Today comedy central ran an ad in Variety to congratulate Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, on their Outstanding Animated Program Emmy nomination. The episode which got them the nomination was the one where Tom Cruise is trapped in the Closet, and taunts his Scientology beliefs. Word is Cruise was really pissed, and he want to Kung Fu their butts.

Though the ad appears to be a humorous and timely takeoff on Gibson’s widely reported tirade against Jews, the timing is “pure coincidence,” Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox said Tuesday. “It’s a little bit of an inside joke at our expense for pulling the Scientology episode,” Fox said. “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have said they submitted that particular episode for Emmy consideration as a reproof to executives who initially refused to re-air the show, originally televised last November. Now it will compete for best animated program at the Emmy’s creative arts ceremony Aug. 19.

Though Cruise was widely rumored to have asked that the episode not be replayed – an allegation he denied – Fox said: “We’ve never commented on that…. We were aware the ’South Park’ guys were unhappy. We told them we would put it back on the air.” “Trapped in the Closet” re-aired last week for the first time. Fox said Tuesday’s ad is in the Comedy Central tradition of being “topical and a bit of a thumb in your eye.” Still, it wasn’t as topical as it appeared, since the ad was designed and approved weeks before Gibson’s arrest on Friday, he said.

“South Park” previously made fun of Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ” in an episode called “The Passion of the Jew.” In that show, the characters visit Gibson at home when they can’t get their money back at the box office.

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone regret mocking Tom Cruise and Scientology in a controversial episode of their show, because they are now constantly asked about him, and have a “Tom Cruise stink” on them. The duo skewered the star and his religion in the Emmy-nominated episode “Trapped in the Closet,” and are convinced the repeat episode of the show was pulled from the air last March because Cruise was unhappy with the material.

Stone says, “We just picked the wrong guy to parody. I have a feeling we’ll be asked about Tom Cruise for the next two years. Every time we’re in a headline, it’s like, Tom Cruise and then us in a headline, you start to get that Tom Cruise stink on you.”

Stone claims the duo chose not to grant any media interviews at the height of the controversy in March. He explains, “We didn’t do any press because we were just going to get in a pissing match with Tom Cruise, and we didn’t want to be in the same article as that guy.”

It would be so funny if it was discovered that Tom Cruise watched every episode of South Park, and owned the entire library on DVD.