VViacom insisted that Tom Cruise wasn't getting special protection when its Comedy Central subsidiary yanked a "South Park" episode mocking his sexuality.
But the company's movie arm, Paramount - which makes Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" franchise - gave a very different line to animated-filmmaker Mike Reiss.

"There is one man you cannot make fun of, and that's Tom Cruise," said the creator of the cartoon musical "Queer Duck."

"There was originally a line in the song about Gay Day that goes, 'Let's call Tom Cruise. What can we lose?' And they said, 'No, you can't do that.' So we changed it to: 'Don't call Tom Cruise. He's straight and he sues,'" explained Reiss, who won four Emmys as a writer on "The Simpsons."

"And they said 'no.' So you couldn't call Cruise straight, either."

Paramount backed "Queer Duck" - featuring the characters Bi Polar Bear and Openly Gator - to be released Tuesday on DVD. Reiss was speaking after a screening at the NewFest film festival.

GateCrasher