Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Will they serve Tang at the clambake?

One of the more subtle rewards of The Simpsons is watching carefully to see where the writers have inserted a bit of dialogue for the sole purpose of trying to pull one over on the network censors. The most famous example of this being Homer's phone call to Bill Clinton from the episode when he became an astronaut. ("Hello, is this President Clinton? good. I figured if anyone knew where to get some tang it would be you.")

Now Lisa de Moraes writes:
Earlier this year, PBS received a sharply worded letter from new Education Secretary Margaret Spellings for using some of her department's Ready to Learn program funds on an episode of "Postcards From Buster" in which the title character, an animated rabbit, visits children in Vermont who are living with their two mothers. Spellings demanded that all mention of Buster's clambake be stricken from the offending episode.

Conan would be proud.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Man, all time greatest:
Conan is displaying the rejected ideas for state quarters, and the Massachusettes Quarter has a guy with a stain on his shorts saying "That's not chowdah!"
I nearly died of laughter, it still makes me laugh when I think about it.

Anonymous said...

What about the one that Lileks pointed out?

Sign in the Tomacco episode: Sneed's Feed and Seed (formerly Chuck's) - Klug

Anonymous said...

I still don't get that one.

See-Dubya

Anonymous said...

Re Sneed's / Feed / Seed (formerly Chuck's): it's all about the vowels.

The joke is like those Magic Eye pictures; some people can stare at it forever and never get it.

Anonymous said...

Please help. I never get the magic eye, either.

I'm looking at the vowels, seeing a lot of ee's...rearranging letters...saying it aloud...

I'm thinking of an archaic use of 'seed' here...that must have something to do with it...

i got nothin'

--See Dubya

Anonymous said...

Okay, I got it now. Thanks, Google!

Anonymous said...

A personal favorite: The episode where Homer takes Ned Flanders to Las Vegas for a weekend bender.

They wake up the morning after having each married a blonde floozy.

The blondes' names? Ginger and Amber.

Anonymous said...

i don't get the ginger and amber reference. is it something to do with gilligan's island? if so, i don't see how amber fits with ginger and mary ann.