FEBRUARY 11th - Fighting for Dirty Jokes



On this day in 1960, Jack Paar walked off The Tonight Show. Like straight walked off. During filming. He didn’t drop the mic, but pretty much did the equivalent. Just said he was leaving The Tonight Show and that there had to be a better way of making a living, thanked the fans while getting a little choked up and walked off stage and off the air. Paar was a toonsy bit hacked off that the network (NBC) had censored him the night before by cutting a joke. It was a rather intricate story about a British lady looking to vacation in Switzerland, and asking where the W.C. (water closet or bathroom) was. The Swiss weren’t familiar with this abbreviation or nomenclature and figured W.C stood for Wedding Chapel, and the mix-up in which he described the amount of people who could fit into the W.C. and when there was musical accompaniment, etc. Pretty funny stuff. But apparently the brass at NBC weren’t amused and so cut it out. And Jack was like Sayonara, Buttheads. And he had a point. This country is obsessed with correctness and good taste and what can be said and what can’t be said. In some ways that is a good thing, because it forces people to be creative and push boundaries. George Carlin wouldn’t have been nearly as funny and edgy if America was all willy-nilly liberal when it came censorship. The truth is at some point in your life you will have the opportunity stand up for something you believe in. You might not have the means to do it as publicly and boldly as Jack Paar did, and that’s okay. But you can still shout out your reasoning and take a stand. It may fall on deaf ears and change nothing. But we never know who we can affect. And if enough people shout out enough times then eventually we could all hear obscene, dirty jokes on national television. I mean, we could all affect change. Shit. I may have messed that up.

This day has been Marked.

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