But is not as bad as “putz.” ![]()
I don’t recall ever being threatened with being sent to my room or having my mouth washed out with soap for saying “putz,” although it certainly wasn’t something I was supposed to say. And I could say “petsele,” which is derived from it. More specifically, adults said petsele around me all the time-- when someone would have a boy after a couple of girls, they’d get the advice to “keep the petsele covered” when changing him, for example.
Yes, shmuck means penis, but it’s a much worse thing to call someone than “prick,” or “tool,” or any or the penis-derived insults I can think of off-hand. It’s more like "mother-fcker" in terms of vulgarity. Either way, neither term is literal. When you call someone who keyed you car for taking the parking space he wanted a mother-fcker, you aren’t literally suggesting he has sex with his mother.
Not sure if it’s already been mentioned but the one that floored me was on Family Guy a number of years ago. Meg is trying to impress a boy and she finally says “…I can’t taste salt.”
Took me three times before that landed and then I was like :eek:.
Re: Laugh-In
Allan Seuss played a tv sportscaster in a weekly skit, and always opened his spot saying, “Big Al here!”
One episode, after making it known that Seuss would not be on that evening’s show, Mr. Martin steps in for the missing Allan, telling everyone, “Big Dick here!”
What did he say when he rang his little bell, “Oh, I LOVE my tinkle” or something like that?
I don’t recall ever being threatened with being sent to my room or having my mouth washed out with soap for saying “putz,” although it certainly wasn’t something I was supposed to say. And I could say “petsele,” which is derived from it. More specifically, adults said petsele around me all the time-- when someone would have a boy after a couple of girls, they’d get the advice to “keep the petsele covered” when changing him, for example.
Yes, shmuck means penis, but it’s a much worse thing to call someone than “prick,” or “tool,” or any or the penis-derived insults I can think of off-hand. It’s more like "mother-fcker" in terms of vulgarity. Either way, neither term is literal. When you call someone who keyed you car for taking the parking space he wanted a mother-fcker, you aren’t literally suggesting he has sex with his mother.
Technically, “Schmuck” as well as the obsolete “Putz” means adornment, decoration, jewelry in Middle High German, where Yiddish got it from. Apparently it was first an euphemism for penis before becoming taboo itself.
Meanwhile, in German it still just means jewelry, so that explains this thorougly safe-for-work (but highly funny) picture from a gift coupon.
From 30 Rock :
“It wouldn’t be a Lemon party without old Dick!”
I re-watched “30 Rock” recently and they also had this risque reference:
Octavia Spencer is starring in a movie about Harriet Tubman, but she doesn’t like the name. “I don’t like Tubman. It sounds like a dude. Let’s change it to Tubgirl.”
(not sure if it’s worth resurrecting this thread, but it was on my mind)
Animaniacs, investigating a crime scene:
“Dot, check for prints!”
Dot comes back carrying singer Prince: “I found Prince!”
“No, no, FINGERprints!”
Dot looks at Prince who gives her a come hither look
“I don’t think so!”
From The Golden Girls:
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: I’m sorry about your knee. You know, you wouldn’t have been blindsided if you’d stayed in the pocket.
Kevin Kelly: You know football?
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: I know everything. Ah, I see some people have already signed your cast.
Kevin Kelly: Uh, yeah, some of the guys from the team. Are you signing it?
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Correcting it. There is no K in victory. Oh yeah, and we’ll just change this to ‘Ms. Zbornak eats shitake mushrooms.’
Still remember how shocked I was that they were able to say it in prime time.
The writers on Hill Street Blues were always finding ways to work “shit” into the scripts. The example I remember best is the armored vehicle Howard Hunter ordered from Japan. It was made by the Nishitsu Corpration.
On Frasier, an ice sculpture of the writer Balzac started to melt when Martin’s wedding went awry:
FRASIER: My Balzac is dripping!
ROZ: Don’t worry. In those dark pants, no one will ever notice.
The writers on Frasier seemed to have a thing for Balzac. He was mentioned in more than one episode. For example:
DAPHNE: Oh, hello, Dr. Crane. Will you be joining us for dinner?
NILES: If it’s not too much trouble. It’s Maris’s night to host her book club and they are more comfortable not having a man there.
FRASIER Yes, apparently Niles makes the ladies self-conscious.
NILES: Well, I sat in on the last discussion and Mrs. Esterbrook-Kindred developed a facial tic every time she had to say the word “Balzac.”
You should try watching some shows from this side of the Atlantic. A current hit from Ireland, but co-funded from the BBC, and shown around 9.30pm on their main channel, includes among its regular gags scenes where the leading actor (and author) goes (seemingly?) off-script to get one of the others to laugh usually by something filthier than already written:
I had a feeling it would be Mrs Brown’s Boys. I’ve seen it on BBC Canada, but not for a long while, several years at least.
The Wunder Boner commercial had some lines that I’m not entirely sure were intended to be delivered 100% straight.
I’m sure a lot of fishermen’s wives would love a wonder boner!

Balzac is a hamlet in the southern portion of the Canadian province of Alberta, in Rocky View County.[1] It is located immediately west of Queen Elizabeth II Highway, at the intersection with Highway 566, 24 km (15 mi) north of Calgary city centre and 12 km (7.5 mi) south of Airdrie.
Yet another from Friends, when Ross is trying to dance with Mona, but keeps getting interrupted by little girls who want to dance with him by “Hopping on” his feet.
It wasn’t a spoken line, but there was a Simpsons episode in which there was a sign for “Sneed’s Feed & Seed” that said “Formerly Chucks.” That’s pretty smutty.
I don’t get this one. Feed & Seed Co-ops were in every other rural town.
I presume that, following the same rhyming scheme, the store was formerly called Chuck’s Fuck & Suck
Quoting myself from a different thread:
As an aside, Green Acres has a great example of sneaking stuff past the censors–Lisa of course is always using mispronounciations and malaprops, and was always a bad cook approaching Ellie May levels. So in one episode, she is complaining about how Oliver hates her cooking and mentions her “stupping” (instead of “stuffing.”) Oliver replies “I’ve always liked your stupping!”