One of a few scenes from a Broadway-themed episode of “South Park” that we can safely depict.In retrospect, it was a good thing we talked to Robert Lopez about his contributions to Wednesday night’s episode of “South Park” before it was even written, because now that it has been broadcast we’re not sure what we can say about it.
Going into this latest installment of the Comedy Central cartoon series, there was certainly much anticipation for the reunion of Mr. Lopez and the “South Park” creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone — the three collectively wrote the Tony Award-reaping musical “The Book of Mormon.” And that excitement was further stoked by early clips from the episode, which appeared to offer “South Park”-style takes on Broadway fare like “Wicked” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”
And then, in the gleefully filthy tradition of “Book of Mormon,” “Avenue Q,” and all the work that Mr. Stone, Mr. Parker and Mr. Lopez are best known for, the whole episode hinged on one particularly adult plot point that has left us challenged to discuss it in an inoffensive manner.
Can we start with the principal story line, in which the “South Park” character Randy Marsh discovers that all Broadway musicals are a conspiracy to — no, we can’t do that. Or the sequence in which Randy decides to compose his own musical about — no, that won’t work either. How about the scene where he dresses up as Spider-Man to prevent — uh, scratch that. Or the spirited post-show Twitter message from the “Book of Mormon” star Josh Gad, who promised that — you know, the less said about that, the better.
So here are some famous Broadway composers, depicted as “South Park” cartoon characters, including:
Andrew Lloyd Webber…
Elton John…
…and Stephen Sondheim.
We’d show you Stephen Schwartz, too, but he was wearing a particularly naughty T-shirt.