kenny

While watching Scrubs last night, I saw a familiar face in a promo for the new NBC sitcom, Teachers. The guy on my television screen had his arms stuck in the window of a car and I had to pause my TiVo and stare at the TV because I swear I knew him from somewhere!

With Scrubs on hold, I went to NBC's webpage for Teachers and found out who the guy was. It's Deon Richmond, y'all! He played Rudy's friend Kenny ("but I call him 'Bud'") on The Cosby Show. Since then, he appeared in Eddie Murphy's Raw and Spike Lee's Mo Better Blues. He's also appeared on a string of sitcoms, including a recurring role on Sister, Sister.

It's great to see him, but I'm still not going to watch that show.

You may have noticed that Wednesday night's episode of South Park was not the one where Tom Cruise refuses to come out of the closet numerous times, as was previously scheduled. The abrupt change actually had nothing to do with the fact that the episode was the final straw for Chef Isaac Hayes. Comedy Central yanked that episode at the last minute because Tom Cruise threatened Viacom with pulling Mission: Impossible-3 advertising if it aired again (is anyone else nervous about the amount of power that man has?).

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone released this hilarious and potentially inflammatory statement through their lawyer today:

A huge disappointment for South Park fans everywhere: Isaac Hayes has quit his role as Chef. It's no big shock that, as a Scientologist, Hayes was offended by November's "Trapped In The Closet" episode. However, many, including the South Park creators, are shocked that Hayes chose now to stand up against the cartoon's disrespect toward religion. To back out of the job and say that the material is personally offensive is one matter, but to scold the show for making fun of religions after doing season after season of jokes about Christians, Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, and everything else under the sun, is downright preposterous (and it takes a hell of a lot to make me use "preposterous"). Frankly, I am saddened by both Hayes' decision and his reasoning.

Chef has always been one of my favorite characters... I'm too distraught to even make a chocolate salty balls joke.