voiced in "The Return of Chef" using pre-recorded snippets of dialog from previous episodes. The character was written out of the series by a scene near the end of that episode in which he is struck by lightning, burned, impaled, and mauled to death by a mountain lion and a grizzly bear, before being resurrected as a Darth Vader-type being by that episode's villains. Tom Cruise parody The creators used the ambiguity of "coming out of the closet", having Tom Cruise literally refusing to come out of Stan's closet, in a parody of rumors that Cruise was homosexual. Cruise has a documented history of litigation against others involving rumors as to his sexuality, and some speculated whether Cruise could sue South Park. Entertainment Weekly asked in December 2005 whether South Park was "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and wondered "how that sort of Cruise-bashing is going to go over with Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's new bosses: Paramount Pictures just inked the dudes to a three-year deal. Other people with Paramount deals? Oh, just, you know, Tom Cruise. Should be one hell of a studio Christmas party". Concerns over possible litigation were raised in other countries where South Park is syndicated. The episode's planned screening on the UK's Paramount Comedy 1 channel was canceled for fear that Cruise would sue. In Australia, SBS TV screened the episode in late February, a spokesman telling Australian The Daily Telegraph that "We haven't received any legal threats so we're going to publish and be damned." Closetgate This episode was scheduled to rebroadcast on March 15, 2006, on Comedy Central, but the broadcast was canceled without prior notice, and was replaced with "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls". Representatives of Comedy Central insist that the episode was changed as a tribute to Isaac Hayes following his departure from the show two days earlier. The following day, the Hollywoodinterrupted.com blog alleged that Comedy Central parent Viacom canceled the rebroadcast due to threats of Cruise to boycott the publicity tour of his upcoming film Mission: Impossible III. These assertions were soon also reported by E! News and American Morning. Fox News attributed threats from Tom Cruise, stating, "to back out of his Mission: Impossible III promotional duties if Viacom didn't pull a repeat of the episode", as evidence of "bad blood" between Cruise and Viacom (which also owns Paramount Pictures, the distributor of MI:III). CNN's The Situation