continued his party even after kicking everyone out and having eaten all the food himself. Production "Damien" was written by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with additional dialogue by Dave Polsky, and was directed by Parker. "Damien" first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on February 4, 1998. It was highly anticipated in part because it was the first new episode of South Park in about two months, since the extremely popular Christmas special "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" aired on December 17, 1997. Before "Damien" even ran, Mike Duffy of Detroit Free Press said the episode was "certain to become one of the show's signature moments". In fact, Parker and Stone originally intended for "Damien" to be the season's Christmas episode. Although they had long planned to feature a talking piece of feces in the show, called Mr. Hankey, they did not decide to make him a Christmas character until halfway through the filming of "Damien", during which time they decided to make a separate holiday episode instead, centered around the Mr. Hankey character. Nevertheless, they decided to finish production of "Damien" first, even though it would not air until after the "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" episode. Parker said he and Stone did not intend for "Damien" to be offensive to Christians or any other religion: "In South Park, Jesus is a great guy, he's on our show, and in this episode he's the hero. We're not in the business of offending people. We're in the business of making people laugh." The mean way Damien is treated by his fellow students when he joins the school, as well as Damien's reactions to the treatment, were inspired by Parker's experience of the second grade, when he started at a Cheyenne, Wyoming elementary school in the last three weeks of the school year. Parker said, "It was brutal ... Everybody already had their little groups and the year was almost over, so I wasn't going to fit into any of them, and I just wanted to destroy and kill, which was the inspiration for this show." Michael Buffer, the boxing ring announcer best known for his catchphrase, "Let's get ready to rumble!", made a guest appearance as himself in "Damien". Parker and Stone originally planned to use the catchphrase without Buffer, but when they learned that Buffer had legally trademarked the phrase, they included him in