Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of the ludicrously popular South Park, have apparently been under investigation by Scientologists.

What.

The Church of Scientology not only has an “Office of Special Affairs,” but uses it to investigate TV show gurus. One episode of South Park, called “Trapped in the Closet,” parodies Scientology. The main character, Stan, enters Scientology and is believed to be the reincarnation of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

The episode brought Parker and Stone under investigation, and “Operations were run in an attempt to silence” them. The quote comes from a memo posted on a blog by Marty Rathbun, an ex-Scientologist. The document goes on to state that close friends of Parker and Stone were being identified in an attempt to find weaknesses. On the list were John Stamos (ER) and his ex-wife, Rebecca Romijin (X-Men), as well as David Goodman, who writes South Park.

This gets creepier and creepier:

“…phone records. Bank records. Personal letters that expose some kind of vulnerability. They’ll read stuff into the kind of alcohol you’re drinking and how much. Prescriptions. They’ll figure out your diet. They can find out a lot about you through your trash.” This is another direct quote from the memo. I am silently avowing never to get on Tom Cruise’s bad side.

Luckily for Parker and Stone, the investigation is slowly dying off. According to Rathbun, “the commanding officer is pissed off and not enough is getting done.” Since Rathbun left the Church of Scientology in 2004, he has been posting such documents on his blog to expose the inner workings. He’s probably under investigation too.

One does have to wonder: what would have happened if the Church had found the “weaknesses” they were looking for? It almost doesn’t bear thinking about…

By Bryan Kluger

Former husky model, real-life Comic Book Guy, genre-bending screenwriter, nude filmmaker, hairy podcaster, pro-wrestling idiot-savant, who has a penchant for solving Rubik's Cubes and rolling candy cigarettes on unreleased bootlegs of Frank Zappa records.

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