The Parents’ Television Council, an organization which polices television for anything indecent (and is a very silly group, in my opinion), has a timeline on their website of television history which includes bad and good things regarding content on television, which includes various swears (those are the bad things, of course) and when they first aired on network television. According to them:
In 1981, Charles Rocket was fired from Saturday Night Live after accidentially saying “fuck” on-air. Norm McDonald also said “fuck” in 1997, but was not fired.
In 1986, Cagney and Lacey was the first TV show to use the word “condom.”
The PTC claims the first use of “asshole” they were aware of on broadcast television was 1993 (the show was not specified). Their first record of “screw” (in a sexual manner) and “piss” was 1994 (again, show not specified), and “dick” (in a sexual manner) in 1995 (show not specified). “Tits” and “bullshit” are 1997, and just plain “shit” on Chicago Hope in 1999.
In 2003, the FCC rejected a complaint regarding Bono’s use of “fucking” during a live Golden Globes broadcast, as the word was used as an adjective. (Don’t ask me, that’s a weird decision in my opinion. A fucking weird decision.)
In the episode “The Draft Dodger”, Archie finds out that Mike & Gloria’s friend is a draft dodger who has risked arrest by coming home for Christmas and having dinner with the Bunkers. Also in attendance is a war buddy of Archie’s. The buddy lost his son in Vietnam. When the draft dodger’s cover is blown, Archie goes off on an emotional tear. He mouths the words “that goddamn war”, but “goddamn” is silenced. CBS got cold feet at the last minute.
Archie thinks his buddy is gonna rip the guy a new one, but he shocks everyone by insisting the man stay becuase his own son could not be there. He says his son didn’t want to go to war, but did it as his civic duty and he held no grudge against the dodger.
Archie is so upset by this that he has to leave the table.
One of the best shows they ever did. Try to catch it on TVLand if you can.
Well, then – they’re wrong. The first use on network broadcast TV was on ABC’s first broadcast of Annie Hall in 1978 or 79. Woody Allen insisted it be shown uncut, and there is the scene where Joey Nichols tells a young Alvy Singer how to remember his name (“It’s Joey five cents”). Alvy walks away, saying “What an asshole.”
Legend has it that ABC had extra operators on duty that night, expecting to get complaints. There were complaints – primarly that the movie was being shown out of order. The viewers didn’t get the fact that the filmn was shown in flashbacks and were thrown by seeing it jumping around in time.
I don’t think Charles Rocket said “fuck” accidentally on SNL. That was obviously deliberate and was the one of the reasons why he got canned (along with the fact that the show sucked and was nose-diving in the ratings). However, over a year earlier, Paul Shaffer, while playing a member of a group of squabbling medieval musicians, did slip and utter a “fuckin’” among his dozens of exclamations of “floggin’” in the sketch. Odd thing is, there wasn’t even a ripple of uproar about it.
Way, way, way off-topic, but have you ever seen Radio Days? In it, Wallace Shawn plays an actor who voices a superhero called the “Masked Avenger” for a radio show. When I saw the movie, I wondered if the idea for that joke was based on the career of Olan (“Superman”) Soule.
Rocket has said that he didn’t plan to say it. I read one of those backstage SNL books that talked extensively about the incident and the concensus seems to be that it was something of a Freudian cry for help.
The Shaffer incident was one of the ones I mentioned in my post. The other was from a musical act (I can’t remember which) but it was so indistinct that it went by unscathed.
The host the night of the Rocket incident was Charlene Tilton. The situation was a parody of the “Who shot JR?” storyline, with Rocket in the JR role.
The exclamations “hell” and “damn” go farther back on American network television than most people would think. Two examples:
In 1956, NBC’s Ford Star Jubilee presented a production of Noel Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit with the hells and damns intact.
In the 1960 NBC specal Destiny, West!, about explorer John Charles Fremont, Fremont’s traveling companion Kit Carson looks down from a mountain pass and shouts, “Damn!” and “Damn!” again.
There was an episode of MASH where a corespondant got drunk and stole BJ’s motorcycle. Hawkeye’s suggested headline for the story is “War correspondant gets drunk, steals motorcycle, and falls on ass.” Or something like that.
I remember Bill Murray saying “fuck” on SNL in the early 80s.
I also have this vague (and probably faulty) memory of the Jackson 5 cartoon from the early 70s. They were posing as lumberjacks, and while eating breakfast, would say “Pass the damn syrup.”
I kind of doubt it was truly the first time ‘ass’ was used on TV, but I remember early-on during the run-up to the 1980 election, someone asked President Carter what he thought would happen if Ronald Reagan ran against him. Carter’s reply was, “I’ll kick his ass.” I don’t know if that exchange was on television.
However, Johnny Carson quoted Carter at least 15 times on his show that night. It really tickled him that he was allowed to say that word because the president said it first.
Sometime in (I think) the late 1980s, 60 Minutes interviewed Richard Nixon, who recounted events from the 1952 presidential campaign. (Quick summary: Eisenhower considered dropping Nixon from the ticket for some alleged campaign finance improprieties, but Nixon came through with the famous ‘Checkers’ speech and ultimately remained on the ticket).
On 60 Minutes, Nixon recalled his exhortation (pre-‘Checkers’ speech) for Eisenhower to make up his mind about keeping or dropping Nixon, “General, the time comes when one has to shit or get off the pot”.
Mike Wallace had announced at the beginning of the show that there would be expletives, and that they had decided not to edit them out.