Archdiocese of Munich taking on MTV's "PopeTown"

From the AP:

Munich archdiocese rejects MTV concession to German criticism of 'Popetown'

BERLIN (AP) - The Munich archdiocese on Thursday rejected a concession made by music channel MTV after criticism in Germany of its "Popetown'' cartoon, vowing to press ahead with legal efforts to keep the program off the air.

The cartoon, which depicts the pope as a pogo-stick riding brat, has stirred protests from the Roman Catholic church and conservative politicians, particularly in Pope Benedict XVI's native Bavaria.

On Wednesday, the channel said it would broadcast only the first episode on May 3 and would consider public reaction before deciding to air more. The Munich archdiocese had pressed it to back off airing the program, and said it was not satisfied.

"The broadcaster's proposal to air one program in the series, have a public discussion and then decide on further broadcasts is perfidious in that an attempt is being made to commercialize the legitimate protest rather than show sense,'' a statement from the archdiocese said.

It added that the archdiocese would pursue legal move to prevent the series being broadcast and would announce its next move May 2. [More]

St. Blogs commentary:

• Closed Cafeteria - first post (some sample stills from the show)
• Closed Cafeteria - the Popetown website's blasphemous "virtual confessional":

"MTV Germany also has what they call a "virtual Confessional" - enter your name,
city and your sin, press "Confess", then the screen says "absolution"." [!!!]

• Holy Whapping - "We are not amused" about Popetown's unbelievably offensive magaine ad:

"To give you an idea of what we're dealing with here, you might have a look at the (to put it mildly, blasphemous) poster they've prepared for the show. The German reads, "Laugh Instead of Hanging Around," and shows a hideously grinning image of Our Suffering Lord watching TV. Utterly disgusting. (The original version does not have the text in red.) For more news on the subject, click here, and here."

• PowerBlog has some good thoughts about Viacom, the company funding the show:

"The interesting things is Comedy Central and MTV [producers of Popetown] are both owned by the media conglomerate Viacom. Viacom also own CBS, CMT, LOGO, Neopets, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, TV Land, Noggin, Spike TV, VH1, Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Studios and local Infinity Pittsburgh radio stations 93.7, 100.7, 107.9 and KDKA. What is is being pumped into our life by Viacom?"

I hope the Archdiocese of Munich gets this piece of trash canned.

[Technorati Tags: Popetown]