South Park creators won a censorship battle

South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have won a censorship battle with officials at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) after their new puppet film was slapped with a "ridiculous" NC- 17 rating.

The duo knew their new racy Thunderbirds-type film Team America: World Police would be met with some opposition but they were outraged when MPAA bosses came back with their harshest rating.

Parker reveals the &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/18/88/351/12450_censorship.html ' target=_blank>censorship chiefs were most upset with one scene showing two puppets making love and another featuring a puppet likeness of United Nations weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix being eaten alive by North Korean leader Kiim Jong-Il's sharks, wrote Ireland Online.

Parker, 35, and Stone, 33, don't take sides in "Team America," mocking liberal and conservative impulses alike. In the end they do take a stance, in language far too filthy for a family publication. The gist: There are bad people and worse people, and wimps who need the former to protect them from the latter.

"That's about as brave as we get with our politics," Stone said. (This despite the fact that they created a since-canceled TV sitcom called "That's My Bush," about a dimwitted president whose &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/usa/2003/01/03/41584.html ' target=_blank>White House has the same problems as any sitcom household.)