South Park: As Performed by Robin Williams
When “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut” was released to movie theaters in 1999, it caused an uproar. Many so called moral people, who were already unimpressed by the cartoon 8-year-olds and their rather adult words and actions, were positively appalled when the chains of TV language were removed and the cursing, violence, and sex went full bore. Kind of funny when you consider the movie itself was about American culture reacting in just such a way onscreen as they did in real life (with some obvious exaggerations of course: we all know Conan O’Brien loves himself far too much to jump out of a window.)
Needless to say, it came as a surprise when the song “Blame Canada” from the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. In those days, it was customary to have a live performance of all the nominated songs at the awards show before the winner was announced. This became a problem not only because of the obvious censorship problems, but also because Mary Kay Bergman, the voice actress that had sang all of the female parts of the song, had committed suicide several months before. Thus, who else would Trey Parker and Matt Stone ask to step in and sing the modified version of the song for them at the show, but Robin Williams? The master of improv put on a fantastic performance which made it all the more sad that the song eventually lost out to, of all people, Phil Collins.
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