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Lorne Michaels may have stewarded Saturday Night Live through half a century, but it’s not like the late-night show is immune to a couple of snafus. During a call-and-response bit by the perennially charismatic Ego Nwodim on Weekend Update, the audience let out one of the FCC‘s “seven dirty words” — which has now been retroactively scrubbed as seen on the series’ social media pages.
The uncensored version saw, or rather heard, the audience shout “sh–” as Nwodim’s stand-up alter ego Ms. Eggy teed up a “These men ain’t what?” Naturally, the crowd did not hold back, shouting the profanity before the censors on Peacock could do anything about it. (Earlier during the bit, Nwodim’s character began, “Ms. Eggy don’t what?” as the audience responded, “Play.” It was part of a routine in response to the White House pulling Amber Ruffin as a featured entertainer during its annual correspondents dinner.)
While the audio on X is now completely eliminated, viewers can still see Nwodim and Weekend Update co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che’s shocked reactions. The lattermost two were visibly startled, as Jost threw his hands up in surprise and Che could be seen exclaiming and sitting back.
Nwodim, a seasoned repertory player, took it all in stride, ad-libbing jokes like “We’re finna get fired for that” and “Y’all gonna have to pay for that, Lorne’s gonna be mad at y’all.”
An SNL spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment late Saturday night.
It’s currently unclear if any fines will be levied by the FCC against the show, given that the swearing made it onto the streamer, but was caught in time during the five-second network delay on NBC. The moment seems improvised and was clearly unexpected, though it’s not difficult to guess where the audience — who may have been unaware of longstanding broadcast rules — was headed linguistically.
Per FCC guidelines, sh–, piss, f—, c–t, c–ksucker, motherf—er, t-ts and variations of these phrases are not allowed on public airwaves. Ironically enough, it was SNL‘s inaugural host George Carlin whose segment on the radio led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1978’s FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, ensuring that the federal government could regulate speech on broadcast television and on radio based on a number of factors including method of transmission and time of day; additionally, the words need not be profane to warrant limited civil sanctions.
