Trey Parker and Matt Stone have apologized to the makers of this Inception parody — Dan Gurewitch and David Young – after it was noted that last week’s episode of “South Park” lifted both the concept of the joke and dialog from the College Humor video (for comparison, see the “South Park” video at the bottom of this post). Here’s the explanation:

“It’s just because we do the show in six days, and we’re stupid and we just threw it together,” Matt Stone, who created “South Park” with Trey Parker, said Friday in a telephone interview. “But in the end, there are some lines that we had to call and apologize for.” [...]

When Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone could not find a movie theater showing “Inception,” and were unable to get a DVD screener of the film (or find a watchable version on BitTorrent), they turned to other parodies of that film on the Web, and found the CollegeHumor video.

“We thought their joke was that a lot of those lines were actually in the movie,” Mr. Stone said, “and they were banging them against each other, and showing that the ‘Inception’ characters didn’t even know ‘Inception.’ That was a mistake, and it was an honest mistake.” [NYT Arts Beat]

That is an exceptionally weak excuse, and I hope no one lets Stone and Parker off the hook for it. They could have easily contacted College Humor and offered to give Gurewitch and Young one-time writing credits in exchange for the use of that scene, and Gurewitch and Young would have crapped their pants in excitement. I know because *I* would crap my pants in excitement for a “South Park” writing credit. But I guess anyone can steal a joke nowadays. It takes a real artist like me to tell the same four jokes in different ways.

Specific dialog similarities via Arts Beat:

CollegeHumor: “We need to move to the next dream level before these projections kill us.”
South Park: “We need to move them all to the next dream level before the projections kill them.”

In both skits, one character asks another to define what limbo is and is told:

CollegeHumor: “Shared unconstructed dream space.”
South Park: “Empty scary dream space.”

In both skits, a character is told by the “Inception” team how to escape from limbo, prompting the following exchanges:

CollegeHumor: “That doesn’t sound so hard.”
“It is.”
“Why?”
[a character groans in pain]
“We don’t have time for this.”
“O.K., fine, so next we’re going into Arthur’s dream, and then what?”
“Then we go into Fischer’s dreams.”
“O.K., got it.”
“But Fischer will think we’re in Browning’s dream.”
“O.K. Wait, who’s Browning?”

South Park: “That doesn’t sound very difficult.”
“It is.”
“Why?”
[a character groans in pain]
“We don’t have time for this.”
“O.K., fine, so you’re going to take my son to a dream within the dream, and then what?”
“Then we go into your husband’s dreams.”
“O.K.”
“But your husband will think we’re in Hasselbeck’s dream.”
“O.K. Wait, who’s Hasselbeck?”