Are We Live? (15 page)
Authors: Marion Appleby
If you’re going to include a discussion on
The Vagina Monologues
on a live broadcast there’s a fair chance the c-bomb might be dropped.
Jane Fonda:
It wasn’t that I wasn’t a big fan. I hadn’t seen the play, I live in Georgia …I was asked to do a monologue called ‘C**t’ …I said, I don’t think so, I’ve got enough problems.
The Today Show
, NBC, May 2008
‘If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners.’
COMEDIAN
JOHNNY
CARSON
While discussing the thorny issue of fox hunting in April 2010, Radio 5 Live
Breakfast Show
host Nicky Campbell let one too many slip …
Nicky Campbell:
Tim Bono from the Countryside Alliance – an organization which is, of course, pro-c**ting …er …hunting. Have you ever known a law so openly broken?
[Later in the show …]
Nicky Campbell:
Georgie Worsley is master of the Old Surrey and Burstow and West C**t, Kent! Er, Hunt and is out hunting this morning in Lingfield in Surrey. Good morning.
Guest:
Good morning to you. That was a bit of a slip of the tongue there!
Nicky Campbell:
I know, I do apologize for that. It’s very early in the morning and these things do happen and I do feel exceptionally embarrassed about it.
[Later still …]
Nicky Campbell:
Lots of you are mentioning that they’ll still be talking about the c**t, that, er, the West Kent Hunt that shall not be mentioned in five hundred years’ time.
The myths of live broadcast debunked
In July 1985, Sir Bob Geldof was thought to have said ‘give us your fucking money’ on live television as part of his fundraising efforts during the Live Aid broadcast.
However, Geldof actually said: ‘Fuck the address, let’s give the numbers’ after the show’s presenter asked Geldof to read out the address viewers could send their donations. According to reports, the public increased their donations significantly after Geldof’s outburst, reaching a rate of £300 per second.
Behold! An impressive gathering of rebellious pop stars who’ve dared to utter swear words on live TV:
Hip-hop artist M.I.A. flipped up her middle finger during the Superbowl telecast in February 2012.
Ageing material girl Madonna shouted ‘Come on, motherfuckers! Jump!’ during the Live Earth broadcast in summer 2007.
Not to be outdone, Johnny Borrell of Razorlight fame dared to utter ‘fuck’ during the same Live Earth broadcast.
Serial award-winner Adele ‘flipped the bird’ (i.e. her middle finger) after accepting an award at 2012’s BRIT Awards. Her speech was cut very short, which she clearly wasn’t very happy about.
Jumping on the Live Earth swear-a-thon bandwagon, eighties legend Phil Collins
also
said ‘fuck’ while performing on stage.
In December 2010, James Naughtie, veteran presenter of BBC Radio 4’s very serious flagship breakfast show, the
Today
programme, came a cropper with Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary. He lost the plot and it’s a joy to hear.
James Naughtie:
First up, after the news we’re going to be talking to Jeremy C**t, er, Hunt, the culture secretary about [COUGH, suppressed giggle] broad …band. It’s eight o’clock on Monday the sixth of December. [More suppressed giggles, coughs unconvincingly.] Er, sorry, terrible coughing fit.
[Later on in the show a helpful listener and psychology expert came to Naughtie’s rescue …]
Evan Davis
[co-host]
:
The prominent speech error in today’s programme was more the Prime Minister’s fault than Jim’s, he says. ‘It’s well known in psycho-linguistic research that two words that share a vowel are prone to a speech error, in which initial consonants are exchanged. For this reason, making Jeremy Hunt the Culture Secretary was reckless in the extreme. Jim can be reassured, as can the listeners, that the underlying theory has far more explanatory value than Freud’s theory of parapraxis, or Freudian Slips.’
Later that morning, on Andrew Marr’s Radio 4
Start the Week
programme:
Guest:
We heard this morning one of the primary examples of the Freudian slip that we’re ever likely to hear on Radio 4.
Andrew Marr:
… which we’re not going to repeat …Jeremy C**t, the, er, Hunt, the Culture Secretary had his name Freudianally transposed, er, as I’ve just done now …
‘If everyone demanded peace, instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.’
JOHN
LENNON
SACK THE CELEBRITY BOOKER
Television presenters don’t always have it easy, especially when they’re faced with a nightmare guest. Be it confronted with a prickly Hollywood starlet or an amorous puppet, at times like these the poor presenters have only one mantra: the show must go on!
Unafraid to ask awkward questions, the veteran broadcaster and journalist has managed to rile a few notable celebrities over the years.
In October 2003, in one of TV land’s most uncomfortable interviews, Parkinson, on his eponymous ITV chat show, conducted a fifteen-minute conversation of supreme awkwardness with Hollywood superstar Meg Ryan.
In a frosty exchange with a monosyllabic Ryan, Parkinson tried to probe the movie star about her comment that acting wasn’t really in her nature, but she just wouldn’t be drawn. Parkinson confronted Ryan about her wariness towards journalists – and to him in particular – before finding out she actually studied to be one prior to becoming an actor. Parky then asked her what she would do in his position as the conductor of the world’s most awkward interview. Her response? ‘Just wrap it up.’ Which Parky duly did.
Ryan later said of Parkinson, ‘I don’t even know the man. That guy was like some disapproving father! It’s crazy …he’s a nut.’ Meanwhile, Parkinson called the interview with Ryan his ‘most difficult moment’, adding, ‘I should have closed it …She was an unhappy woman. I felt sorry for her. What I couldn’t forgive her for was that she was rude to the other guests.’