"Cartoon Wars Part II" is the fourth episode in the tenth season of the American animated television series South Park.

It also came from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's general dislike of Family Guy, which they viewed as overly reliant on cutaway gags for humor and less so on story.

During production, the duo ran into reluctance from Comedy Central and parent company Viacom, who felt their insistence to depict Muhammad disregarded concerns for public safety.

Eric Cartman has an intense disdain for the television program Family Guy due to frequent comparisons between his sense of humor and that of the show by his peers.

Cartman pretends to be the sickly Danish son of a cartoonist with a broken leg, telling the Fox executives that his father was killed by terrorists during the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and pleading that they pull the Family Guy episode.

Titled Terrance and Phillip in Mystery at the Lazy "J" Ranch, the segment concerns the Canadian duo at a cattle ranch meeting the Muslim prophet Muhammad, with Terrance remarking that the duo have "read all aboot [him] in the Quran" [sic] before enlisting his help to solve a murder, though the episode is censored by the Canadian Broadcasting Company, as Muhammad is continuously obscured by a censor bar.

This censorship outrages the duo, leading them to confront the network president: who claims he has censored the prophet out of fear that Muslim extremists will attack Canada, citing the current predicament with Family Guy as justification.

Cartman reunites with a restrained Kyle, praising his enraged reaction to the scheme: proclaiming it as "emotional character development based on what's happening in the storyline!

The Fox president is therefore convinced that the manatees are spoiled and abusive of the executives' generosity, and he thus decides to pull the new Family Guy episode shortly before airtime.

The Family Guy episode airs, and features a scene in which Peter Griffin compares receiving a pink slip at work to yet another encounter he had with Muhammad: in which the prophet handed him a "salmon helmet" whilst Peter wore a toga, though the scene with Muhammad was cut by Comedy Central, and is replaced by a black screen and a title card reading, "In this shot, Mohammed hands a football helmet to Family Guy.

[sic] Terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, reminding America that it was warned not to show Muhammad, initiates Al-Qaeda's retaliation — a crudely animated video depicting President George W. Bush, Carson Kressley, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and Jesus Christ defecating on each other and the American flag.

[2] According to Parker, the network was troubled by the duo's stated intention to produce an episode on Muhammad, but nonetheless did not oppose it, in light of how lucrative the show was.

[5] According to Stone, Comedy Central eventually withdrew its support when executives in higher positions at parent company Viacom denied the request.

[5] The network's reluctance to allow the images to be shown factored into the duo's decision to make the episode a two-parter; "Well, they’re still not letting us show Muhammed […] we'll argue about it for another week", said Parker.

[7] Part of Parker and Stone's anger came from the fact that "Super Best Friends", a 2001 episode of South Park, featured images of Muhammad uncensored as a superhero, and aired without censorship for several years on both Comedy Central and in local syndication.

The episode parodies the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy, which was revived from cancellation the previous year and attracted immense popularity.

Parker stated in the director's commentary for the episode that, "we totally understand that people love it, that's why we put it in the show, we understand that it speaks to some people and it can just be a simple laugh and that's great and we certainly don't think it should be taken off the air or anything like that, we just don't respect it in terms of writing", later referring to the writers behind the show as "smart" but emphatically criticizing their overuse of "gag-humor".

Following the airing of the episode's first part, the duo received flowers from the producers of The Simpsons and phone calls from those involved with King of the Hill at Fox (who remarked, in reference to their mocking of Family Guy, "you're doing God's work").

[4][7] Parker claimed that the majority of Hollywood at the time disliked the success of Family Guy, both for what was viewed as subpar, lazy writing and for petty, jealous reasons, regarding its high ratings.

Clearly Matt and Trey are also commenting on how times have changed, and how the acts of select extremists can create such specific fears in the powers that be; hammering home their point was the episode's conclusion, which featured terrorists responding to Family Guy with a cartoon of their own, showing Jesus defecating on George W. Bush and the American flag, which pointedly was shown without being censored."

[2] Following the episode's airing, the ending attracted publicity, often misrepresenting and simplifying the segment's theme and message and sensationalizing the appearances of Jesus and President George W.

"[3] In response to these criticisms, Parker and Stone agreed with these groups, noting that while images of Muhammed were forbidden, it instead appeared to be "open season" on Jesus, hence their depiction to illustrate the hypocrisy of the network.

[13] The duo were disappointed upon their realization that fans cared less about their opinions on censorship and freedom of speech, but rather, were fixated on Tom Cruise and the controversy surrounding "Trapped in the Closet".

[6] Following the episode's broadcast, Harper's Magazine approached the duo to print their uncensored, original image of Muhammad in an issue, but Comedy Central would not approve of the request.

"[2] "Cartoon Wars Part II", along with the thirteen other episodes from South Park's tenth season, was released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on August 21, 2007.