Team America Gets the R Rating

The MPAA rating has given Paramount Pictures' Team America: World Police an R rating just four days before the Matt Stone and Trey Parker all-marionette comedy is slated to sneak preview in 800 theaters across North America on Saturday, October 9.

The film will be rated R for "graphic, crude & sexual humor, violent images & strong language; all involving puppets". The biggest question was how much puppet sex the MPAA would allow before giving the film the unwanted NC-17 rating, which would keep young moviegoers under 17 from seeing it in theaters.

The producers submitted nine different variations of a scene that depicts simulated sex between the wooden marionettes before the MPAA ultimately relented and approved with an R rating.

"Team America," opening wide on October 15, is about an international police force dedicated to maintaining global stability, called Team America, who learns that a power-hungry dictator is brokering weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. From the pyramids of Cairo to the Panama Canal and finally to the palace of power-mad dictator, Kim Jong Il, the heroes of Team America crisscross the globe on a harrowing mission to save the world.