Gosh Dang It / Live-Action TV

Gosh Dang It to Heck! in live-action TV.

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In General:

• Prior to the late 1960s, television programs were not permitted so much as a hell, damn or ass on TV, except in religious contexts. (All three swear words are in various translations of the Bible.^note "Ass" denoting the pack animal.) That meant usually double-entendre was substituted, or the scripts were rewritten to avoid the suggestion. Little by little, TV dramas, usually gritty ones, began using mild profanities ... that is until potty-mouthed Archie Bunker broke the door wide open.

Award Shows:

• Parodied by Jon Stewart at the Emmys:
  Jon Stewart: There's something I'd like to say to the government officials in charge. (dubbed over voice: thank) You!

Creators:

• Harry Enfield had a sketch which parodied a foul-mouthed gangster film. The characters were arguing about something, but it wasn't entirely clear what, because every swear word was dubbed over. "Kiss my [knees], [muddyfunster]".

Series:

• 7th Heaven: Enforced Trope with a "family" show. The worst words the show has ever used were "damn" and "ass" both spoken by adults. For example, in the season 5 episode "Tunes", a boy called Lucy a bitch, though he didn't actually say the word (in fact, it was very vague about he was saying - "Looks like you need a man" being his exact words), though both Lucy and Ruthie quickly figured what he said. For a casual viewer, you wouldn't realize what the boy actually called her until Annie came to Eric and stated that Lucy was called the "B-word".
• 30 Rock. Lutz calls Liz a cunt. Pete and Frank try to come up with words that would be the male equivalent of that word i.e. "fundark". Also, "blerg".
  • A Running Gag has Kenneth seem to be mincing an oath, only for him to reveal that the word he thought of as unspeakable is completely inoffensive/inane. The most famous instance is this:
    Kenneth: [to Liz] You're acting like a real C-word right now! That's right a Cranky Sue!
• In an episode of ALF, the alien of the title hurt himself while building something and went off on an angry rant about "the gosh darned thing", emphasizing as if he were cursing in pain. As the family stared at him in shock, he said, "I come from a polite society."
• Nobody who remembers Alice could forget Flo's Catchphrase, or what as-yet-unacceptable-for-broadcast phrase it really stood for:
  Kiss my grits!
• Angel. Team Angel is investigating "Smile Time", a children's puppet show run by demons.
  Gunn: Come on, Lorne. We're through talking to this hump of garbage.
  Framkin: Uh, no name-calling at Smile Time.
  Lorne: Bad person!
• In Rowan Atkinson's "First Day of Hell" sketch, Satan says "You're all here for eternity, which I hardly need tell you is a heck of a long time."
• Barney Miller occasionally had this problem. Usually a character about to swear would simply be interrupted, e.g. "Oh, who gives a flying f—" "WOJO!" However, when Ron Harris spoke about his belief that a civil action filed against him and subsequent judgment for the plaintiff were racially motivated, he was allowed to say "You are looking at one mad nigger! but "They won't suck another nickel out of this bad motor scooter." "The Vandal" has a visual version:someone spray painted "Miller is a Dirty M—-". At the end, Barney asks Nick to reorganize the files. When Barney asks Nick if he had anything else to say, he glances at the "Miller is a Dirty M—-", replying: "I have nothing to add."
• Done in the Battlestar Galactica remake series: they've substituted "Frak" for the f-word. Seeing as how it follows the story of a military vessel where humanity has been mostly wiped out, every single character uses this word at least ten times an episode. Ironically, the ratio of "Fraks" to other cuss words are incredibly disproportionate. "Frak" was used in the original series as well, just not nearly so much.
  • In the original 70's series, in addition to "Frak", "Frik" and "Felgercarb" were used as alternative profanity.
• On Bewitched, in addition to Samantha's Catchphrase, "Oh my stars!" the scoff "my fat aunt Harriet" also shows up.
• Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory will combine this with Sophisticated as Hell. Although more of a Deist or perhaps Agnostic, due to his Christian upbringing he is never shown swearing, and despite the mildness of the words such as "poop", "heck", and "poppycock", he will actually apologize for his language.
  • At Howard's bachelor party, Sheldon tries to engage in typical bachelor party behavior, including alcohol and swearwords.
    Sheldon: [takes a sip of alcohol] Jeepers, that's yucky!
    Leonard: Whoa, it's a little early to start dropping J-bombs, don't you think?
  • In one episode Penny says, "Holy crap on a cracker!"
• The Mormon and FLDS characters in HBO's Big Love use such culturally appropriate expletives as "goshdarn" and "Oh my heck!" While it may be culturally appropriate, generally only the Utah Mormons go in for "oh my heck" instead of "oh my gosh", lest they be labeled a "utard", which admittedly is a fairly offensive term all around.
• In the BBC comedy series A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie do a sketch parodying bowdlerisation and watchdog groups using the made-up obscenity "pimhole," among others. Everyone reacts with horror when Laurie invokes the fictitious words, then barely flinch when he actually cusses. The skit ends with a studio exec (Fry) confronting an outraged (over the use of "pimhole") female viewer and telling her to sod off.
  Hugh: He said 'Skank off, you cloffing cuck^note This was before "cuck" became internet shorthand for "cuckold", you're all a load of shote-bag fuskers, so prunk that up your prime-ministering pim-hole!'
  Judge: And what did you say to that, Sergeant?
  Hugh: I told him to mind his fucking language, m'lud.
  Judge: I should think so too!
• On Black Lightning, instead of saying the N-word, characters will say "Negro" or "ninja".
• "What the heaven!" and "My sweet Annie", among others, in Black Sheep Squadron.
• Subverted in a Bottom episode. When the Ferris wheel carriage they're stuck on starts to collapse, the following dialogue progresses [The italicized words were censored on television]:
  Richie: Oh Blimey!
  Eddie: Oh my stars!
  Richie: Splice my sausages!
  Eddie: Cor, lummy!
  Richie: Christmas Pudding!
  Eddie: Blood and stomach pills!
  Richie: ...hey Eddie, we sure know how to swear, eh?
  Eddie: You ƒucking well hit the clit right on the nail there, you cunting bastard!
• Played for laughs in The Boys (2019) when a Crime Reconstruction shows the foul-mouthed William Butcher calling his victim a "dumb bird" and threatening to "bollocks" her, with not one "twat" or "cunt" in the lot.
• In the Broad City episode "Kirk Steele," a boy Ilana is babysitting says, "My mom's stuff is fancy as fork. Take it back to Beacon's and sell the shoot out of it."
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • While the show is not attempting to be family-friendly, The Mayor often acts like an evil Howdy-Doody. He very, very rarely curses, and when confronted with the fact he was about one second from blowing up, his only comment was, "Well, gosh." This is made all the more jarring when you consider that by this time the Mayor had been transformed into a gigantic, people-eating snake-demon. His non-swears are there for the comedy value. Because swearing is rare for the Mayor, when he does swear we notice. It makes the scene in the hospital a lot more meaningful, when he calls Buffy a whore for putting Faith in a coma.
  • There was also this bit from "When She Was Bad":
    Willow: But why is she acting like such a bee eye tee see aitch?
    Giles: Come on Willow, we're a bit old to be spelling things out.
    Xander: A bitca?
  • In Season 9:
    Willow: What the Hello Kitty were those?
  • Buffy says "What the hell dimension?" in Season 9 after randomly teleporting somewhere.
• Played for laughs in Castle; Esposito has just called for background on a suspect who was stalking the victim and showed up at the hearing to issue a restraining order against him to call her a 'bitch'. However, just before he reveals the word, he realizes that Castle's teenage daughter Alexis happens to be present, and so censors himself by spelling the word in question out. This earns him a scornful look from Alexis and a helpful reminder from her father that she can spell.
  • "Shut the front door!" is also used on Castle as a stand in. It does a wonderful job of completely dispelling the mood of suspenseful moments.
• Countdown With Keith Olbermann: Keith Olbermann has taken to using fairly salty language. He's been heard to lambast the city of New York for allowing major streets to be blocked off for the shooting of a "god damned Batman movie", and called Congressional candidate Rick Barber a "god damned liar" — but when excoriating the VP of Fed Ex for his lackluster response to this, Keith bellowed "BOLSHOI!"
• On CSI, a nightclub security man is checking new arrivals for weapons, and his metal-detector wand beeps when he waves it near a young woman's groin. Her excuse is "My kitty's pierced".
• HBO's sitcom Deadwood is set in the 1870s, but it used anachronistic swearing specifically to avert this trope. It may have gone too far in the opposite direction. Creator David Milch said they originally planned to use genuine 1870's profanity, but test audiences thought the characters sound too much like Yosemite Sam! The modern swearing was designed to capture the effect of period swearing.
• Dear White People: Lionel always uses terms like "malarkey" and "hooey" rather than actual swear words.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Second Doctor uttered these constantly — "Oh, my giddy aunt!" "Great jumping gobstoppers!" "Oh my goodness me!" etc.
  • "The Three Doctors": Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, when having to deal with both the Second and Third Doctors at once, explodes in rage at Second's repeated attempts to find his misplaced recorder. The Brig finally shouts that he doesn't have time for "standing around looking for some ''damn-fool flute!"
  • In "The Five Doctors", the Third Doctor suddenly exhibits a previously unattested penchant for Rhett Butler-esque oaths like "Jehoshaphat!" and "Great Balls of Fire!"
  • Tegan's favorite "U-certificate" swear word was "Rabbits" — a darker curse for an Australian than it might be for someone else.
  • Back in the late-80s era of the Seventh, you had such joys as Ace (the rebellious teen with a destructive streak) shouting "Gordon Bennett!" and "You toerag!", while hardened military commander Brigadier Winifred Bambera is heard exclaiming "Oh, shame" when things go wrong. "Paradise Towers" also included some supposedly futuristic (and conveniently mild) invented slang and cursing, including "ice hot!"
  • The New Series has had plenty of "what the hell"s. It has also started including "bloody" in times of extreme stress. Lampshaded by Ten in his final episode, where he chastises Wilf for swearing.
  • In "The Unquiet Dead", Charles Dickens used the variation on the minced oath "What the dickens" (which actually existed in William Shakespeare's time) with "What the Shakespeare?"
  • The original series occasionally allowed "damn" and "hell", but almost always spoken by guest characters. The Third Doctor was also allowed the occasional use of phrases such as "damn fool". The modern series surprisingly averts the trope in the Series 1 episode "Dalek", in which an American character actually utters the strong curse word "goddamn". Surprisingly, this attracted no negative attention at the time, because moral crusaders were more concerned over the use of the antiquated term "spooning" earlier in the episode.
  • The Tenth Doctor's favorite minced oath is "blimey".
  • "The Hungry Earth": Upon waking up after being abducted, Amy has this to say to her captors^*"Arse" would not appear on the series until 2015's "Heaven Sent".:
    "You better get me the hell out of here, or so help me I'm gonna kick your backside!"
• In an early episode of The Dukes of Hazzard, Bo's use of "dang" gets a stern, "Watch your mouth!" from Uncle Jesse.
• Family Matters: "Darn you Urkel! Darn you to Heck!"
• Father Ted:
  • Characters use the word "feck", which is not a euphemism but an actual, if pretty mild, Irish swear-word without an obvious widely used British equivalent. And in a couple of episodes a sorely-pressed character cuts loose with an actual f-bomb.
  • In-show, "feck" is treated like "fuck" would be in the real world. When Ted goes on a picnic he meets an angry couple whose spot he has taken. Their tirade is along the lines of 'fup you, you fupping baxtard. This is our fupping spot'. When Ted looks at the couple in bafflement the man points to a sign at the edge of the picnic area saying 'No swearing'. Since the word feck was displayed on a billboard and complained about, there was an inquiry into the word and it was officially deemed not to be a swearword in early December 2008.
  • Lampshade Hanging when Mrs. Doyle is shocked by a book she's reading: "'Feck this!' and 'Feck that!' 'You big hairy arse!' Fierce stuff. And the F-word, Father, the bad F-word. Worse than feck. You know the one I mean. F you, F your wife. I'll stick this F-ing pitchfork up your hole."
• Alton Brown's travel show, Feasting On Asphalt, featured a very few scattered uttering of "Hell" and "Damn." Brown himself though once expressed himself with a deeply heartfelt "Great Googly-Moogly!"
• Firefly: In the vocabulary of the future, "Gorram" replaces "God damn", "Hump" replaces "Fuck", and plenty of colourful and creative expletives are achieved in (poorly pronounced) Mandarin.
• Flight of the Conchords does this. In one of their songs, they self-censor the "motherfuckers" in the chorus by dropping the f. Both Jemaine and Bret are fond of saying "flip" as a curse, despite their liberally swearing friend Dave.
• Kenny from Frasier. "Cheese 'n' rice!"
• Friends: When Ross and Rachel's infant daughter seems like she's about to say her first word they start using g-rated alternatives to swearing to make sure she doesn't pick up anything inappropriate.
  Rachel: So get ready to hear a lot of "boo-hockey", "goshdarnit" and "brother-pucker".
• Aircraftman Matthew Lilley from Get Some In! is a devout Christian who won't even say "blimey" (for religious reasons; as a corruption of "God blind me", the word is blasphemous to him), and mostly restricts himself to the likes of "blink", "blooming", and "flip". When he almost involuntarily says "Oh, cobblers!" in the episode "Exam Results" after Drill Sergeant Nasty (ex-)Corporal Marsh angrily snubs his farewell olive branch offer, he reacts with horrified embarrassment at his "curse".
• In a Crowning Moment of Funny from Glee, Mercedes ends up being the third wheel to Kurt and Blaine. At one point, she zones out, and their dialogue is reduced to "Gay! Gay. Gay-gay-gay. Gay..." Fantasy-Kurt then spits out a tiny pink purse, and says "Oh my gosh, I open my mouth and a little purse falls out!"
• On Good Eats, Alton Brown occasionally lets fly with "Goshdarn" or "Goshdarnit", and frequently uses "Oh bother!"
• In The Good Place, this is enforced as a physical law, forcing fork, shirt, ashhole, bench, and deck as substitutes.
  "Motherforking shirtballs!"
• The kids on Gossip Girl usually go with "eff". As in "don't eff with an effer" and "oh my effin' God."
• Characters on Grange Hill never said anything stronger than "Flippin' 'eck!" This fact was parodied on The Young Ones, where, during a Grange Hill spoof featuring students with names like "Rucker" and "Sucker", Mr. Liberal criticises the boys for their bad influence on the youth of Britain, only to be told, "Come off it, sir! We're the only kids in the country who never say fu... [SCENE CUTS].
• In Hardball, whenever Salwa gets upsets, she swears but substitutes food-related terms (such as "Pistachios!") for any actual profanities. Both Mikey and Mahaki, Sr. admire her ability to swear without swearing.
• Said almost said word for word in the "Secret Room" episode of Henry Danger after the gang accidentally pushes the self destruct button to the Man Cave. Upstairs Henry gets on his knees and cries out:
  You maniacs! You blew it up! Dang You! Gosh dang you all as well!
• Done somewhat strangely in House. "Ass", "bitch" and "bastard" get thrown around pretty freely, and "screw you" is acceptable. So the cussin' feels a bit more authentic. What is odd though, is that everyone refers to House as an ass rather than an asshole. It is broadcast television and you're not allowed to say asshole.
  • Even cable does this for most of the shows. That said, Foreman did call House an asshole in the pilot episode, he just said it as he was closing a cabinet and looking away to address Cameron as he was saying it, making it Cuss cutaway.
• An episode of How I Met Your Mother featured a brief clip from Lethal Weapon to show the namesake of Ted's "Murtaugh List". It is so named because of the catch phrase that Danny Glover's character mutters throughout the four Lethal Weapon movies: "I'm getting too old for this s—" interrupted by Ted, who tells his kids, "Stuff. He says stuff."
  • At the end of the episode, the manager of the laser tag arena tells them "You're too old for this-" and Ted tells the kids "Stuff. He said stuff."
  • Sandwiches
  • There's also "Grinch"
  • Barney (watching a movie): Go on honey, kiss him! (everyone gasps) Future Ted: Um… uncle Barney didn't say kiss. Barney: (To movie theater attendant) Who the kiss are you?
• iCarly: Many characters have a habit of using certain words as substitutes (like the Shay siblings' "Shoosh yeah!"). Can be considered an Unusual Euphemism but most of the time, it's a bit surprising what they managed to get away with:
  • "Cheese and rice!" Spoken by the principal himself with the matching accent for the expression it sounds like.
  • Freddie's "This is serious chiz!" was controversial enough for some people on YouTube to claim that iCarly had used a swear word. Hilarity Ensues if any non-viewer of the show saw the video and thought the swear word is Sam's last name.
  • "Holy crab!" was used in "iThinkTheyKissed" by Sam. It's even lampshaded immediately:
    Sam: Holy crab!
    Spencer: *gasps*
    Sam: (annoyed) I said "crab"!
  • Diphead, Dipwad, Skunk Bag and so on.
  • Mrs. Benson's "What the YUCK?" when she caught Carly kissing Freddie passionately in "iSaved Your Life".
  • A highlight in "iMove Out":
    Freddie: Oh, my go—
    Mrs. Benson: You better end that with gosh.
    Freddie: Dear gosh, please make her leave.
  • This would be averted in the 2021 Paramount+ revival series, which is aimed at an older audience.
    Spencer: We'll help however we can.
    Carly: I'm really glad to hear you say that. [Unveils the old "baby Spencer" crib.] I thought this might still be here.
    Spencer: Dammit!
• The IT Crowd - With lines like "I'm at the end of my flipping rope!", "I've got a mother-flipping gun!", "I had to walk all the way down the mother-fudging stairs!", Moss in general does this throughout the series. At one point he even remarks while in a bad situation that he regrets that he isn't the type to use profanity, because he would like to use it bitterly and repeatedly. When Roy then encourages him to do so anyway, the worst he can manage is "Ploppers".
• In Land of the Lost (1991), Annie will sometimes say "Oh my gosh!" This is because she's an 11-year-old on a kid-friendly show.
• The Last Man on Earth pretty much has the entire cast saying a bunch of minced oaths. A favorite among the cast, particularly Tandy, is "Oh, farts." Also, in one episode, Jason Sudeikis' character, Mike, gives Tandy what appears to be a middle finger, but it is actually the ring finger.
• Leave It to Beaver: The words "heck" and "darn" are popular oaths for Wally, the Beaver and their friends. Swearing does explicitly exists. One comical moment has Beaver telling his father that he went to the lake with Larry. They saw a man slip on a rock at the lake, and then heard everything he said. Another time, at the end of the fourth season, Beaver gets angry and swears in the school hallway. Beaver's caught by Miss Landers. Later he whispers the word to Wally . . . both boys are in agreement they can't tell their mother exactly what Beaver said.
• In the "Freaky Friday" Flip episode of Lizzie McGuire, Miranda's reaction to Matt-as-Lizzie coming to school is "Oh. My. GOSH!!" - played the same way as a Precision F-Strike.
• While Lost has "Son of a bitch!" as the catchphrase of a character, the most offensive word there is crap ("I don't want your piece of crap CD from your piece of crap band."). Many times it's easy to see the writers were aiming for worse words ("Now, you could do what you normally do when someone asks for something — tell me to screw off."). On the DVD Commentary, Jorge Garcia reveals the shooting script has curse words, and requires this from the actors (in his case, he mostly makes Hurley yell).
• In MacGyver (1985), the title character's clean-cut behaviour extended to sometimes ridiculously mild cussing, including an actual "Gosh dang it!" in the pilot episode. An occasional "damn" or "crap" sometimes slipped through. Other characters were allowed to swear, subject to the limitations of that era's TV language restrictions.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • In the Netflix shows, namely Daredevil (2015) and Iron Fist (2017), a few times someone would say "This is effed-up," or "Calm the F down," even though the shows were rated TV-MA and had no reason to self-censor, especially since "shit" was said all the time.
  • Justified in Luke Cage (2016) to explain the title character's Catchphrase of "Sweet Christmas!" Turns out Luke's father, who was a preacher, used the phrase in place of swearing and his son picked it up. However, this doesn't stop Luke from spouting regular swear words when sufficiently upset.
• M*A*S*H:
  • Colonel Potter tends to combine this with Unusual Euphemisms; the first usage is in his introductory episode, where he responds to Klinger's argument for a Section 8 with "Horse hockey!" ("hockey" being an older regional term for manure). It marks him as the old soldier since the other characters only swear very rarely (usually falling into Precision F-Strike territory). Also, there is usually at least one lady present in the form of Major Houlihan.
  • As a priest, Father Mulcahy doesn't swear out of principle. About the closest he gets is calling the camp "A bunch of stinkers".
  • Mulcahy also did this in "Movie Tonight" for his contribution to the old military song "Army Life", although this may be for the purposes of rhyming as much as anything (this falls under the Biblical usage of "Hell", which is not usually considered a swear even in that era, and which Mulcahy had used before):
    The Chaplain of the army has a collar round his neck
    If you don't listen to him, you'll all wind up in Heck!
  • "Radar" O'Reilly is a farm boy from Iowa who was barely old enough to be drafted. He usually has a squeaky clean vocabulary with the occasional "heck" or "oh, Jeez"; but on the rare occasions he drops a "Hell", then it means things are serious.
    • In "Mad Dogs and Servicemen", Radar, who's laid up with a fever from his rabies shots, has been telling God that he'll be good if he just lets him get well. His promise about his language is, "No more hells, damns, and especially not the big one!" So evidently he does say 'hell', 'damn', and worse, even if we don't hear him.
• In a couple of episodes of Mathnet, George uses a phrase like "gosh darn" and then apologizes for "swearing" or "cursing." Also done with the bailiff swearing in witnesses during George's trial for bank robbery:
  Bailiff: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you Gosh?
• The Middleman: The Middleman himself speaks like he stepped out of the 1950s. He refuses to swear on the basis that, according to him, "profanity cheapens the soul and weakens the mind." Wendy's surprise when he says that Voyager 2 is "coming in hotter than the devil's wedding tackle" is genuine.
• Played for Laughs in Modern Family, where the principal of Lily’s kindergarten has apparently so internalised not using bad language in front of kids that he uses substitute words even around adults.
  What the fudge were you thinking? Now the boy’s parents are coming and trust me, they’re as mad as Hello Kitty!
• Moonlighting had this:
  Maddie: Good! Then understand this: I don't give a flying fig about the lines on my face, the crow's feet by my eyes, or the altitude of my caboose!
  David: Hey, that's ok... that's what you've got me for.
  Maddie: And I don't give a flying fig about people who do!
  David: Well, I'm at a loss. I don't know what a flying fig is.
  Maddie: That's okay... [they both turn and look at the camera] ...they do.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: In a sketch where John Cleese and Graham Chapman play two old ladies watching TV (after the BBC caused their radio to explode on cue), they notice that there is a penguin on the TV. Cleese repeatedly asks about the penguin. Peeved, Chapman ad-libs "Intercourse the penguin!"
• HBO sketch show Mr. Show featured Pallies, a parody of GoodFellas. In it, the swearing is switched to words such as "loopy nerd" and "Chinese dentist" and a middle finger is changed to a thumbs up. The movie is then shown to be presented as a morning movie.
• During the Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffing of Future War:
  Tom Servo: It's Jean-Claude Van Damme!
  Mike: Nah. He's more like Jean-Claude Gosh Darn.
• MythBusters:
  • Since testing the myth that swearing can increase your tolerance for pain, which involves the team doing a control experiment where they shout out ordinary words while enduring pain, the show often plays with this, though they aren't shy of swearing (which gets censored in any case).
    Adam Savage: Fudge! Babies. Baby hippo.
  • They did the myth "You can't polish a turd", except that they were not allowed to say turd, or crap, or (obviously) shit. So Jamie listed the things they were allowed to call it, which ranged from "dung" to "poopies."
• On an episode of Night Court, an extremely overwhelmed and frustrated Christine screams an exasperated "DARN IT TO HECK!", which is probably the closest that her character ever came to actually swearing.
  Dan: You watch your mouth, young lady!
• Orphan Black: Alison rarely uses normal swear words, befitting her image as a respectable, churchgoing stay-at-home mother. Instead, she ops for more creative terms like "What the dickens?", "Lord and butter", "Fish sticks", and "Holy doodle".
• Our Miss Brooks: Used from time to time, often making the avoidance humorous in itself:
  • Sometimes, swear words are referred to obliquely. For example, in "Stretch is Accused Of Professionalism, there's this exchange between Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks:
  Mr. Boynton: Stretch has as much chance of passing that test as, well, . . . .
  Miss Brooks: Maybe one of them didn't melt down there.
  • Miss Brooks censors Walter Denton at breakfast when he's complaining about Mr. Conklin:
  Walter Denton: Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin is making my otherwise placid existence a living . . . .
  Miss Brooks: Walter!
  Walter Denton: Inferno?
  • Words like "dang" and "heck" are often treated seriously. When Mr. Boynton uses it in the cafeteria Hilarity Ensues:
  Walter Denton: Language!
  Mr. Boynton: Oh, sorry Miss Brooks.
  Miss Brooks: That's all right, Mr. Boynton. In such times, even I resort to a mild profanity. Whoa Nelly!
  • On a more serious note, Mr. Conklin's favourite exclamation is the mild"Gad!"; likely to avoid blasphemy and breaking The Third Commandment.
  • In a Real Life Moment Of Heartwarming, Eve Arden asked the radio and later the television crew not to swear on set as there were teenagers on the show.
• A beautiful subversion in Parks and Recreation:

Look, I don't like to throw around the word "butthead" too often. If you call everybody a butthead then it kinda loses its impact. But I can say without hesitation that Tom is being a real dick.

• Lampshaded in an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! when a Marine playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare scores a satisfying kill and shouts "Oh dear!" Penn comments, "Oh dear? Oh, I'm so sorry you had to hear that. That's the kind of salty language you pick up in the service today."
• In Porridge, a UK sitcom set in a prison, the writers came up with the word 'Naff/Naffing' for the inmates to use as an expletive. It made front-page headlines when Princess Anne told a troublesome photographer to "Naff off!" Naff is apparently also a mild swear word in South Africa. It appears to predate Porridge. But the British Royal Family (including a juvenile Anne) used to regularly visit until it was advised it might be better if they stayed away.
• The Punisher (2017): In season 2, Amy will only use minced oaths such as "flustercuck," which is turned into a Title Drop. She'll also spell out curses, sometimes inserting Leet Speak, such as "Ess Aitch One Tee." This emphasizes her youth and relative innocence in comparison to Frank's life.
• In the sitcom Red Dwarf, most profanities are replaced by the word "smeg" or a variant (such as "smegger" or "smeghead") which is supposedly an offensive word in the show. It is likely that smeg has an obscene origin (stick an 'ma' on the end), although the authors of the show claim it was invented separately.^note When they discovered an Italian manufaturer of kitchen equipment was called SMEG, the show's writers lamented that they should have thought to copyright the word.
  • Both the show and books occasionally use "goit" and "gimboid" as insults too. More conventional swearing and insults creep in from time to time ("bastard" is often used to describe Rimmer for example - even by himself!
  • 'Smeg' appears to have directly replaced 'fuck' in the Red Dwarf universe, seeing as it's interchangeable with it in virtually every instance.
• The second episode of Round the Twist was based on a Paul Jennings story called "Birdscrap". The episode title was "Birdsdo".
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch has one episode where a very agitated Harvey asks "what the heck is happening?" - which likely comes from Archie Comics being infamously protective of their wholesome brand.
• In The Sarah Jane Adventures the titular Sarah Jane Smith ends up shattering the timeline of human history to apocalyptic, humanity ending proportions when she changes her own family history. Due to this, back in the 50s, Sarah Jane's father, Eddie Smith, picks up an orange at a village festival and as soon as he touches it it has the "life source" sucked out of it entirely and instantly turns black and rancid. This is after he has already witnessed a lot of other things that he cannot explain, and he is becoming incredibly infuriated. So when this occurs, he spits out his anger and confusion with this line:
  Eddie: What the HECK is going on?!
• Used in a Saturday Night Live sketch, where a movie actor is doing his close-ups, but his co-star goes back to her trailer rather than feed him his dialogue, forcing the script supervisor to sub in. Unfortunately, the script supervisor is very Christian, so she will only read the movie's racy dialogue in an extremely censored fashion:
  ''"You're gonna miss this A and the best T's you ever TF'ed. Ha ha, fudge. Fudge you."
• Scrubs:
  • Referenced when J.D. makes a movie reference:
    J.D.: Sometimes you just gotta say "What the fudge."
    Elliot: That's not the line.
    J.D.: I saw it on a plane.
  • There's also Elliot's repeated "fricks", which come from growing up in a conservative household.
  • When JD got "so gee-darn pissed right now" at Dr. Cox for a misunderstanding with one of the interns.
  • "Bajingo, bajingo, bajingo, we must have looked at a million woman's bajingos today. I'm not even comfortable looking at my own bajingo." "Is it because it looks so much like a vagina?"
  • There's also a Season 6 episode where Elliot decides she's going to replace 'ass' with 'kaboodle' because she now finds it too explicit.
• In Seinfeld, Jerry discusses it during one of his stand-up monologues:
  "And there's nothing less fun than when you're an adult and having to use those wholesome curses: Fudge! Sugar! Consarnit! What the hell is "consarnit" anyway? You stub your toe and say, "Consarnit" you might as well say, "Yippee!"
• Skins occasionally does this, particularly Harry Enfield's character. The best example was Chris' tirade against his former boss:
  "He was a pitty boss and a pastard, and he could pucking shove his poof polo up his papseye… stupid prick!"
  "I think one slipped through there."
  "...stupid punt."
  • He then continues doing this for swear words for the rest of the episode, and occasionally later in the series.
• Lampshaded in Sledge Hammer!, the titular character chases the Baddie of the Week through a television studio with many shows being recorded. When Hammer catches him the baddie tells him to "Go to heck!" and then states that you're not allowed to say hell on television.
• Smallville: Unless under the influence of red kryptonite, Clark hardly ever swears.
• Stargate SG-1 - Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell, when particularly annoyed, will exclaim "Mary and Joseph!" Given his delivery, he may as well have left the first name in. He had a very strict, Bible-believing Baptist grandmother, who would probably have trained him not to take the Lord's name in vain. They made up for it by allowing him to say "Shit" in Stargate: The Ark of Truth.
  • Sam Carter uses "Holy Hannah" and "Oh boy", even when faced with what looks like certain death. When her father is introduced he uses the same phrases, and you can almost see the little lightbulbs going off in the other character's heads as they realize why Sam doesn't swear.
• The only swear word in Star Trek: The Original Series was Kirk's line at the end of "The City on the Edge of Forever": "Let's get the hell out of here." Hardly unusual today, but as mentioned at the start of the folder it was practically a Precision F-Strike back then.
  • Not quite, Kirk also asked "What the hell?" in "The Doomsday Machine" after seeing his ship firing at the Macguffin from the title while he was on a wrecked sistership.
  • Dr. McCoy was fond of "Blast!" Well, at least until the movies, which somewhat expanded his vocabulary. He also asks Spock "Are you out of your Vulcan mind" in Star Trek (2009), which he used at least twice in the series ("Gamesters of Triskelion" and "Elaan of Troyius") and once in The Wrath of Khan, though it was said seriously as opposed to the 2009 movie, where it was played for laughs.
  • In "Mudd's Women", Scotty calls someone a jackass and Kirk even repeats it. "Jackass" would have been considered swearing in parts of the US even into the 1980s.
• From The Suite Life on Deck episode "International Dateline":
  Bailey: Gosh darnit! Where are all the shrimp?
  • On multiple occasions, this is what Bailey likes to say when she's surprised:
    Bailey: WHAT THE FFEATHERS?!
• Supernatural:
  • The episode "A Very Supernatural Christmas" features a pair of ancient pagan gods who pose as a heartwarming older couple, even while preparing Dean and Sam for sacrifice.
    Dean: OW! You bitch!
    Madge: Oh my goodness me! Someone owes a nickel to the swear jar! Do you know what I say when I feel like swearing? "Fudge."
    Dean: I'll try and remember that!
    ...
    Dean: If you fudging touch me again, I'll fudging kill you!
    Madge: Very good!
  • In the episode "Ghostfacers", stronger profanity is bleeped out reality tv-style, and several of the bleeped words are clearly "fuck," which the brothers don't use in the show due to network rules. In fact, under the bleeps, there's a whole lot more profanity than usual for this show...which begs the question—wouldn't two men raised on the road by their ex-Marine father in an ultra-masculine kill or be killed culture swear more than they do?
  • Sam and Dean generally use the word "friggin'" where most people in Real Life would use "fucking," due to aforementioned network rules.
• Teen Wolf:
  • Arguably played by Scott from under the effects of wolfsbane.
    Stiles: Scott, are you okay?
    Scott: No. I'm so FAR FROM OKAY, right now!
  • Again, arguably used by Stiles in "Magic Bullet":
    Stiles: HOLY GOD, what the hell is that?
  • Surprisingly averted in quite a few instances, particularly in the first and sixth episodes.
    Scott: Son of a bitch!
    Stiles: You're the one always bitching that nothing happens in this town.
• Top Gear: Presenter James May can swear like a sailor and occasionally does, but his preferred expletive is "Oh, cock!"
• For six seasons on Veep, recurring character Congressman Furlong is a Sir Swears-a-Lot who never ceases to annoy others with his cursing insults. But in one episode, his wife pops by the office and everyone is stunned to see she's a devout Christian who reacts in horror to a simple "damn" and Furlong clearly having to censor himself around her. Naturally, his staff and others who have been victims of his cursing take full advantage to needle Furlong, who's openly fighting not to explode in front of his wife.
• Veronica Mars - "Frak" is also used by Veronica through most of the 2nd and 3rd season, following a story revolving around a Battlestar Galactica fan. In the 4th season, they could have used real swear words since it was a Hulu original, but the producers were afraid it would keep the new season from feeling like a cohesive continuation of the series (The show was Un-Cancelled twelve years after the end of the 3rd season). To try to make it more realistic, there was an in-universe explanation of Veronica and her father having a competition to see who could go the longest without swearing. The movie, however, which was released in theaters roughly halfway between the end of the 3rd season and the release of the 4th season, did have realistic swearing, including a Precision F-Strike.
• White Collar:
  • In the promos for episode 2x14- "Payback", Neal is seen on a cell phone talking to his nemesis, Matthew Keller just after Peter is kidnapped by Keller's associates.
    Neal: Dammit, Keller! This isn't a game!
  • The scene in the show is the usually-taboo "Goddammit". Considering how rarely the urbane character ever even uses mild cuss words, this is even more impactful and effectively conveys precisely how much Peter's kidnapping affected him.
  • In contrast, Peter's character didn't even go that far in episode 3x11- "Checkmate", using the milder "Dammit, Neal!" when he finds out Neal had known where the treasure from the Nazi sub was all along, and that secret had gotten Peter's wife Elizabeth kidnapped by Matthew Keller, who wanted the treasure for himself.
• In early-1990s children's drama Wilderness Edge, Debby (a rebellious teenager who's been in trouble for shoplifting) uses language no stronger than "Faffing heck".
• The Wire has an interesting aversion: In spite of being a dangerous stick-up man, Omar Little is the only character to officially never swear. However, he never uses minced oaths either, so it never seems like he's censoring himself. Swearing or the pointed avoidance of swearing simply never come up.
• Played straight at first Yellowjackets Token Religious Teammate Laura Lee. In "F Sharp" she confesses to her teammates that she's to blame for the crash; it's Divine Punishment for the time she called an irritating piano teacher a cunt in her mind. In "Saints", her response when Lottie startles her is "Cheese and rice!" Averted much later in a case of O.O.C. Is Serious Business when she announces that she is going to fly out in the abandoned plane they found and get help or else they're "all going to fucking starve."
• Yes, Minister: Nobody can make "Gosh" more convincing and sincere than Bernard Woolley (as played by Derek Fowlds). It's almost a Catchphrase.
• You Me Her: Emma, Jack and Izzy start saying "fudge" instead of the f word when Emma's conservative parents visit. At the end, both her mom and dad drop f bombs and say Emma is old enough to also, which results in her doing it too along with Izzy.
• Young Sheldon: In "Seven Deadly Sins and a Small Carl Sagan", one of the first changes Mary wants to make when she's put in charge of the Hell House attraction is to rename it the Heck House, because she considers "Hell" too strong a word to use so casually.

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