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In her debut performance on Saturday Night Live this weekend, comedian Jenny Slate became a member of a surprisingly exclusive club: people who have dropped the infamous “F-Bomb” on the show (here’s the clip, which obviously contains strong language). Here’s a quick list of 10 other slips of the tongue that have occurred during the show’s 35 year, 659 episode run.
1. March 15, 1980: Paul Shaffer, David Letterman’s band leader for the last hundred years, was supposed to say “floggin” during a sketch about a Medieval band rehearsing a song, but it didn’t come out that way. When the audience heard the mix-up, they gasped in surprise, but nothing more really came from the incident.
2. February 21, 1981: The f-word made two appearances in this episode. Musical guest Prince played his song “Partyup,” and included the uncensored line, “Fightin’ war is such a f***in’ bore.” The show also featured a Dallas parody playing off the iconic “Who Shot J.R.?” storyline, which featured SNL cast member Charles Rocket as the Texas oil baron. As the cast and crew were saying goodnight to the audience at the end of the show, the host, Dallas star Charlene Tilton, asked Rocket how it felt to be shot. He replied, “Oh, man, it’s the first time I’ve ever been shot in my life. I’d like to know who the f*** did it.” Tilton and the rest of the cast were shocked at the slip-up, but laughed it off as the credits rolled. NBC execs, however, weren’t laughing, and the event influenced their decision to let Rocket go as part of a massive round of layoffs after the season. (Watch Rocket’s clip here.)
3. January 28, 1989: In the sketch, “Da Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts presents Da War of da Woilds,” guest-host Tony Danza and regulars from the show said “fonking” in their dialog. Jon Lovitz, on the other hand, was not, and his blatant disregard for censoring himself brought about the most laughs from the audience.
4. February 17, 1990: Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler performed to promote their new album Pump (the same episode with the infamous Wayne’s World sketch when the band debates the fall of Communism in Wayne’s basement.) During the song “Monkey on My Back,” Tyler sang the uncensored lyrics, “get the f***ing monkey off my back”
5. October 29, 1990: During a performance by Morris Day and The Time, there was a brief interlude in the song “Chocolate” when the music stops and Day shouts out, “Where the f*** this chicken come from? I thought I ordered ribs!”
6. May 14, 1994: Janet Jackson slipped an f-bomb into her performance of “Throb” from her hit album, Janet.
7. November 12, 1994: R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe performed “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?”—a song whose last line reads, “I never understood. Don’t f*** with me.” While Stipe did sing the line, he did so with his back turned to the audience, so it wouldn’t be clearly interpreted.
8. December 10, 1994: The Beastie Boys performed their classic hip-hop song “Sure Shot,” which featured Ad Rock yelling the lyric, “Never quittin’, so won’t you f***in’ listen?”
9. April 12, 1997: Norm MacDonald was running the Weekend Update desk at the time and, after trying to read from the teleprompter, got his words jumbled. Flabbergasted, he asked “What the f*** was that?” After the audience laughter died down, Norm nervously laughed himself and said, “My farewell performance.” At the end of his bit, he concluded with, “Maybe I’ll see you next week, folks.” Audiences did see Norm next week as the incident reportedly received only three complaints. (Click here and skip ahead to the 0:49 mark.)
10. May 7, 2005: Daron Malakian, guitar player for the metal band, System of a Down, screamed out “F*** yeah!” at the end of the band’s performance.
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Comments (18)
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What? Just 10? Hasn’t anyone shopped at Sofa king yet? Their prices are SOFA KING LOW!!!
posted by hgonc2 on 9-27-2009 at 11:49 pm
11. (honorary) “Jingleheimer Junction,” the one time SNL got into the spirit on purpose:
http://www.flurl.com/video/5253093_comments.htm
A classic.
posted by Tim Harrod on 9-28-2009 at 4:58 am
Wow. A comedy show on late-night TV, and people get upset with some swear words. Bizarre.
posted by dave on 9-28-2009 at 11:06 am
Why is it even a “bad” word anyway? Did we all just collectively get together and decide to assign a specific value to the word? And by we I mean all of the people before us that deemed it “bad”. Shouldn’t the intent matter more than the word? Like why can someone say “Frick you” and we all CLEARLY know what is being said here but just because of a slight difference in how it’s pronounced it is ok? Or if I said it in another language, that would also be ok? Seems like a waste of time and energy to assign values to random words like that.
posted by Mike James on 9-28-2009 at 12:36 pm
I am with you on that 100% Mike J. I have been saying the same thing, about more than just swear words.
posted by D.Christian on 9-28-2009 at 1:09 pm
FEAR. Their most famous performance was on the 1981 Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Donald Pleasence. The band first performed “I Don’t Care About You”, during which, Lee sang the words “fuck you” (albeit away from the microphone) on live television.
posted by Robert Holdridge on 9-28-2009 at 1:26 pm
What time does SNL go out? I’d have thought after nine or so, hearing fuck on the telly shouldn’t be such a shock
posted by Dom on 9-28-2009 at 2:44 pm
If kids are too little or too sheltered to hear a fleeting curse word, they are too young to be watching SNL at all. It’s on really late at night and really isn’t aimed at little ones anyhow. The premises and dialog and such aren’t written for children even when performed exactly as planned and without any f-bombs. “Dick in a Box” and “Jizz in my pants”, two big hit digital shorts from last year are way worse than a quick F-word. And little kids aren’t going to enjoy the political stuff and weekend update topical stuff. It’s going to be boring for them. I love SNL, but I can’t imagine that if I had a child too young to hear the f-word that I’d be letting them watch the show in the first place.
posted by Melissa on 9-28-2009 at 3:09 pm
Ten seconds into the sketch, and they were throwing out all those “freakin’s” I just knew someone was bound to slip up. And someone did. I don’t think you could do a sketch like that and not slip up. It’s a miracle no one did it during the Sofa King sketch. (Or maybe they did, and we just couldn’t tell.)
posted by Jim on 9-28-2009 at 3:22 pm
Actually, Norm it wasn’t Norm getting his words jumbled that caused him to say, \What the fuck was that,\ it was caused by what looked to be the ol’ burp/vomit in the mouth. Too bad there’s only audio available for it. I’ve been looking for a video of that forever. I supposed I should go through my old video tapes at some point. I’m pretty sure I have it still. Then I could post it. That would be something, wouldn’t it?
posted by Matttheking on 9-28-2009 at 4:06 pm
Metallica sang Fuel. F**k ‘em man, white kuckle tight.
posted by squidknuckle on 9-28-2009 at 4:11 pm
\What time does SNL go out? I’d have thought after nine or so, hearing fuck on the telly shouldn’t be such a shock\
Your right dom, it airs at 11:30 PM on the east coast and 10:30 pm in the central time zone (Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc) and this particular incident hapend around 12:45 AM EDT, 11:45 PM CDT, ther’s no reason for anyone to be upset. The US just has a lot of prudes who make a big deal out of nothing. Most of us have no problem hearing sewar words in comedy, espcialy comedy that airs so late, but the FCC has been known to fine obscene amounts of money for this sort of thing.
However, those rules don’t apply between 10PM and 6AM so they’ll be fine, and the young lady still has her job, so all is well. As an aside, i heard lots of swering on cable an from my parents as a child, and i’m not a murder or anything, so what’s the big fucking deal?
posted by hasan on 9-28-2009 at 5:36 pm
i totally watched that whole sketch live on Saturday and didn’t even notice it until it was pointed out here. i guess i’m just desensitized to naughty language.
posted by kat on 9-28-2009 at 7:34 pm
I might start watching SNL.
posted by Chrystal on 9-29-2009 at 12:40 am
During Chris Farley’s interview with Paul McCartney Chris clearly mouths and half says “Fucking-A”.
posted by marty on 9-29-2009 at 8:04 am
I’ve never seen any of these live, other than number 10 – System of a Down. I didn’t think anything of it. SNL has been great lately (the past 5 years). Even the Megan Fox episode was fine (not great, but better than expected). The best eps of each year are Alec Baldwin and Justin Timberlake. They take it to another level of hilarity.
posted by IP on 9-29-2009 at 10:01 am
Lady Gaga said shit last night during her \Paparazzi\ performance
posted by kokopeli420 on 10-4-2009 at 5:50 pm
I didn’t hear Stephen Tyler’s, but as a fan of System, I heard Daron’s, and didn’t think anything of it. He also said “And we ain’t no f***ing political punk band, either” during the performance of their song BYOB.
posted by chatusripitak on 10-16-2009 at 11:44 pm