Social mores changed rapidly, a fact that was especially evident in comedy. Old comedians condemned young comedians for their subject matter. Young comedians condemned old comedians for being out of touch.
The veteran comedian Red Skelton said, “I don’t think comedians should use four-letter words and I don’t think they should explain the functions of the body.”
Harlan Ellison, a young television critic at the hippie-friendly Los Angeles Free Press, reviewed the new season of The Red Skelton Hour: “Old, old, incredibly old … A half hour appropriately introduced by Spiro [Agnew]—like Skelton, one of the great clowns of our time.”
At the start of the 1970s, Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, and Danny Thomas were among the most common comedians on TV—positions they had held for twenty years. Corporate America loved them because they were predictable company men, but young viewers pined for comedy that reflected the times.
“I am tired of the ‘old pros’ who should have disappeared a long time ago to make room for some new talent,” said a letter published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Ever since I was young it’s been … Danny Thomas and a few others hogging the network.”
Harlan Ellison trashed Danny Thomas in his review of the new sitcom Make Room for Granddaddy: “Mr. Thomas has not been watching the newspapers. He apparently thinks it’s 1944.”
TV Guide found a television special starring the “tired old timers” George Burns, Jack Benny, and George Jessel downright depressing: “It didn’t look so good … a valiant try at turning back the clock, but their creaking limbs and croaking tenors were no match for the stubborn trickle of the sands of time.”
Meanwhile, old comedians criticized the new comedians poised to replace them. “Most of those fellows just stand there and tell jokes,” complained former vaudeville star Ed Wynn. “Simply causing laughter doesn’t make anyone a comedian … They’re not funny men … Today, many comedians just stand up and do a monologue.”
“Most of the new crop of comedians can do only one thing: stand-up comedy,” kvetched Groucho Marx. “All they can do is get up in front of an audience and tell jokes. It’s a pity, because this leads to a deadly sameness in comedy style.”
“Only Jack Benny and Bob Hope can still make me laugh,” said retired radio comedian Bert Gordon. “Comedians today aren’t creative … they just talk and talk and talk.”
The most common complaint was that young comics were vulgar. The old guard was constantly putting new comedians down—and it had a bitter tone. “Many of the young kids today are taking the easy way out,” said Danny Thomas. “With filth!”
“I think most modern humor is too dirty,” said Steve Allen. “There’s far too much what I call ‘toilet paper humor,’ revolving around sex or drugs, designed to get that kind of silly, high school giggling out of an audience.”
“So help me God,” said the elderly Jimmy Durante, “I’ve never seen a comedian be a big success with off-color jokes. I never knew an entertainer or a comedian who ever got anywhere using off-color material.”
“I think it’s instead of talent,” said Mort Sahl. “Cursing instead of humor!”
Some comedians felt certain subjects should be exempt. “I don’t believe in comedians making jokes about either their country or the Scriptures,” said Red Skelton.
Ridiculing the police was something many law-and-order types frowned upon. The Keystone Cops, revered for their outrageous silent comedy antics in the 1910s, were objected to by law enforcement. Produced by Mack Sennett at the Keystone Studio, the Keystone Cops were an iconic part of the comedy lexicon. “They would probably be going yet,” reflected slapstick comedian Edgar Kennedy, “if police departments here and there hadn’t been so sensitive.”
The Keystone Cops were popular wherever the labor movement was strong. “In their communities the cop on the beat was the flesh-and-blood representative of this higher authority,” explains Sennett historian Brent Walker, “and to take him down a peg was a sure laughter tonic for the working class.”
August Vollmer, the police chief in Berkeley, California, said the Keystone Cops had damaged the reputation of law enforcement.
“In digging at the roots of crime, modern criminologists find disrespect for the law engendered in the minds of children and adolescents by the comedy motion pictures in which policemen are caricatured,” said Vollmer in 1923. “The Keystone Cops, for instance, with their ridiculous antics, and their utter failure to cope with comic screen malefactors, were a nationwide force towards making all guardians of law and order seem absurd and incompetent. When one realizes that over ten million people a day attend movie shows, and in practically any slapstick comedy where policemen figure they are placed in an undignified light, the end result is obvious. Practically all children and many trivial minded adults beget a humorous contempt for the policeman who symbolizes the law … Movie comedy producers who make game of the police are … enemies of organized society.”
In the early 1960s, Fred Gwynne and Joe E. Ross played a pair of dysfunctional police officers in the sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? A San Antonio police association said the series made them “look very stupid” and asked NBC to discontinue it. “Being a policeman is a grim and humorless business,” they said. “Not at all funny.”
TV Guide reported, “A high-ranking New York police official, insisting that he not be identified, said he would like to see Car 54 cancelled because it makes all policemen appear to be morons.”
Footage of real-life policing made them look worse. Law and Order, a cinema verité documentary that shadowed police in Kansas City, Missouri, aired on public television in March 1969. A black-and-white precursor to the long-running Fox series Cops, its realism was shocking to viewers.
Variety wrote, “Episodic, and abounding in human interest, drama, comedy, and tragedy with everything from the cliché of candy for the lost child to the brutality of a fat vice squad plainclothesman choking a Negro prostitute nearly senseless, the film’s overall surface effect was to evoke empathy for the men doing tireless, dirty and dangerous duty among the debris of humanity [but one] could find plenty to criticize in the police attitudes and handling of certain situations … A sequence showing the particularly rough arrest of a Negro teenager … had nuances of police arrogance, ignorance and prejudice.”
In Los Angeles, the LAPD was notorious for corruption. The comedy team of Steve Rossi and Slappy White bantered about their reputation in 1969:
Slappy White: The police out here is as honest as the day is long.
Steve Rossi: Oh, really?
Slappy White: But when it gets dark—watch out!
Steve Rossi: Well, I understand that Los Angeles has a number of honest policemen.
Slappy White: Yes. That number is six.
LAPD police chief Ed Davis was livid that the Smothers Brothers used a policeman for the sake of comedy on their program, writing:
“With the extremely difficult battle the police are fighting to enforce the dope laws, I think it is entirely reprehensible, irresponsible, inconceivable and totally malicious for your network to carry this pro-dope, anti-police theme into the homes of millions of Americans … I arrived home early last evening and was shocked to see a representation of policemen on the Smothers Brothers Show which depicted them as a choir … It was a very realistic costuming effect; members of my family believed them to be policemen. Part of the dialogue had the leader of the choir stating he had attended the Woodstock Festival and that he smelled something wonderful in the air, and that he hoped whatever it was it would continue to keep growing. He was obviously talking about the growing and the use of marijuana … Obviously your network is in sympathy with the American Civil Liberties Union to allow this type of putrid entertainment … At a time when the understaffed police forces of American need public cooperation … it would appear that you would give greater care in allowing anti-police themes on your network.”
Tommy Smothers held a press conference to respond. “I want to tell Chief Davis that Officer Judy was not a real police man and that the officers’ choir was not a real police choir,” he said. “I also want to tell Chief Davis that the Beverly Hillbillies do not live in Beverly Hills, the Flying Nun does not really fly, and the bear on the Andy Williams Show is not a real bear.”
Chief Davis was aggravated. “I think piping dope into the living room and bedroom of American children via television is a pretty serious matter,” he told the Los Angeles Evening News. “Then when they responded with the ‘bear really isn’t a bear’ routine, I thought that was pretty sick.”
*
The boundaries of what network television would and would not allow was tested by Norman Lear. A former writer for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, he conceived a sitcom about a bigot named Archie Bunker, who uttered ethnic slurs and sparred with his hippie son-in-law. Lear based his idea on the British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part. ABC commissioned a pilot, turned wary, asked for adjustments, and commissioned a second version.
“Both pilots tested poorly and ABC dropped the whole idea,” explained TV executive Robert Metz. “Lear and his agent then took the idea to [CBS executive] Robert Wood … CBS’s censor was horrified; for one thing, ‘goddamn’ was used several times in the pilot.”
“I felt we had to get the network wet completely,” said Lear. “Once you’re completely wet, you can’t get wetter. I wanted the audience to hear all of Archie’s epithets, to see his sexual hang-ups, to meet the whole family.”
The racist old man was the butt of the joke, but Bunker’s language was jarring to those who didn’t get it—or didn’t want to.
“It had a laugh track,” wrote Cynthia Lowry of the Associated Press, “but instead of being funny, it was a half-hour of vulgarity and offensive dialogue.”
A letter to the editor published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1971 called All in the Family “nothing short of a communist conspiracy to destroy what moral fiber we have left in our nation.”
L. Brent Bozell Jr., a former speech writer for Joseph McCarthy, awarded Norman Lear his so-called Shield of Shame for his “tasteless intrusion into American homes … whereby he assaults the family’s basic sense of decency by advancing coarseness, crudity and a system of moral values which debase the religious principles of millions.”
Criticism came from the left as well. The official newspaper of the Teamsters Union called Archie Bunker an insult to blue-collar workers: “For some reason the writers of those shows decided the average worker is a ding-bat, fat, more than a little dumb, a committed racist and most of all, very comical.”
Carroll O’Connor’s performance was so strong that many people believed that he and Bunker were one and the same. His mother complained, “Everywhere I go, people point me out as Archie Bunker’s mother. I hate it. I never raised Carroll to be a bigot and, of course, he isn’t in real life. But people now associate him with bigotry.”
O’Connor was surprised that All in the Family succeeded. “I didn’t think we’d get away with it,” he said. “I thought that such a storm of protest would go up that we’d be off the air in a couple of weeks.”
Red Skelton gave up on watching All in the Family after two episodes. “I’ve seen Archie Bunker’s program twice,” he said. “I don’t look at it because I don’t like it … I think it’s the worst type of program that’s ever been on the air. It’s out and out Communism from start to finish.”
Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke were scheduled to follow All in the Family in 1971 with The New Dick Van Dyke Show. It was an attempt to rekindle the success they enjoyed in the 1960s, but instead of black-and-white New Rochelle, the program took place in sun-blanched Phoenix. Instead of Mary Tyler Moore, there was Hope Lange. Instead of Morey Amsterdam, it was Marty Brill. Instead of being hailed as family-friendly, it was trashed as disgusting and immoral.
“The New Dick Van Dyke show is disgraceful,” said a letter to the editor. “I will not allow my children to see it. It is a vulgar show with too many things pertaining to sex. Is there any chance of it being taken off the air?”
Indeed it was pulled off the air—by Carl Reiner himself.
“Curiously, it was sex that contributed to the end of The New Dick Van Dyke Show,” wrote showbiz columnist Bob Thomas. “CBS refused to carry a show that concerned Van Dyke and his TV wife, Hope Lange, making love in the bedroom when their daughter entered. The show’s creator, Carl Reiner, quit in protest over the network censorship.”
The New Dick Van Dyke Show was bounced from its post– All in the Family timeslot and replaced with a new sitcom called Bridget Loves Bernie. Created by the same people as The Flying Nun and The Partridge Family, it was the quaint story of a Catholic woman, played by Meredith Baxter, falling in love with a Jewish man, played by David Birney. On the surface it seemed innocuous, especially compared to All in the Family. Certainly no one anticipated that it would be targeted by extremists and subjected to terrorist threats.
Rabbi Irving Lehrman of Miami Beach’s synagogue council wrote to the sponsor, Procter & Gamble, to complain about Bridget Loves Bernie: “The program deeply offends the sensibilities of American Jews,” he said. “We believe that it is an example of tasteless programming which contributes nothing but mischief and misunderstanding to any consideration of the complex problem of intermarriage.” Rabbi Wolfe Kelman of the Rabbinical Assembly of America called Bridget Loves Bernie “an insult to some of the most sacred values of both the Jewish and Catholic religions.”
In the face of the initial criticism, Rabbi Allen Secher was hired as a program consultant. Secher said he personally considered interfaith marriage “repugnant” but felt it was better to address it than ignore it: “It’s better that it doesn’t happen, but you can’t shove your head in the sand and say it doesn’t happen. Anyway, I don’t see thousands of Jewish boys running out to chase Catholic girls just because of this show.”
CBS held meetings with Orthodox representatives to stave off a sponsor boycott—to no avail. “The program treats intermarriage, one of the gravest problems facing Jews today, not only as an existent phenomenon but one that should be totally accepted,” complained Rabbi Balfour Brickner. “This is the sort of thing that goes directly against Jewish teachings, the sort of thing religious Jews consider anathema. Intermarriage to them is a disaster area and works inimically to the future of the Jewish people. The program treats intermarriage in a cavalier, cute, condoning fashion.”
CBS was not concerned. The complaints were considered typical special-interest grievances. But when David Fisch and Robert S. Manning of the Jewish Defense League got involved, things went crazy.
Fisch loathed Bridget Loves Bernie almost as much as he hated the United Nations. “Anything that brings the UN closer to the grave is very good for the Jewish people,” he said. “Demonstrations are nice, but we really feel something much more meaningful would be an act to drive the United Nations out of New York.” Fisch and his organization attacked a fleet of Soviet diplomats enroute to the UN in June 1973, dousing their cars with red paint and setting them on fire. Fisch said the paint symbolized “the blood of Soviet Jews that is being spilled in Russia while Brezhnev is being wined and dined in the United States.” His next target was Bridget Loves Bernie.
“We had bomb threats on the show,” recalled Meredith Baxter, who played Bridget. “Some guys from the Jewish Defense League came to my house to say they wanted to talk with me about changing the show.”
Robert S. Manning, Fisch’s collaborator, had just been arrested for detonating a pipe bomb in East Hollywood. The Los Angeles Times received an anonymous phone call: “Take this down carefully. I just bombed an Arab’s house in Hollywood. No Arab is going to be safe in this country.”
The explosion at 845 N. Harvard Boulevard shattered the windows and blew an eighteen-inch hole in the wall. By the end of the night, Manning and four members of the Jewish Defense League were in LAPD custody. Manning was charged with “intent to injure, intimidate and terrify.” The charges did not mellow him any. Eight days later he was on the phone, threatening to murder Ralph Riskin, producer of Bridget Loves Bernie. Fearing further violence, CBS president William Paley told his executives, “Cancel the show—I don’t want it on the air.”
“We were gone and off,” recalled producer Douglas S. Cramer. “Screen Gems wouldn’t fight it, they wouldn’t take any kind of a stand, didn’t offer it to any other network. It was a very strange and, for me, a terribly, terribly, unhappy situation.”
After the final episode aired, the LAPD raided the Jewish Defense League’s headquarters at 5887 West Pico Boulevard. They found twelve rifles and a machine gun. The FBI eventually classified the JDL as a terrorist organization. Meanwhile, life imitated art as the stars of the program, Meredith Baxter and David Birney, married in real life.
All in the Family, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, and Bridget Loves Bernie were the first of many sitcoms subjected to protest in the 1970s. Subject matter previously verboten was being introduced in television comedy for the very first time—and many viewers resisted the evolution.
CBS vice chairman Frank Stanton showed up for work one morning and found himself fenced in as his limousine was blockaded by hostile viewers. He was accused of “undeniable malice and a calculated intent to offend the sensibilities and deeply held beliefs of a substantial portion of the American public.” In other words, Bea Arthur.
Norman Lear created a spin-off of All in the Family called Maude. It starred Bea Arthur as Archie Bunker’s feminist sister-in-law. Plotlines incorporated controversial subjects including contraception, homosexuality, the Equal Rights Amendment, and abortion.
“I enjoy stirring feelings, even negative feelings, because I think that is what theater is about,” said Lear. There were plenty of negative feelings about Maude.
“I think Maude is abominable, degrading and disgusting,” complained a viewer from Baton Rouge. “I enjoy good comedy, but not that alley talk.”
Susan Harris, a staff writer on All in the Family, was assigned to develop the episode about abortion. “I thought it was a wonderful idea,” said Harris. “I thought it was something that absolutely should be addressed, and I liked tackling issues as well as entertaining … I knew it would be an intense reaction. I knew people felt very strongly about it one way or the other—but something like that would never deter me.”
CBS ran a disclaimer before the opening credits: “Tonight’s episode … deals with Maude’s dilemma as she contemplates the possibility of abortion. You may wish to refrain from watching it if you believe the broadcast may disturb you or others in your family.”
Pepsi, Pharmacraft, and Aqua Velva pulled their commercials and thirty-nine channels refused to air it. WMBD-TV in Peoria ran an editorial explaining their decision—followed by a rerun of Let’s Make a Deal:
“After screening tonight’s episode of Maude, we regret that because of the nature of the content of this show, WMBD-TV will not carry it, or the second part, which is scheduled for next Tuesday evening. It is the feeling of the management of this station that the subjects dealt with in this program, namely abortion and vasectomy, are in poor taste when used as the basic theme of a situation comedy show such as Maude … We feel they are out of place and in bad taste in a comedy format. Again, we regret that Maude will not be seen tonight, but we feel that it is the management’s responsibility [that] this decision be made.”
Maude was used as the example that TV was in the toilet. Cecil Todd of the Revival Fires Ministry in Joplin, Missouri, blamed television for “jamming the minds of the American people [with] foul language, sexual suggestiveness, barnyard humor.” Todd was famous for his “revival fires” that were advertised like a wrestling match: “Hear Cecil Todd Blow the Lid on the Horrible Abomination of Little Unborn Babies Being Sold And Processed Into Beauty Products—Documented From His Private Investigation!”
L. Brent Bozell Jr. founded a lobby group called Stop Immorality on Television in November 1973. The former John Birch Society ally sent his spokesman, Paul Fisher, to deliver talking points to the media:
“We conducted a poll recently to ask people what they think of the moral state of television. About 92 per cent of the people felt that TV is more immoral than it was ten years ago; and 91 per cent felt a decline in moral values due to television’s influence. And 86 per cent said they would boycott commercial sponsors on shows they deem immoral … Times aren’t necessarily being changed, they’re being tortured and twisted. We want to change the tone of broadcasting and bring it back to where it was in the late 30s.”
The board members of Stop Immorality on Television included segregationist congressman Joel Broyhill and evangelist Bob Jones, for whom the university is named. Three celebrities lent their name to the cause: baseball legend Phil Rizzuto, character actor Andy Devine, and Red Skelton.
Speaking in December 1973, a woman from Oklahoma explained why she joined the organization: “We are sick to death of crime, horror, the satanic occult, violence, profanity, a constant barrage of drinking, dirty jokes, homosexuality, adultery and premarital sex practices.”
On average, the Federal Communications Commission received around five hundred random letters of complaint every month, but after Stop Immorality on Television came along, the FCC received fourteen thousand. In an attempt to placate the sea of objection, the FCC established something called the “Family Viewing Hour.”
The Family Viewing Hour began in February 1975 and imposed restrictions on what subject matter could be featured between 7 and 9 P.M. The FCC announced, “Entertainment programming inappropriate for viewing by a general family audience should not be broadcast during the first hour of network entertainment programming in primetime and in the immediately preceding hour.”
Programs that were already on the schedule between 7 and 9, like All in the Family, would have to conform to the new rules or lose their position on the network schedule.
“[There was] no way I was going to—or would have any idea how to—change America’s most popular show to meet the vague standards of decency that the Family Hour demanded,” said Norman Lear. “All in the Family was virtually devoid of sex and violence, but its propensity for dealing with topical subjects was evidently deemed equally unfit for children.”
CBS president Arthur Taylor believed the Family Viewing Hour was the only solution to the hate mail: “We want American families to be able to watch television in that time period without ever being embarrassed.” But what was embarrassing for one family may not have been to another. Lear complained, “The network censor can’t tell you what it means. All he knows is that he better not do anything that will get him in trouble.”
A handful of people within the industry defended the Family Viewing Hour. “The creative people can’t come up with something creative, so they blame the Family Hour,” said Bill Cosby. “The hour should be directed toward the family [so it] can sit down together without being faced with some controversial issue or clinical discussion on abortion.”
Showrunners ran into problems right away. CBS spent sixteen hours trying to determine whether or not Archie Bunker changing a diaper was obscene. Censors removed the word “sucker” from an episode of The Jeffersons. An episode of Good Times, written by David Letterman, featured Jimmie “JJ” Walker awaiting a herpes test in a sexual health clinic. It was bounced from its time slot so as not to spread herpes during the Family Viewing Hour.
Even dialogue in shows that had already aired were reedited so as not to violate Family Viewing Hour rules when they were rebroadcast. The sitcom Barney Miller was forced to delete “hell” and “damn” from each rerun.
“It’s the most ludicrous concept I’ve ever heard,” complained Barney Miller producer Danny Arnold. “I don’t know of a child in America who doesn’t know ‘hell’ or ‘damn.’ It’s part of the American idiom. I don’t see who can be offended, although I realize some people can be offended by chocolate pudding.”
The sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, starring Gabe Kaplan and John Travolta, was banned in Boston. “It sounds ridiculous in these days of porno flicks,” reported Variety, “ABC’s Welcome Back, Kotter [was] pulled off the schedule in Bean Town because its cast of non-scholastic high schoolers might have an unhealthy influence on local students.”
Executive producer James Komack couldn’t believe it. “To be banned in Boston is funnier than anything we’re doing. This is the first time a tv show has been banned in Boston. We don’t quite know why. The ABC local affiliate is very nervous about putting our show on because it feels possibly that we’re glorifying school roughnecks, that the Dead End Kids can no longer be funny.”
Gabe Kaplan, who played Mr. Kotter on the program, rattled off a list of storylines that were killed by the Family Viewing Hour. “We wanted to do one show where there was someone at the school who had VD. We wanted to do a show where Freddie had to meet a rough basketball schedule and his final exams are coming up at the same time and he starts taking pills and he gets hooked. We also wanted to have a party where everyone got drunk on beer and they wouldn’t let us do that.”
But even with the Family Viewing Hour in place, detractors of television were not satisfied. The Family Viewing Hour emboldened them, gave them a new sense of power, and led to even more aggressive censorship campaigns.
*
A war on George Carlin and his routine about the seven dirty words you can’t say on television was orchestrated by an evangelical lobbyist. The man at the center of the grievance was John H. Douglas of Morality in Media, a group funded by the Coors beer fortune.
Morality in Media ran campaigns to keep The Godfather from airing on television and to remove Playboy from convenience-store shelves. The group said their purpose was to “prevent American culture from plummeting to the depths of barbarism.”
Douglas claimed he was listening to the WBAI program Lunchpail on his car radio when host Paul Gorman warned listeners that a George Carlin routine he was about to play was not suitable for all ages. Douglas said he was angry that his “young son” had been exposed to profanity in the Carlin routine—although his “young son” had completed puberty and was already applying for a driver’s license.
Morality in Media, the Family Viewing Hour, and Stop Immorality on Television were the result of sustained lobbying by former McCarthyites, Birchers, and old-school segregationists. They directed antagonism toward the biggest comedians of the early 1970s, including George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Cheech & Chong, all of whom were subjected to harassment or threats of violence.
George Carlin was playing a Playboy Club at a hotel resort in Wisconsin when the audience came after him. After the show, the hotel management called Carlin in his room, “We cannot guarantee your safety. You must leave the premises immediately. People are down here asking what room you’re in.”
After completing their gig at Curtis Hixon Hall on August 25, 1973, the comedy team of Cheech & Chong were confronted by armed police. “Based on a Tampa city ordinance, Cheech & Chong were arrested immediately after the performance for using obscene words and gestures in public,” reported the Tampa Bay Times. The duo posted a five-thousand-dollar bond “for simulating a naughty and disgusting act.”
After a typical Richard Pryor stand-up performance in Richmond, Virginia, in August 1974, police issued a warrant for his arrest. Pryor was charged with “disorderly conduct” for “failing to clean up his act.” He was fingerprinted and released on bail. He was arrested for saying the same words that could be heard in Blazing Saddles, a movie which he cowrote that was playing around the country at the exact same time.
Joan Rivers was playing the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach in January 1974 when she received a telegram from a man upset by a Polish joke:
“Miss Joan Malinsky Rivers: You have managed not only to ruin my Christmas holidays, but you also are making me lose ten days of a sorely needed vacation. I am returning to Miami to put a stop to your Polish ‘joke’ routine at the Deauville … My people will no longer sit back supinely while a human cesspool spews her dirt on them … I promise you, you will regret it.”
The front desk received a phone call: “There will be a bomb at the Deauville at the Joan Rivers show tonight.” The Miami Police Department received a call as well: “The Polish Underground is going to blow up the Deauville Theater in fifteen minutes.” The show was canceled, the hotel was swept, no bomb was found, but Rivers was rattled.
*
Saturday Night Live premiered in 1975 and its combination of political satire, drug humor, and references to male prostitution brought complaints. A letter to the editor published in November 1975 criticized the third-ever SNL episode, which featured All in the Family star Rob Reiner:
“I would like to know who permitted trash like Rob Reiner’s Saturday night show to be televised. How low down can anyone get to make jokes about Joe Cocker, Gov. Wallace and President Ford? Is there no respect for anyone anymore? I hated the show.”
The complaints continued for years. “Saturday Night Live has gone too far,” wrote a reader of the Arizona Republic. “May Saturday Night Live, its sponsors and everyone that enjoys this kind of trash rot in hell forever.”
A fundamentalist churchgoer from Naples, Florida, founded Clean Up Television (CUT) to combat programs she considered an “immoral insult to decency.” CUT listed Saturday Night Live, Charlie’s Angels, Dallas, The Newlywed Game, and Three’s Company as “a negative influence on young people.”
The movement spread and soon Reverend John M. Hurt of the Tennessee-based Churches of Christ was calling The Love Boat a vector for “adultery, fornication and homosexual activity.”
The Family Viewing Hour applied in the evening, but even daytime television was considered a corrupting influence. The Church of Christ in Joelton, Tennessee, purchased a full-page ad in Newsweek denouncing The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game and announced a boycott of their sponsors Anacin, Jell-O, Maxwell House, Sani-Flush, Woolite, and Gravy Train dog food.
“The purpose of the campaign is not to take programs off the air,” said a Church of Christ spokesman, “but to insist that they be cleaned up so they are no longer an insult to decency. Specifically, companies are being asked to refuse to sponsor programs which depict scenes of adultery, sexual perversion, or incest or which treat immorality in a joking or otherwise favorable light.”
General Foods distanced themselves from The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. They dropped their ads because the programs had “deteriorated below General Foods’ standards of good taste.”
Newspaper columnist Frank Leeming complained, “Television, particularly the soap operas and trash like The Newlywed Game, use the phrase ‘to make love’ meaning nothing other than sexual intercourse. The connotation today refers to two people who are not married, at least to each other, doing something once considered illicit or immoral.”
Soap operas were accused of encouraging garbage sex. “I would like to know what is happening to General Hospital,” wondered a 1976 letter published in the Indianapolis News. “The men and women are living together and not married … This world is bad enough without showing such garbage. The program needs a house cleaning to get rid of those filthy people.”
The game show Family Feud was accused of promoting—and spreading—herpes. Family Feud emcee Richard Dawson greeted female contestants with a kiss on the mouth. Several game show fans were repulsed. One viewer complained, “Richard Dawson spreads more bugs every week than a flu epidemic.”
“As a physician, I have wondered about the risks Richard Dawson takes in kissing every female contestant on Family Feud,” said a letter in the Philadelphia Daily News. “The diseases that could be transmitted by promiscuous kissing are too long and too loathsome to recount here. Does Dawson or the producers take any caution to prevent infection? Are none of them informed?”
The Pacific Daily News reported that, in response to medical concerns, Family Feud instated a new policy: “Contestants, both male and female evidently have to undergo a mouth test with a magnifying glass from medical distaff.” A contestant revealed that before her appearance, a Family Feud production assistant entered the dressing room with a magnifying glass and a cotton swab and said, “Okay, everybody line up for your herpes test.”
The most committed of all TV haters was a Methodist preacher from Tupelo, Mississippi. Reverend Don Wildmon claimed his National Federation for Decency had ten thousand followers—and that he could mobilize their anger within twenty-four hours. He mailed a monthly newsletter to parent-teacher associations, which included a list of shows he claimed promoted “intercourse outside of marriage” and nonreligious use of the word “God.” Among the programs Reverend Wildmon denounced as “immoral” were Barnaby Jones, Fantasy Island, and The Six Million Dollar Man.
Reverend Wildmon was upset when Norman Lear filed a lawsuit against the FCC over the Family Viewing Hour. Lear’s legal team argued that it was an unconstitutional attack on free expression. In November of 1976, US district court judge Warren J. Ferguson ruled that “censorship by government or privately created review boards cannot be tolerated” and that the FCC had “violated the First Amendment by threatening the industry with regulatory action if the family hour were not adopted.” Norman Lear and his many colleagues were elated, but Reverend Wildmon warned, “There will be hard-core pornography on commercial television within eight years if there isn’t an uprising.”
The editorial board of the Herald in Passaic, New Jersey, accused Reverend Wildmon of mimicking the philosophy of totalitarian countries:
“With the rationale used by these groups, some of the most moral, decent television would probably be found in the Soviet Union, Cuba and Iran where strict government control prohibits any true form of entertainment, let alone something along the lines of Three’s Company.”
Three’s Company was a popular sitcom starring John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, Suzanne Somers, and Norman Fell (and later Don Knotts). Ritter played Jack Tripper, a man who pretends to be gay so his landlord won’t object to his coed living arrangement. The suggestion of homosexuality, although seldom explicit, made Three’s Company a bogeyman in the Culture War.
To protest their sponsorship of Three’s Company, Reverend Wildmon organized pickets at thirty-six Sears outlets. In a highly publicized display, he had members of the National Federation for Decency remove the “Sears cards” from their wallets, cut them up with scissors, and mail them back to the company.
John Ritter defended Three’s Company on the talk-show circuit, appearing on The Mike Douglas Show, Dinah!, and the Tonight Show. He asked his fans to offset their evangelical critics by supporting the remaining sponsors. “If you like the show,” pleaded Ritter, “buy two of everything to counteract these people who hate us.”
*
Homosexuality was a Culture War obsession. It triggered passionate emotions that could be exploited for political gain. The leading antigay culture warrior was Anita Bryant. A former band singer whose music made Lawrence Welk seem hip, she appeared on dozens of television variety shows in the 1950s and ’60s. She toured Vietnam many times with Bob Hope and became the celebrity spokesperson for Florida orange juice. When an antidiscrimination statute was proposed in Dade County, Florida, in January 1977, Bryant claimed it was a cover for homosexual schoolteachers trying to recruit children into the gay underground.
Bryant became the face of a new organization called Save Our Children Inc., a political lobby group that sought to ban gay people from professional fields of employment. She appeared on sympathetic television programs hosted by preachers Pat Robertson and Jim Bakker, and the Reverend Jerry Falwell offered his support. A promotional flyer with Bryant’s photo on the front was sent in the mail: “Dear Friend, I don’t hate homosexuals! But as a mother I must protect my children from their evil influence … Do you realize what they want? They want to recruit our school children.”
Bryant worked with ghostwriters to articulate her position. “There are many things that pose threats to our children and to family life,” she wrote in her 1978 book At Any Cost. “There’s child pornography, child abuse, drugs, alcohol, abortion, and of course, those who would try to foist upon an unsuspecting community what the homosexuals did in Miami. We need to be awakened to these things. Protect America’s Children exists to help put a stop to evils in our society that are threatening our children.”
She quoted mainstream figures like LAPD chief Ed Davis to bolster her point of view: “There is no question that homosexuals pose a threat to children.” She also quoted San Francisco politician Dianne Feinstein: “Gays should not be harassed, but it’s reached the point where their lifestyles are imposing on others.”
“The attempt by homosexuals to label this a civil-rights issue was nothing but camouflage,” said Bryant. “If we as a nation eventually come to the place where this is sanctioned as a legitimate civil-rights issue, then what is to stop … the murderer from shouting ‘murderer rights’?”
Florida orange juice was subjected to a boycott campaign and there were calls to end her role as spokesperson. The boycott was endorsed by musician Paul Williams, horror legend Vincent Price, and actress Jane Fonda, while Johnny Carson ridiculed her in his Tonight Show monologues:
“Anita Bryant was on television last night, I don’t know if you saw it or not. She was making a speech … I understand now she’s going to travel around to supermarkets and get them to remove Froot Loops from the shelves … She said she would be happy to come to California and help us. Oh, it’s all we need. I think her main objective is to come out here and break up Starsky & Hutch.”
Television critic Tom Shales wrote of Carson, “In recent months his monologues have grown increasingly audacious and topical, and it’s his handling of the Anita Bryant business that has proven most interesting … Carson and other comedians have turned her into a new symbolic stock comic figure. Anita Bryant has become the female Archie Bunker, a living caricature of abrasive bigotry.”
Anita’s husband, Bob Green, believed there was a double standard. “It’s fine for entertainers and stars to appear on national TV condemning my wife and satirizing her in the most uncomplimentary ways imaginable; it’s fine for the Johnny Carsons, the Carol Burnetts, and others to make her the brunt of their sick jokes; but let word get out that Anita is to appear on a TV program, and the threats of bombings and disruptions cause the network to cancel the show … Anita is being denied rights as an American.”
“For me, in addition to all of the above, it brought job discrimination and the loss of a lifelong dream of having a television show of my own,” said Bryant. “We were cast as bigots, haters, discriminators, and deniers of basic human rights. And all of this happened because we were sincerely concerned for our children and our community.”
The New Laugh-In, a 1977 summer replacement featuring a young Robin Williams, featured many jokes at her expense. Bryant said The New Laugh-In was “part of the show-biz conspiracy to ridicule and discredit me.”
Eventually the jokes gave way to real-life harassment. “One day we opened our post-office box,” said Green, “and there was an unmistakable odor … How would you have liked to be the person opening the box that contained someone else’s excrement?”
Gay activists around the country wore buttons that said, “Anita Bryant Sucks Oranges.” A novelty company sold a brand of toilet paper with Bryant’s face printed on each square and the slogan “Wipe the Smile off Anita.” And at a press conference in Iowa, with television cameras rolling, a prankster hit her in the face with a pie.
Some came to her defense, notably Jesse Helms. The senator objected to a proposed amendment to the “so-called Civil Rights Act of 1964” that would include homosexual protections. Helms opposed all civil rights legislation and the Civil Rights Movement itself.
“She is a lovely person, deeply committed to Christianity,” said Helms. “She has warned that unless America returns to basic principles, our freedoms are in jeopardy … Here was a fine and decent lady, a dedicated Christian, who had dared to speak out. And because she did, her contract was canceled.”
By the end of the decade, Bryant’s career was essentially done. Very few in the industry were willing to employ her. Bryant issued a press release:
“I have been blacklisted for exercising the right of a mother to defend her children, and all children, against their being recruited by homosexuals. Because I dared to speak out for straight and normal America, because I dared to challenge the immoral influence of homosexual recruiters … I have had my career threatened. I have had my First Amendment freedom of speech abridged.”
Bob Hope was disturbed by the lengths to which Bryant had gone. He knew the singer well, had done many shows with her over the years, and considered her a friend. “Because of this,” said Hope, “it’s very hard for me to discuss this subject.” Speaking in July 1977, the comedian said Bryant was “going too far. I believe what these people do behind closed doors is their business.” Hope said he had known dozens, perhaps hundreds, of homosexuals throughout his long career and they were “nice people, very talented, and have a lot to offer.” He watched Bryant’s campaign with dismay. “Anita’s been around show business long enough that she should know about the contribution homosexuals have made.”
Hope made jokes at her expense on his NBC television specials until Texaco, his longtime sponsor, made him stop. Executives met with the comedian and begged, “Please, please lay off the Anita Bryant jokes … Customers are tearing up their [Texaco] credit cards and sending them back.”
*
Very seldom did sponsors make a decision based on ethics. Sponsors bent to evangelical organizations or civil rights organizations depending on which lobby held the most power at any given time. Sponsors were motivated by a desire to avoid any controversy and all protest.
Comedian David Brenner was cast in a new NBC sitcom called Snip in 1976. Loosely inspired by the movie Shampoo, the sitcom concerned a hair salon. Despite advance publicity and several episodes being filmed, it never aired.
“They made up all kinds of excuses,” said Brenner, “but the reason Snip was pulled is we had an actor who was gay and who played a gay part. They were afraid to have a gay on television; this was before Soap.”
Soap premiered in 1977 with a young Billy Crystal playing a homosexual character. Created by Susan Harris, the writer responsible for Maude’s abortion episode, Soap was a sitcom with ongoing storylines—like a soap opera.
“I wanted to do a series where you weren’t confined to a beginning, middle, and an end in 23 minutes,” said Harris. “And that really was the appeal. We would change the storyboard around, we could shift things, kill people, bring them back.”
A Newsweek story incorrectly suggested that the first episode would feature a priest having sex inside a church. The information was false, but evangelical protest mobilized all the same.
“ABC-TV is counting on our apathy to get away with its immoral television programming,” said Harry N. Hollis of the Baptist Christian Life Commission. In an attempt to sidestep a sponsor boycott, ABC withheld the names of the advertisers until the premiere. “Throughout the entire SOAP affair, the American Broadcasting Company has been dishonest with the American people,” said Hollis. “They promised SOAP would be a morality play; instead, they are broadcasting an immorality play … If SOAP dies, the war will not be won, but our message to the networks will be clear: The American people do not want ‘entertainment’ based on sexual immorality.”
The Roman Catholic Church released an official statement condemning the Billy Crystals of the world: “Action is needed to prevent this new debasement of the medium through a contempt for human beings.”
ABC executive Herb Jellinek recalled, “What was difficult on the show was to get clearances because the stations were objecting to the show. They were afraid of the FCC, they were afraid of public opinion … Stations in the South, you know, huge stations, refused to clear it.”
Soap endured, but ABC was annoyed. “The protests may not have derailed the show,” said Susan Harris, “but Soap was a nonstop source of stress for ABC, causing the network to lose sponsors … We got memos all the time.”
*
The same week that Soap premiered, Richard Pryor caused a near-riot at the Hollywood Bowl. According to comedian David Steinberg, it was the “first benefit supporting the gay community, at a time when Anita Bryant and her anti-gay campaign were making headlines.”
Richard Pryor already had a volatile reputation. According to Kevin Cook, Flip Wilson’s biographer, Pryor attacked a gay hairstylist on The Flip Wilson Show for “what Pryor considered a lascivious look.”
“Pryor lashed out,” wrote Cook, “poking the stylist in both eyes … NBC lawyers made Pryor’s attack go away with a settlement and a confidentially agreement.”
“Richard practically blinded him,” recalled Flip Wilson’s son. “They thought the guy was going to lose an eye.”
Pryor appeared at the Hollywood Bowl on September 18, 1977, for an event billed as A Star-Spangled Night for Rights. It featured performances by David Steinberg, Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, and Tom Waits. Among the many celebrities on hand were Chevy Chase, Tab Hunter, Julie Kavner, Paul Lynde, Dick Martin, Paul Newman, John Travolta, and Robert Blake.
Pryor walked onstage, scanned the crowd, and said, “While the [N-words] in Watts were out there burning, you guys were up in Hollywood doing whatever you wanted to be doing … There are only four [N-words] out there. How can f*ggots be racists? I hope the police shoot your ass accidentally because you motherfuckers ain’t helping.”
“And from the very top of the Bowl, cascading through the center sections and down into the hotsy-totsy boxes, came a storm of boos and catcalls,” reported the Los Angeles Times. “Someone shouted, ‘Get him off of there.’ Pryor pressed on, insulting, goading, looking for reaction. As for the funds being raised he said, ‘Give the money to people on welfare.’ Angry boos and hisses rained down.”
“[N-words] can’t deal with the word homosexual,” Pryor continued. “There may be a f*ggot in the family but there ain’t no homosexual.”
The booing got louder.
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Pryor told the crowd. “I wanted to test you to your soul. They’re not paying me anything to do this! Where were you f*ggots when they burned down Watts? All of you can kiss my rich black ass!”
Ron Field, the organizer of the event, ran onstage and grabbed the microphone as Pryor walked off, “I want everyone to know this wasn’t planned and all of us who are involved in the show are embarrassed over it.”
The Los Angeles Times received several dozen letters about the incident.
“After having witnessed Richard Pryor’s behavior at the Hollywood Bowl Gay Rights Benefit, I can say without hesitation Pryor is the new Florida orange juice of Hollywood,” wrote one attendee. “His bigoted presentation was the height of insult thrown at an audience deserving the same respect his black sisters and brothers deserve.”
A letter from Pasadena said, “In this country of free speech, presumably anyone has the right to express his hostility toward minority groups. But for Pryor to accept an invitation to perform at a benefit for gay rights and then to use that benefit as a forum for expressing his hostility towards gays is the ultimate doublecross.”
David Steinberg had known Pryor since the 1960s when they were both new to stand-up. “My guess is, truthfully, that some bad substance was taken that night,” said Steinberg. “He was high, he was mad … He had lost his humor and was out of control … The crowd, which had loved him, now threw chairs at him, got up, and left. He had alienated them … It was kind of tragic.”
In the late 1970s, there was occasional tension between white gays and Black straights, each vying for equality while sometimes discriminating against each other.
Paul Lynde, the comic actor best known for Hollywood Squares, had been present at the Hollywood Bowl event. Three weeks later he stepped into a controversy of his own.
Lynde was flown to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to serve as the grand marshal in the school’s homecoming parade. Drinking heavily throughout the day, Lynde went to a local fast-food joint that night. Standing in line behind the school’s Black sociology professor, Lynde shouted belligerently, “Black people are too spoiled!”
He went on a tirade about a new television series he’d been cast in. “There are going to be all these Black people,” complained Lynde. “I’m the only white they’re having on the show!”
The school paper later said Lynde “kept up a steady chatter, most of it racist comments directed at black people in general and at [the professor] in particular.” When the professor turned around to tell him to cool it, Lynde stuck a finger in his face and said, “You’ve got bad vibes.”
Asked to explain himself, Lynde said he was stressed because earlier in the day a Black heckler had yelled, “Hey man, who ever told you you were funny?”
*
Racism was a major discussion in 1977, as Alex Haley’s Roots became the most-watched miniseries in television history. Roots brought the brutal story of slavery into millions of American homes. High school students in Hot Springs, Arkansas, were shown an episode and the following day a brawl broke out between Black and white students. Similar disturbances were reported in Michigan, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania. Things got especially intense in Cincinnati, Ohio.
“Roots, the televised epic inspired by a black man’s search for his ancestry, led to Jesse Coulter’s rampage says a lawyer for the 42-year-old man accused of taking eight hostages,” reported the Associated Press. “During the siege that began Friday night at the Catharine Booth home for unwed mothers, Coulter demanded the return of a son born at the home 20 years earlier.” The lawyer explained, “This man sat on this for 20 years, and the dynamite was Roots.”
Fear consumed the United States in the late 1970s, as serial killers like the Hillside Strangler intimidated Los Angeles and the Son of Sam terrorized New York. They inspired other deranged lunatics, some of whom menaced celebrities. Comedy legend Lucille Ball received a death threat addressed to “Lucille Balls” on August 5, 1977:
Lucille Balls:
When World War III comes there ain’t gonna be any more poor American guys dying for you rich bitches … When the earthquake hits L.A., I will be scouring the obituaries, expectantly to see your name on it. If you were burning to death, I wouldn’t spit or piss on you to quench the flames. All there is war, hate, kill, friction, murder, and pressure.
Just call me Mr. Son of Sam Ohio.
Violence flared as religious extremists objected to motion pictures. A film starring Anthony Quinn led to a hostage taking in Washington, DC, in March 1977. Armed men identified as “Hanafi extremists” demanded the cancelation of Mohammad, Messenger of God (later retitled The Message), a biopic of the religious prophet. “We’re going to kill a lot of people,” exclaimed a terrorist. “Don’t ask me why … just listen.”
The Associated Press reported:
“In nearly simultaneous invasions, a band of gunmen seized 50 to 100 hostages in the headquarters of a Jewish organization Wednesday, while another armed man held hostages at a Moslem religious center 10 blocks away. A short time later, gunfire flared at the District Building, Washington City Hall, and police [had] a report that people may have been killed there. Mayor Walter Washington was reported barricaded in his office … At the headquarters of B’nai B’rith, at least four invaders armed with rifles—two of them automatic—commandeered the eighth floor. They first invaded two lower floors, gathering hostages as they went … At least five persons were injured there. One suffered a gunshot wound in the arm. Another shooting victim was known to be inside, along with people injured in beatings.”
DC city councilman Marion Barry was shot in the stomach.
Mohammad, Messenger of God was pulled from theaters in Washington, DC, and New York City, but it eventually played in the rest of the United States without incident.
A bomb destroyed a theater on the edge of West Hollywood in June 1978. The Jewish Defense League, the same extremist group that had targeted the sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie, was responsible.
They resented a documentary called The Palestinian, narrated by Vanessa Redgrave. Dore Schary, film producer and former chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, called it “anti-Israel and anti-Zionist,” but unlike the JDL, he opposed any attempt to suppress it.
“I feel very strongly against her [Redgrave’s] personal political position,” said Schary, “but I don’t believe in boycotts. I pray there is no boycott or demonstration.”
There was no boycott or demonstration—only explosions.
Shortly before 4:30 A.M. on June 15, a bomb tore open the Doheny Plaza Theater near Sunset Plaza. The marquee that advertised The Palestinian became a jagged projectile flying over Sunset Boulevard. The roof of the theater caved in, leaving a pile of smoking debris. Two members of the JDL were arrested and sentenced to four years in prison.
*
The decade closed with one of comedy’s great controversies.
Monty Python’s Life of Brian was an outrageous parody of biblical times. Its wild sight gags, absurd humor, convincing set design, and social commentary delighted Monty Python fans. However, politicians connected to the evangelical movement suggested that the members of Monty Python—John Cleese, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin—be tried for blasphemy.
The idea of a biblical parody made film producers nervous. “Originally, we had the money from EMI for this film,” recalled Terry Gilliam. “It was, I believe, the Thursday before the crew was leaving [to start filming], we got the news that EMI had pulled out because apparently [film executive] Lord Bernie Delfont had finally got around to reading the script, decided it was blasphemous, and didn’t want his company to be involved in it … Everything was canceled.”
“Delfont had been approached by certain elements and leaned on, and warned, that this would be trouble, this film,” recalled Eric Idle. “He didn’t want to cause offense. Y’know, you can understand it from his point of view, but from our point of view, we had already spent about eighty thousand quid on locations and getting things going.”
The film was saved by one of Eric Idle’s friends—George Harrison. The former Beatle put up four million dollars of his own money and rescued the production.
Investors were right to be cautious. As soon as it was released, Life of Brian was besieged by religious fundamentalists. Orthodox rabbis were the first to protest, objecting to a prayer shawl worn by John Cleese at the start of the film.
“It was the first scene to raise any protests,” said Terry Jones. “We always thought we were going to get protests from Christians, but in fact the first lot of protests we got [were] from the … Rabbinical Association of New York.”
Idle said, “The rabbis went away as quickly as they had appeared and were replaced by angry Christians, who picketed the Burbank Studios in L.A., claiming that Warner Bros. were the agents of the devil.”
Blasphemy charges were seldom successful in the modern age. Organized evangelical groups figured they’d have better success if they attacked the film on grounds of obscenity. A half-second glimpse of Graham Chapman’s penis led to a court order which suppressed Life of Brian in the state of Georgia due to “lewd exhibition of genitals.”
The movie was banned in Shreveport, Alabama, outlawed in Alexandria, Louisiana, and harassed in South Carolina.
“The film held up to deliberate ridicule my faith in Jesus Christ and made fun of His suffering,” said Presbyterian minister William Solomon. “It was cruel and sarcastic, but it was not art.” Solomon contacted South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond for help. Thurmond insisted the film distributor withdraw the film, telling them, “My folks take their religion very seriously.” The distributor replied, “We take our freedoms very seriously, too.”
At a theater in Columbia, South Carolina, protesters distributed leaflets about eternal damnation. Monty Python fans held a counterprotest and carried signs that said, “Strom Doesn’t Pay for My Movie Ticket” and “Resurrect Brian, Crucify Censors.”
Senator Thurmond inadvertently helped as controversy drove ticket sales. “There was no need for us to fly to the States and do publicity,” said Eric Idle. “So, while the movie was being pulled from cinemas across America, people would simply drive across state lines. This pattern repeated itself everywhere.”
On an episode of Friday Night, Saturday Morning on BBC2, Michael Palin and John Cleese debated a priest and the recently born-again writer Malcolm Muggeridge about the film’s merits.
“I would simply point out to you,” Muggeridge told them, “that if you care about what constitutes what we call Western Civilization—which now is probably coming to an end—and you were to consider the role that’s been played in that by this … piece of buffoonery, you would have a certain humility … This is such a tenth-rate film … and the lampooning of His death, which is the most disgraceful part of the whole thing … and all you’ve done is to make a lot of people on a cross singing a music hall song. I mean, it is so disgusting.”
Ironically, Malcolm Muggeridge once contributed an essay to Esquire complaining that people were so sensitive you couldn’t joke about anything anymore. “The area of life in which ridicule is permissible is steadily shrinking, and a dangerous tendency is becoming manifest to take ourselves with undue seriousness,” wrote Muggeridge in 1958. “This decay of humor on both sides of the Atlantic doubtless derives, partly at any rate, from the growing sense of insecurity which haunts the lives of so many today. When institutions and authorities feel themselves to be secure, ridicule and satire are unobjectionable.”
Life of Brian was banned in Ireland. It was banned in Norway. And it was suppressed throughout the United Kingdom. Screenings were forbidden in Birkenhead, Brynmawr, Cornwall, East Devon, Haverfordwest, Harrogate, Pontypridd, Swansea, and Whitehaven. The town of Watford allowed it, but only after changing the film’s rating to an X. And an advertising campaign in Sweden mocked their neighbor: “Come see Life of Brian! A film so funny they banned it in Norway!”
The controversy faded after a year. By the 1980s, the film was syndicated on television and aired on weekend afternoons in several markets—and nobody seemed to care.
“It showed you how much absurd posturing goes on,” said John Cleese. “Because people protest and protest and protest and say this is really, really bad. And then two years later the film is shown again and nobody turns out at all. It’s about posturing. It’s about people feeling they’re doing God a favor by going out to protest.”
“We were pilloried by religious groups on all sides from Jews to Catholics to Protestants,” said Terry Gilliam. “To me, what’s important is that we managed to offend a lot of people. But as you notice we were very cautious about offending any Muslims. We would say nothing negative about a Muslim, ’cause we’d get a fatwa after us. But your Jews, your Christians, they’re easy to push around.”
“I was very surprised by the degree to which some people protested,” said Cleese, years later. “I did not have an enormous amount of respect for the most vocal people who went out and demonstrated. I had a lot of respect for people who came up to me and told me quietly and rationally what bothered them in the film … I was also surprised by how many people wrote to me and said, ‘I am a Christian and I don’t know what this fuss is about. It seemed to me perfectly clear that you were making fun of the way that some people pretend they’re Christians—when they’re not actually following Christ’s teachings.’”
Eric Idle said it eventually all came full circle. “One nice footnote to the Brian controversy, in our movie, Sue Jones-Davies, a Welsh actress, played Brian’s reactionary girlfriend Judith … When the movie was first released in her hometown of Aberystwyth in North Wales, the local council banned the film from public screening. Thirty years later she became the mayor of Aberystwyth and overthrew the ban.”