in case of offence, then you also can’t show things that might offend Christians, Hindus, Scientologists, and any other religions or religious views – even if they only apply to one person. Hell – forget religions, just say groups. (And include Raelians, Alien abductees and the like… ;))

If this does go ahead (despite the expected complaints), then my sympathies, as unusual as it is, will go to the Christians claiming to be persecuted.
Killer Bee

Those pacifist Christians are getting wedgied daily in popular culture while their Muslim counterparts have TV networks – some of them built on parody and giving offense – tiptoeing around their delicate sensibilities.

If a religion wants respect from the media, threatening violence is clearly the way to go.
bumlet5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2TV_LsOJ7I
Justin Chase

Comedy central is probably more concerned with the financial expense of their employees being killed because of their jobs then they are about offending anyone. It’s definitely all about the physical threats.
Jeff P

I always thought a comedy show about Jesus’s awkward tween and teen years would be funny. How does Jesus deal with going through puberty? To be fair, though, there should also be a show about Mohammad’s awkward tween and teen years… (or at lest a show about how Muhammad treated his awkward tween and pre-tween wives).

In any event, the show about an older Jesus in a different setting does sound interesting.
Bob

Does anyone remember NBC’s drama, “The Book of Daniel”? It starred Aidan Quinn as a pastor who routinely talks to Jesus (who appears on camera), his superior pops pills, he has troubled kids, etc.

Christians put up such a stink the show got cancelled after the pilot.
Jeff P

Someone should do an animated comedy show starting Mohammad where Mohammad is always a bit off-camera or obscured by something so you never actually see him. Working in always keeping from seeing Mohammad could be part of the comedy. Kind-of like that scene in the Simpson’s movie where you never see Bart’s privates when he walks around naked. well almost never…
Tobytwo

@Bob: I loved that show, and was very disappointed it was canceled so early. I saw all eight (I think) episodes on DVD.
WishinItWas

Are we going to have to let Richard Dawkins give them all a speech on “I’m offended”

Richard Dawkins-Im offended
Revyloution

An show based on the comic Jesus and Mo would be fantastic!

I always wanted to start a rumor that the reason we never see the Barmaid is because Pastafarians have a fatwa against drawing pictures of our serving wenches.
numsix

And yet we have this:
http://www.cbc.ca/littlemosque/about-the-show.php
Alz

Jesus needs a roommate in NYC…
Miko

More accurately, the kind of Christians who would never watch anything on Comedy Central anyway will loudly announce that they’ll be boycotting this show. And no one will care.
Erik

As a youth leader in my church, I intend to use this show repeatedly as a tool to get the kids thinking before discussions. It sounds like it will be hilarious, and I’ve already used clips from The Simpsons, Family Guy and Futurama as discussion fodder with great success.
Erik

I should clarify — I use shows like that as a means to start conversation…not critique the shows as immoral or whatever. The kids and I both think they are hilarious and see nothing wrong with laughing at the shows or at ourselves.
mark

what you propose may happen is exactly what happened with the show “married with children.” it debuted with poor ratings — largely because no one really knew about it. but some evangelical woman saw it and was so offended that she mounted a boycot. people tuned in to see what the fuss was all about, loved it, and it became one of the most successful sitcoms of all time.

let’s hope that happens again.
muggle

What freaking cowards! Afraid to offend Muslims but not Christians. I’m sorry but their rep is too heavily damaged. I can no longer take them seriously as the channel to go to for the truly offensive.
untheist

The slap in the face to all this was the censoring of Kyles speech at the end, which was supposed to be about fear, intimidation, and the freedom of speech.

You know, since Comedy Central puts most of their stuff online anyway, I dont usually have to torrent, but I may do that now. Just out of spite… that will show them! (maniacal laugh)