South Park has seen many characters come and go, and many of them have been involved in controversy, as is the case of Chef, one of the few adults who were close to the main group of kids and whose departure was a complicated one behind-the-scenes. Animated shows for adults are now very common, and they have a lot to thank South Park for. This peculiar series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone is done in a cutout style animation and has stood out not just because of that but due to its use of profanity and dark humor, and for satirizing a variety of topics and current social, political, and cultural issues.
South Park follows four kids – Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick – and their various and mostly disastrous adventures in and around the titular Colorado town. Although the series is aimed at a mature audience, with sexual content, graphic depictions of violence, and addressing topics that more often than not end up being quite controversial, it keeps some of the characteristics of traditional cartoons, such as the kids and the adults living in their own worlds. However, there was one character the kids could always count on and the only adult they could truly trust: Chef (voiced by Isaac Hayes), who left the series during its ninth season.
Jerome McElroy a.k.a. Chef was the cafeteria chef at South Park Elementary, where he met Stan and company, and he was one of the few African American residents in town. Chef earned the trust of the kids and was their go-to adult for advice, but because this is South Park, he ended up breaking into songs about sex, though that changed as the series progressed and the character was further developed. Chef also won the audience over, but in 2006, Hayes quit South Park, and though the official press release offered a reason, the story got more complicated and there was a lot of controversy around it.
First off, in January 2006, Hayes defended the show’s style and humor and noted that even though he wasn’t pleased with how South Park depicts the Church of Scientology (of which he was a member), he understood what the creators of the show were doing, but he seemed to have changed his mind a couple of months later. That same year, Hayes suffered a stroke, and it was during his recovery that he quit South Park, reportedly due to the show’s attitudes towards and depiction of various religions, explaining they had crossed the line from satire to intolerance. There was a lot of speculation around the real reasons why Hayes left South Park, with Parker and Stone claiming he quit due to the episode “Trapped in the Closet”, in which Stan joined Scientology to find something fun and free. In response, Stone said that Hayes’ departure was all about his faith in Scientology and called him out on his double standard, saying that Hayes “chased plenty of checks with our show making fun of Christians” and he never had a problem with the show making fun of other religions, and to him “that is where intolerance and bigotry begin”.
Conflicting stories over the real reason why Hayes left South Park continued, but in a 2016 interview with THR, Hayes’ son Isaac Hayes III said his father was disabled at the time of his resignation and the decision was made by his team, all of which were Scientologists, this because Hayes was unable to make such big decisions on his own at the time. Chef’s final appearance in South Park was in season 10’s premiere episode “The Return of Chef”, which used voice clips of the character from previous episodes, and for his transformation into Darth Chef, he was voiced by Peter Serafinowicz. As for Isaac Hayes, he passed away in 2008, and the episode “The China Problem” was dedicated to him. South Park is no stranger to controversy in all possible ways, but when it comes to Chef and why Isaac Hayes left, there’s still a lot of mystery and ultimately, the only ones who know what truly happened are him and his team.