TV: The bowdlerization of Cheap Seats

I've recently become a fan of Cheap Seats, but I am most definitely not a fan of ESPN Classic's censorship policy.

Hosts Randy and Jason Sklar aren't potty mouths, exactly, but they do use mild expletives which have become all but ubiquitous on any programming other than perhaps Saturday morning Disney cartoons. Like, "ass." Did your face melt and brain explode when you read the word "ass"? My guess is no. But that appears to be what ESPN Classic fears will happen should that word travel unbleeped over their airwaves.

Same with "bitch." In fact, in a repeat I caught this week, "Superdogs, Superjocks" (a competition involving unremembered Olympic athletes and, well, dogs), the word "bitch" was bleeped when it was specifically applied to an actual female dog. That's the word, for crying out loud! That's the proper term! There's nothing even vaguely dirty about it when you use it in its intended meaning! Idiots.

But wait, there's more! ESPN Classic likes to bleep words that aren't dirty in any context, too. In the same show, one of the hosts used the term "crotch-sniffing." Oh no you don't! Not on ESPN Classic's dime! "Bleep-sniffing" is what aired. Wow, that is some cowardly bleep, right there. Later, one of them said of the show, "We've hardly begun to sniff the butt of this thing," and they bleeped "butt." Man alive. Maybe in context, sniffing coupled with butt made the censors jumpy. But come on! This ain't Sesame Street, people! I don't think you need to be that fearful of an FCC fine. You're not showing Janet Jackson's titty, you're saying the word "butt." Have we really come to this, as a country? Has the fear really possessed us to this extreme a degree?

But the capper is when one of the brothers said something sucked, and that got the bleep treatment, too. Dude, that's a word that even those Saturday morning Disney cartoons will say. But not ESPN Classic. "He and the dog basically bleeped." How can you possibly pretend to be a real network* when you're afraid to say the word "sucked," even after midnight?

Grow a set of bleeps, ESPN Classic.

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*I'm being generous by presuming someone, somewhere, actually does think of ESPN Classic as a real network.

Potpourri

I already mentioned this elsewhere, but I might as well mention it here too: did anyone else notice the little censorship moment on this week's season premiere of The Simpsons? Toward the end, Homer says, "You're still the best cook in this family," and Marge says, "Oh, B.F.D." Only you couldn't hear the "F".

I replayed the line about a dozen times. It wasn't a TiVo glitch, and it didn't sound like a recording error on the part of the network. Fox deliberately muted that one letter. Has the fear of reprisal from the draconian FCC become so rampant that even the initial of a dirty word has to be censored?

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Speaking of censorship, go read Sars' take on the bullshit uproar over ABC's airing of Saving Private Ryan at Tomato Nation. She has crystallized my thoughts eloquently. Or at least, with far fewer curse words than I would've used. The wrong Powell has been forced out of the Bush administration; it's Colin's son Michael, the FCC Chairman, that really needs to go.

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In case you missed the Championship Game of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown, and were wondering if Dennis Rodman was still a humongous douchebag: rest assured that he most definitely is.

Early in the game, Rodman threw away a losing hand, cards face-down and in the muck. Tournament director Robert Thompson immediately declared Mekhi Phifer winner of the hand. Rodman then got upset, saying his cards should be shown first. Whether Rodman was even aware that his hand was by far the worse hand or not was hard to tell, but when Thompson correctly told him that by throwing his cards away he had forfeited the hand, Rodman tore off his microphone, said, "I'm not even gonna play," and stormed out of the room.

After the commercial break, he came back and sat down again with the other now visibly uncomfortable celebrities, but when he was later eliminated, he made a point of shaking everyone's hand but Thompson's.

What a little bitch. (As much as a nine-foot-tall man can be a "little" bitch.) If he had owned the deck of cards, he would've taken it and gone home. (And if it was all some crazy ploy to rattle the other competitors -- which I highly doubt, but you never know -- it sure backfired; Rodman was eliminated first.)

My prediction for the game couldn't have been much more wrong. I picked Phifer to lose first, as he was by far the worst player (with the possible exception of Rodman), but his crazy luck from the first game held, and he took the grand prize. He just would not fold! How do you win when you play with crappy cards every hand and never ever fold?

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Of interest tonight: the debut of House, the new medical drama on Fox starring Hugh Laurie. Laurie is absolutely wonderful in everything he's ever been in (from Blackadder to Jeeves & Wooster to -- okay, maybe not Stuart Little), but I fear he might be the only thing worth watching in this show. Even if he is, that's still a darn good reason to watch.

Also tonight, the season premiere of The Amazing Race 6. Last season let me down a bit; after the first couple weeks, there wasn't a single team left I could root for. It's fun to have villains to root against; it's not fun when there are only villains. Hopefully the casting is a little more balanced this time. Either way, it remains the best reality show on the air, bar none. (Take that, Littlest Groom!)