Don’t forget Soupy Sales with “Every time I show you F, you see K.”
And finding the naked woman at the door to his “funhouse.”
The former has been, IIRC, debunked – although the story is widespread, it didn’t happen.
The latter did (I have a tape of it), but not on the aired version. An actual nude woman was out of sight of the show’s cameras, although another private camera recorded her.
Aside from the infamous joke about having kids send in the “pictures of presidents” that IIRC, really did happen, none of the awful things reported of Sales (or most other Kiddy Show hosts) actually did occur. Check Snopes for details.
I have to point out that, since at least the days of Bob Clampett’s puppet version of “Time for Beany” in the early 1950s, “kid’s shows” had a sizeable adult following, too. And the hosts knew it. A lot of the jokes were put in for watching adults, and might have shirted the line, even back then.
I don’t think British television really counts, though – since British TV has never been as sanitized as American TV.
Compare, for example, Steptoe & Son with its American cousin. In the sixties, British TV showed an episode where Harold brought home an old coin-op porn movie viewer – and is stunned when he realizes that the young man having it off in the loop is his father. This scenario serves as a starting point for punny jokes like:
It’s hard to imagine Sanford & Son, even late in the '70s, basing an episode around the premise of Lamont discovering that Fred had made a porn film in his youth, innit?
What a great episode, though. “Ergh-- why’d you leave your shoes on, you dirty man?” “It was cold!” Heh heh heh.
OK, somebody needs to translate that one for me…I think I know what in pawn means, but what’s the dirty bit there?
Thanks!
In an interview from several years ago, an actress from the show Petticoat Junction remarked that she never got a rather subtle in-joke on the show until years afterward: The show centered around three or four comely young ladies and was set in a town called “Hooterville”!
Pawn as in belongings in Pawn shop.
Pawn sounds like Porn if you say it right.
Jim
Try saying “in porn” with an English accent.
Well, there was an episode in which Lamont and a buddy of his almost got cast in what they called an “adult film”.
I just thought of another one. On Bewitched: dunno the episode, but the Stephenses (Darren’s parents) & Endora drop in for a visit at the same time. Mrs. Stephens offers Endora a brownie which she baked herself. I’m a bit fuzzy on the precise dialogue, but Endora asks whether or not she followed the “Alice B. Toklas” recipe, coyly implying that that was her favorite recipe. Pretty daring for that era of television.
Well yeah but that’s very American…they “almost” got cast. They get to talk about porn…or drugs or homosexuality or whathaveyou. But the real characters never get really involved. Because of course real people never really do any of those things.
I have to say I’m pretty impressed with Steptoe and Soe :D.
:smack: Ahhhhh! “In Porn!”
OK!
Which, coincidently, is a good lead-in for reading fortune cookies… 
Not really intention, but once on The Big Valley, the madam of a “gentlemen’s house” had the unforgetable name of “Amy Carter.” Seeing the rerun during the Carter presidency had us laughing our asses off.
Vague Dick Van Dyke Show recollection: Rob once found himself in an upscale restaurant where a fashion show was going on (I think he may have accompanied a buddy who was in the business). The thoroughly-whipped Rob was being his usual nervous self around all these attractive women without his wife present. He observed that the male customers would commonly ask the models, “How much?”, and be told the price of the dress they were modeling. Trying to fit in, Rob subsequently asked “How much?” of an attractive woman who turned out not to be a model, and was met with the expected outrage. Pretty risque for that era and show. (At least, I am pretty sure this was the first DVDS. The early-70s one was much racier, so I may be confusing them).
The Hollywood Squares was great:
Peter: Charley, you’ve decided to grow strawberries. Will you get any the first year?
Charley: Why, of course not Peter, I’ll be too busy growing strawberries.