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Jerome "Chef" McElroy was a recurring character on the Comedy Central series South Park. He was previously voiced by Isaac Hayes.

About Chef

Chef as his nickname implies, is a school cafeteria cook at the South Park Elementary School. He is mostly the only adult that the main characters on the show (Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick) consistently ask for advice. A typical introduction goes as such: :Chef: Hello there, children! :Kids (in unison): Hey Chef. :Chef: How's it going? :One or all of kids: Bad. :Chef: Why bad?

One of the children then explains to him their problem. Chef uses the word "children" often, even for the singular (for example, he has referred to Cartman alone as "children" on at least one occasion). He also tends to use "fudge" as a euphemism.

While most of the inhabitants of South Park are white, Chef is one of the very few residents in town who is black; in fact the only other black people to consistently live in South Park are Token and his parents, who are not prominent characters until the fourth season. As a result, Chef (usually goodnaturedly, though not always) refers to most people in town with the racial slur "crackas," including the children.

Aside from cooking, Chef is passionate about singing, and "making sweet love down by the fire". He was based on such 1970s African-American singers as Isaac Hayes (who originally voiced him) and Barry White (Stone and Parker's first choice to play him). Often, he agrees to give the boys advice in the form of songs, but winds up singing about having sex. Over time, however, like many earlier characters on the show, his role has diminished, and in later seasons he does not sing much even when he does appear.

Chef’s last name suggests he is at least partially of some Celtic descent, and indeed his parents live in a castle in Scotland.

In the episode Chef Goes Nanners he briefly converted to Islam, and adopted the name Abdul Mohammed Jabar Raof Kareem Ali.
Resemblance
Chef is based almost entirely on one of the dining hall chefs at the University of Colorado at Boulder in Boulder, Colorado, where Matt Stone and Trey Parker
attended school.
Hayes quits South Park
On March 13, 2006, it was reported that Isaac Hayes had quit South Park over objections to the show's attitudes toward and depiciton of various religions, claiming that the show had corssed the line from satire into intolerance. Despite the content of the official press release, however, there remains considerable speculation about the motivations behind his departure. Many believe that he quit due to the controversial episode "Trapped in the Closet", and its treatment of Scientology, as Hayes is a practicing Scientologist. Series co-creator and writer Matt Stone commented in a manner that suggested that Hayes practiced a double standard regarding the treatment of religion on South Park: " never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin." Others have suggested that Hayes left the show because of external pressure and that the decision was not voluntary. It was eventually reported, however, that Hayes did not quit the show, but that the original press release announcing his departure was put out by someone who was not authorized to represent him. As recently as January 4th, 2006, Hayes defended South Park's style of controversial humor to the Onion's AV Club, going so far as to note that although he was not pleased with the show's inaccurate depiction of Scientology, he "understand what are doing." It has also been reported that Hayes suffered a stroke in the middle of January 2006 and may not be in a position to make major decisions for himself. The author or authors of the original press release remain unclear.

The fate of the Chef character was revealed in the Season 10 premiere, in which voice clips taken from previous episodes were linked together to form new dialogue to support the plot of "The Return of Chef". In the episode, Chef is brainwashed into becoming a child molester by "Super Adventure Club", an organization which combines outdoors activities with bizarre religious beliefs (some of which seem akin to those held by the real-life Church of Scientology).

At the end of the episode, Chef is burned, battered, impaled, shot, his face including one eyeball pulled off and limbs torn apart by a grizzly bear and a mountain lion (mountain lions in particular have previously served in South Park as agents of purification, most notably in the episode Woodland Critter Christmas), and he finally defacates in his pants as he dies.

As the town holds a moving memorial service for him, Chef's body is secretly recovered by Super Adventure Club, who manage to revive him as a "Darth" Chef, mimicking the ending to Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. He is revived by Super Adventure Club in a Vader-like suit and is given a red spatula lightsaber. The Super Adventure Club leader says, "Chef, can you hear me?" With a respirator-assisted Vader-like breathing, Darth Chef responds, "Hello there, children. How would you like some salisbury steak?" the leader says "Yes, go on!" Darth Chef continues "And for dessert, how would you children like to suck on my chocolate salty balls?" The leader asks, "Oh, you mean like a chocolate candy?" Darth Chef replies, "No, I mean my balls!" The leader is very happy about Darth Chef's reply and responds with an evil "yes...yeeeessss...hahahahaHA!!"
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Musicians - Chef

About Chef

Resemblance

Hayes quits South Park

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