Don't mess with Matt and Trey!

'South Park' skewers chef Hayes
By Gary Levin, USA TODAY
South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are exacting revenge on Isaac Hayes, who publicly quit the show last week after saying the show exhibited "inappropriate ridicule of religious communities" in a November episode mocking Tom Cruise and Scientology.

There's speculation that Matt Stone and Trey Parker used creative editing of Hayes' voices from past shows to fashion new dialogue for Chef.
AP/Comedy Central

Hayes, also a Scientologist, is the subject of The Return of Chef!, a hastily assembled 10th-season premiere airing tonight (Comedy Central, 10 ET/PT) and written in response to the actor's exit.

Details of the episode were kept under wraps, but an official description says that when Hayes' character, cafeteria "chef" Jerome McElroy, suddenly resurfaces, the South Park boys notice "something about (him) seems different. When Chef's strange behavior starts getting him in trouble, the boys pull out all the stops to save him."

Hayes' spokeswoman Amy Harnell says he recorded no new material for the episode, and her understanding is that the episode combines new animation with Hayes' older voice-overs.

Stone and Parker have noted South Park routinely mocks religious groups, and that Hayes never complained before.

Questions have been raised about Hayes' health. But Harnell says he was hospitalized Jan. 15 in Memphis with high blood pressure, and had "subsequent medical complications," but was released after a few days and is "totally fine now."

A Comedy Central spokesman said there are no immediate plans to air reruns of Trapped in the Closet, the episode that mocked Cruise, which was pulled last week.