6 days ago
‘My Dad Would Have Never Quit That Show': Isaac Hayes III on what ‘South Park' Meant to His Father
In South Park's early days, there was just one adult the boys would turn to when they were in trouble. And even if he was in the middle of making sweet love to a beautiful woman, Chef would always answer their call.
Chef, famously played by soul music legend Isaac Hayes, was a key part of the show's formula when South Park debuted, and his songs — from 'I'm Gonna Make Love to You, Woman' to 'Chocolate Salty Balls' — provided the earliest examples of the show's musicality. Hayes was also the biggest name involved at the start (no one knew who Trey Parker and Matt Stone were back then).
Given Chef's critical contributions to the show's early success and how beloved the character was by South Park fans, his death — and Hayes' controversial departure from the show — were all the more upsetting.
The story behind Hayes' exit from South Park begins with the Season Nine episode 'Trapped in the Closet,' which aired in November 2005. It mercilessly skewered Scientology and exposed some of the religion's more science-fiction-like lore that few members of the public — and even some of the church's own members — knew much about. Hayes, however, was a Scientologist (he joined the church in the early 1990s). As such, Chef doesn't appear in the episode, and Hayes wasn't informed of the episode's content ahead of time. According to Stone and Parker, this was intended to give Hayes plausible deniability.
The episode wasn't out of the norm for the series. Two seasons earlier, South Park did an equally vicious skewering of Mormonism, and the show mocked Christianity and Judaism — the childhood religions of Parker and Stone — since its inception. But just four months after 'Trapped in the Closet' aired, Hayes quit the series. His statement read, in part, 'There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends, and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins.'
Little more than a week later, Parker and Stone ran the episode 'The Return of Chef.' To voice Chef, they used clips of Hayes that had very clearly been edited from older South Park episodes. The episode concludes with Chef's death — he's set on fire, falls from a bridge and is mauled by mountain lions. While a 'Let's remember Chef how he was' speech follows his on-screen demise, the gruesome death came off as petty and upsetting — even to South Park fans.
Still, the door seemed open for Hayes' return, as Chef was resurrected at the end as 'Darth Chef,' a teaser for a story Parker and Stone would never explore, as Hayes didn't return to South Park before passing away in August 2008 from a stroke.
A full decade after Hayes quit South Park, his son, Isaac Hayes III, told The Hollywood Reporter that Hayes had suffered a stroke in January 2006 before he quit, and that he didn't leave the show. 'Isaac Hayes did not quit South Park; someone quit South Park for him,' Hayes III maintained. He explained that the initial stroke took away his father's ability to speak as well as some cognitive comprehension. 'He was in no position to resign under his own knowledge,' Hayes III continued. 'At the time, everybody around my father was involved in Scientology — his assistants, the core group of people. So someone quit South Park on Isaac Hayes' behalf. We don't know who.'
With South Park about to return for its 27th season next week, I recently reached out to Hayes III to talk more in-depth about his father's controversial exit from the show as well as what the animated series meant to his dad and to the soul legend's legacy.
Do you know how your father came to play Chef? It was such a random thing for him at that point in his career.
I know Matt and Trey had thought about who they could ask to play Chef, and they just reached out. They didn't think he would accept it, but he was like, 'Okay, I'll do it.' It was pretty simple. I thought it was cool because, what typically happens with great success stories is, you're just trying things. You don't know what's going to work, and before you know it, you put together something that's amazing and then it becomes this part of the cultural zeitgeist and everybody thinks it's this big master plan, but no.
From your perspective, I'm curious what you think this meant to him, to have this revival in an area completely different from his music.
It gave him a second fan base. He's known primarily for his music and that's extremely important, but it's funny because, the older you get, you realize that most people always have different chapters — like a first, second, third act or whatever. Like John Travolta, he was hot, he wasn't, and he was hot again. Or like Jason Bateman in the 1980s, and then he was gone and in the 2000s he came back and he is bigger than ever. There are those highs and lows, and, for my dad, this was definitely an American pop-culture high that he was a part of that was really powerful.
South Park was pretty much an overnight phenomenon, and Chef was one of the very few sane, positive characters on the show. But how did your father feel about the show and its material?
He tended to be the moral compass of the show, always helping the kids out. That's what I really liked about his character. They'd always come and ask him questions, and he'd always have the answers to these really uncomfortable things about masturbation and all kinds of stuff. My dad was comfortable with that, as opposed to sometimes being the gigolo of the town with all the ladies or whatever, which is also hilarious. That fit more into his persona of who he was as an artist, so he understood that as part of his character. But my father was an educator and a very smart guy, so I think, a lot of the stuff he would talk about, he probably knew or even had a deeper understanding of than what was conveyed in the script.
But did he find the material funny? Offensive? Weird? Did it match his sensibility?
It absolutely matched him. My father had an amazing sense of humor; he was a very cool guy. He was serious, but didn't take himself too seriously. He was never personally bothered by the material at all. Again, it gave him a new legion of fans, and it helped connect those people with his music.
Just in watching the shows, I don't ever think there was anything out of bounds. They definitely pushed barriers, don't get me twisted, but he understood that you're not supposed to take it so seriously. It's serious commentary not to be taken seriously, which is interesting.
Did you watch the show at the time?
Yeah, I watched the show. I was Chef for Halloween one year, and I won a costume party. It was great because your dad's part of this cool show that everybody's talking about. I don't think people understand how powerful animation is to people. I did voiceover myself. I've done voiceovers for shows on Cartoon Network.
Were you inspired by your dad's voice work?
Someone just said, 'You got a great voice, so you should do voiceover.' So I was like, 'All right, I'm going to try it,' and it worked out pretty good. I was this character called The Broodwich on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and even that small character — I think I was on three episodes — there was a real connection that people have to shows that they love in animation.
Chef had a lot of songs on South Park. Did your dad have a favorite?
'Chocolate Salty Balls' was the hit. He was doing that in concert. He'd do that on the road. During a concert, out of nowhere he'd go, 'Hey everybody, have you seen my balls? They're big and salty and brown!'
Getting to your dad's departure from the show, what was his reaction to 'Trapped in the Closet?'
So, initially, the episode came out in November, and there was no reaction. There wasn't any upswell about that episode at all. It really wasn't a big deal at the time. That January, in 2006, my dad had a stroke, and during the course of his recovery, I think that March, they re-aired the episode. When it re-aired, that's when Scientology got upset.
At that time, my father was recovering from a stroke — literally learning how to talk, learning how to function. I visited my father. He was really struggling sometimes to even speak and say words. At the time, the people that were around him were largely Scientologists — his publicists and management. Those decisions about his involvement in the show, his leaving the show, were made by those people and not him. He would have never quit that show. He loved that show, and he was making a lot of money doing that show. So, I take issue with the way those decisions were made on his behalf because it put him in a position to actually have to go on the road and tour before he was ready to tour.
When did he start touring again?
Probably less than a year afterwards. Because South Park was such a breadwinner. It was a great show, and he was making money. So now that you don't have this income stream anymore, you have to find other ways to make income. Touring is a way to do that.
Imagine you walk away from a gig and all you got to do is sit in front of a mic and talk. And to go back on the road and start learning how to play and sing and perform and travel and stay up late and flights and all that kind of stuff. I took issue with that.
My dad loved Matt and Trey. He loved that character. He loved the show. He loved what it meant. He would have stayed involved all the way until right now. To this day, he would still be on the show. That's the part that frustrates me.
I don't think Matt and Trey knew that at the time, because, even his own family, we were not always allowed to be in that inner circle. Anybody that has a celebrity parent, sometimes the core team around them, Scientology or not, can be a barrier to their family and personal relationships.
My father was married at the time, so his wife was there. We entrusted her, and she was fine. She was involved in Scientology, I think. I can't say that she was all the way — I won't say that she was involved — but I know that she was just there for him. So I felt comfortable that his wife was around. At least somebody that has his best interest in mind was around. But, by no means those decisions were made on his own.
He died in August 2008. Do you think him getting back on the road so quickly is what accelerated—
Yes. 100 percent.
And part of what I recall from Scientology is, they weren't big on modern medicine. They were more into holistic things. So even the medication that he was probably supposed to be taking, he probably wasn't taking. All of those factors, you know what I'm saying?
Which is why you have to be the biggest advocate for your health. My father was very big on holistic medicine and things like that, but at the same time, you have to be real and understand the science of what's going on — whether it could be your blood pressure, your heart, your kidneys. To this day, I think this had a major effect on me and how I view my health.
Did he ever talk to you about leaving South Park?
No, we never had conversations about it. Never.
What did you think about Matt and Trey's reaction? Even as a fan, the episode where Chef dies is very upsetting, so I'm curious how you feel about it.
Emotions were high at the time, and I think the way they handled it had to do more with Scientology than my dad. That was more of a big 'F you' to those guys as opposed to my father. But he was caught in that, and it wasn't a great way to end the character. You could tell a lot of thought wasn't put into it. It didn't really make sense. Even if the character was going to exit, it didn't make sense how the character exited.
What made you not talk about this until The Hollywood Reporter piece, and what made you want to talk about it then?
Because, after my dad's passing, you're learning more and more. But again, these people that are always around him all the time, were very guarded. It was weird. At the same time, I'm young, and I'm just concerned about my dad. Once I knew that he would be okay, I just let the course do what it does. My dad was still a person who acted and still performed outside of South Park. He still was doing movies, he still was doing other things. So, I didn't really talk about it. Plus, it's not my business, it's my father's business and that's how he was handling his business.
What made you want to tell The Hollywood Reporter at that time in 2016?
Because it's important for my dad's legacy — for people to understand what that show meant to him and what the fans of that show meant to him. That was more important than whatever the reason was for him leaving the show or people quitting on his behalf. I just felt it was important for people to know that he would never do that. Just setting the record straight. Because, why would he do that? It doesn't make sense. They make fun of everybody on the show. Why would he, all of a sudden, get offended about something that has nothing to do with his character and then quit? That didn't make no sense.
After that interview, did anybody from the church reach out to you?
No. I haven't had any connection with anybody from Scientology since before my father passed away.
Did Matt and Trey ever reach out to you about what you said?
No. I think they made a statement about how, once they heard what I said, they were like, 'Okay, I think that makes a little bit of sense,' and they understand it better.
With the dust of that time now having settled, what do you think about Chef as a part of his legacy today?
It's still a huge part. I mean, people still talk about that to this day. I saw this Reddit thread the other day where people were saying that they miss Chef and his parents.
I miss this family. byu/TylerSpicknell insouthpark
Reading the thread, it says you should come on as Chef's son. Would you want to do something like that?
I'm always open to that for sure. I mean, I'm a voice actor, and my father and I have similar voices. Anything's possible. I'm open to the idea, but I would think even more along the lines of, with technology, with A.I., that Chef himself could come back.
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