Scientology hasn’t really taken off around the world. That’s because, despite having a foot in the world of entertainment, it really lacks any semblance of humour. Effectively, Scientologists are humour vacuums.

Have you seen they way they’re absolutely unhappy to talk about their religion? Surely you gotta face some persecution to be a proper religious person, right? It’s all about getting called an idiot and seeking strength from your god… or in the case on Scientology followers, A.L.F. or whatever it is they pray to/obtain people’s PIN numbers for.

Of course, anyone who mocks them incurs immediate wrath. So you can imagine that they’re not too thrilled with the off-hand way in which South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone dealt with them. As a result, one former member of the cult (don’t worry about the ‘cult’ tag – we think Christianity is a stupid cult too) says that the church sent someone to spy on them.

Mark “Marty” Rathbun, a former high-ranking Scientologist, said members of a alien botherers sent a “harassment agency” to try and see to it that Parker and Stone stopped mocking them.

He posted a document on his website that he describes as a report from the “Office of Special Affairs” that says Scientologists tried to find direct links to people who were friends of the “South Park” creators — including John Stamos, a friend of Stone’s.

In a tedious, jargon-loaded document, various attempts at snooping are described:

“Otherwise the special collections (covert information gathering such as trash collection, purchased phone records, hacked airline reservations, purchased bank records) will be debugged in order to get some viable strings that can be pulled”

“It is clear that this investigation is not going anywhere and DCOE (D/Commanding Officer External OSA) is getting it debugged.”

It goes without saying that Rathbun will now be getting harassed by Scientologists and that they’ll no doubt have him down as a crackpot or an immoral swine of some kind.

This seems to be the sole purpose of the Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs’ (OSA). They’re silencers. Or, if you prefer, complete fucking nutters.

Rathbun noted that OSA’s main activity;

“entails stifling criticism by an escalating gradient of techniques beginning with quiet investigation and moving up to infiltration, identification of and use of influential friends and contacts of the target, loud investigation, threats, attempts to harm the target financially, intense propaganda to discredit and ultimately, if all else fails, utter destruction of the target through overt harassment.”

Gah. They’re obviously a weak group if they can’t withstand a bit of criticism eh? Seriously. If we went around harassing everyone just because they were critical, we wouldn’t have time to do anything else and it would end up absorbing us, leaving us paranoid, jumpy and looking like… well… SCIENTOLOGISTS.

Not surprising that they’re like this when, in a letter in 1966, L. Ron Hubbard wrote about the procedure for dealing with criticism.

“(1) Spot who is attacking us.
(2) Start investigating them promptly for felonies or worse using own professionals, not outside agencies.
(3) Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them.
(4) Start feeding lurid, blood, sex, crime actual evidence on the attackers to the press.”

That’s nice isn’t it? He added, in the Attacks on Scientology, “Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter” document:

“Don’t ever tamely submit to an investigation of us. Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way. You can get “reasonable about it” and lose. Sure we break no laws. Sure we have nothing to hide. BUT attackers are simply an anti-Scientology propaganda agency so far as we are concerned. They have proven they want no facts and will only lie no matter what they discover. So BANISH all ideas that any fair hearing is intended and start our attack with their first breath. Never wait. Never talk about us – only them. Use their blood, sex, crime to get headlines. Don’t use us. I speak from 15 years of experience in this. There has never yet been an attacker who was not reeking with crime. All we had to do was look for it and murder would come out.”

Great eh? So yeah. If we’re taking sides, we’re squarely behind the comedians.

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First of all we want to say thanks for all the interest in our post about the top 24 Eric Cartman moments.

We have been really overwhelmed by the response, while also delighted that hecklerspray readers love South Park as much as us.

It shows you have good taste. However, while reading through your various comments we did realise that we missed a few moments of Eric Cartman genius and thought we had better set the record straight.

Well, it was simply another excuse to go trawl some more brilliant South Park episodes.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the rest of the clips we managed to rustle up – and keep sending your suggestions through. Although a third Eric Cartman list would be taking the piss slightly.

Anyway, enjoy.

10. Clyde the Frogg

9. Dog’s Milk

8. Dry Balls

7. Cartman singing 9 to 5 (at the end)

6. In The Ghetto

5. Cartman uses bedpan while playing World of Warcraft

4. Concentration Camp

3. I do what I what?

2. Cartman is a five dollar whore

1. Beefcake

ADVERT

Here at Hecklerspray, we have often been described as negative and cynical.

Now, that just hurts us. So to prove we actually can be positive about things, we have decided to dedicate a list to one TV show we truly love, South Park. And, in particular, its greatest creation, Eric Cartman.

In fact, we love South Park so much, we treasure it above KFC, Xbox and our own mothers.  Really! More than KFC. It’s that good.

And, of course, one of the main reasons for this love is Eric Cartman. We think he is one of the greatest ever TV characters of all time. But don’t take our word for it, just check out his finest moments.

As always, if you think we have missed something, please let us know. There are so many funny Cartman clips, keeping it down to just 24 was almost impossible. Plus, we wanted to spread the clips around rather than just feature entire episodes.

Anyway, enjoy!

24. Cartman eats his own underwear

23. Casa Bonita

22. No hall pass

21. Pretending he has Tourette’s so he can say whatever he wants

20. Kyle’s mom is a bitch

19. Cartman starts Christian rock band

18. Cartman’s tea-party

17. Cartman restarts Civil War

16. Cartman pretends to be a robot

15. Cartman joins the Special Olympics

14. Ben Affleck dates Cartman’s hand

13. Cartman and NAMBLA

12. Cartman dresses up like Hitler

11. Cartman wants a Wii

10. Cartman and KFC

9. Busting my balls

8. Heat of the Moment

7. Cartman’s Ginger snap

6. Cartman’s gay polarity

5. Kyle has sand in his vagina

4. Respect my authoritah

3. Cartman’s anal probe

2. Bad pie

1. Making Scott Tenorman eat his own parents

ADVERT

What with everyone banging on about Britney Spears' upcoming appearance on How I Met Your Mother, it's easy to wish that she was going to be in a sitcom that's, you know, funny.

And now she is. Last night Britney Spears squeezed in an appearance on South Park. Well, most of Britney Spears, at least. A large part of Britney's brain was missing at the time, but what's new about that, huh? Huh? Anyway, now we've got a special clip of Britney Spears' South Park cameo for you to enjoy.

Why are we posting this? 1) Because it's funny, despite the typical South Park sledgehammer sermonising, 2) because it's true and it's taught us that, as media consumers, we're all to blame for Britney's current mental crisis and 3) it's been a couple of days since we last posted a Britney Spears story and we were starting to get shakes.

One of these reasons is not true. Or maybe two. Anyway, enjoy.