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  • Parodied in the Adam Ruins Everything episode "Adam Ruins Cars"; Adam explains that the term "Jaywalking" was invented by car manufacturers to blame pedestrians for being hit by cars, and the term "Jay" was an extremely rude word a century ago. Adam then gives some examples of equally rude swear words — but his examples are all bleeped out.
    Adam: Like, what if today we called them *bleep*-walkers, or *bleep*-walkers, or even *bleep*-walkers?
    *Gasp from the crew*
    Boom Operator: Hey, man, c'mon, there's a kid on set.
  • Used in season 6 and beyond on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. For the first five seasons, the writers weren't allowed to use this trope due to a specific policy by FOX that forbade it. NBC, where B99 migrated over to starting with season 6, has no such rule, and the writers wasted no time putting in a pretty filthy joke right in the premiere:
    Amy: It's time to celebrate, you know what that means! This B needs a C in her A!
    Jake: (confused, but slightly smiling) Oh my God!
    Amy: (confused) This babe needs a coconut in her arms...
    Jake: Oh, I thought you said "This b[bleep]h needs a c[bleep]k in her a[bleep]."
    Amy: (disgusted) Oh my God!
  • In the Mathnet case "The Case of the Parking Meter Massacre", George Frankly asks a witness, Fred Furd, what kind of guy George Steinbrenner is. He answers, "Aw, George is a...", and the honking of cars drown out what he was saying. George Frankly stops smiling and says, "I heard that about him," while Kate just looks shocked at what she just heard.
  • Jerry Springer.
  • My Dad's the Prime Minister did this once.
  • Third Watch used siren bleeps from passing police and rescue vehicles to blot out a character's uttering of curse words.
  • Used frequently in the show Arrested Development, sometimes jokingly.
  • The MythBusters are often censored with animal noises (complete with cartoon animals blocking the speaker's mouth) when describing especially dangerous or illegal procedures. Indeed, you will get a violent reaction if you "add donkey to rooster".
    • When censoring short words or phrases, the Mythbusters also often use various sounds reminiscent of workshop accidents, like a crash, bang, clang, thud, etc. They're also not above using cartoony sound effects if it's funny that way.
    • Adam lampshaded this as well once — after an actual minor curse which (in some airings) got bleeped out, Adam then said, "Holy bleeping bleepity bleep!"
    • One episode had them testing a myth that swearing increases pain tolerance. To save money on the inevitable beeping, Adam constructed a helmet that obscured the wearer's mouth (since putting in anti-lip-reading graphics is more expensive than just adding a bleep to the audio track.) It was decorated with Symbol Swearing.
  • The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: On-air swearing was almost always bleeped with sped-up audio of Craig saying foreign (sounding) phrases, and a corresponding flag coming up over the speaker's mouth because it was pretty [¡AY CARAMBA!] funny.
  • Ghost Adventures members Zak, Nick, and Aaron tend to get quite colorful when things get extremely spooky or really, really tense.
  • On Deadliest Catch the profanities are blocked with ship noises (such as horns and the wind). Because you often see people talking from the side or behind, you aren't quite sure if they've cussed or if the ship actually blew its horn. However, during serious or emotional situations, they'll usually revert to the standard "bleep" sound effect.
  • In American Chopper and similar shows we often watch escalating situations between the protagonists which are more or less completely bleeped.
  • In the "World War Three" episode of Doctor Who, a Slitheen utters the first syllable of a word meaning "testicles" before 10 Downing Street is trashed by a missile.
    • In the mini-episode "The Last Day" a soldier is instructing another soldier in the use of his helmet P.O.V. Cam, which will record everything that happens to him in case he's killed in action.
    "There's a language filter, so it will cut any time you say—" (screen pixels out, then jump cuts to a later moment)
  • In an episode of NCIS ("Bete Noire"), Kate has been taken hostage along with Ducky and Gerald. She makes an aspersion on the terrorist's parenthood. He asks her if she's got anything better to say. She repeats, adding an adjective that you can't say on American TV. As she says the adjective, the shot Gerald screams.
  • One episode of Chef! had Gareth's particularly foul insult of Everton blanked out in this way, ending in "What are you?" and Everton had to repeat the insult back. It was funny.
  • In the Monk episode "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil," there is a scene where Randy is trying to listen to a detective while talking on his cell phone, but every time the detective is saying the most important part of the sentence, he is drowned out by the sound of a passing car.
  • The IT Crowd has one of these, when Jen delivers a Cluster F-Bomb to a visiting Japanese delegate who has stood on her foot with massive Doc Martens boots on; it's immediately revealed that the building is installed with a literal 'Profanity Buzzer' that comes in very handy in exactly this situation. Unfortunately, in a neat little subversion, the executive who managed to 'buzz' Jen out isn't quick enough to catch her boss Denholm, who tells her in no uncertain terms what he thinks of her actions before the executive can catch him.
    • Another, when Jen claims she can learn computing skills and asks Moss what he's doing. His explanation is replaced with static hiss, while Jen nods thoughtfully and replies "I see." Then she admits she's lying.
  • Parodied in an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, when the witches are on an episode of The Jerry Springer Show.
    Hilda: Oh, would everybody just— (bleep blocks her out)
    Sabrina: (to Jerry) But she's not swearing!
    Jerry: I know, but this way it sounds like she is.
  • Monster Garage censors the occasional curse with sounds of metal hitting metal. At one point Jesse made a speech to a slacker and it sounded like someone was dropping a truckful of monkey wrenches on a tin roof.
  • Rescue 911: during their reenactments, sensitive information about the cases were covered up with phone static or other related sound effects.
  • An episode of Leave It to Beaver entitled "Substitute Father" has Beaver get in trouble in school for swearing at a bully. The bad word is drowned out by the school bell ringing, but the viewer can tell he swore anyways due to Miss Landers' shocked reaction.
  • The X-Files:
    • Used to comic effect in episode "Jose Chungs' From Outer Space", which features a police detective with a rather... blue vocabulary. However, his scenes are flashbacks that Scully is narrating to the titular Jose Chung, and as she isn't comfortable with the profanity, she 'bleep's him out — so whenever he appears, his dialogue is peppered with frequent usage of the word 'bleep' which he himself says.
      Detective Manners: Oh, you bet your blankety-blank bleep I am!
    • Mulder and Scully get caught up with the cast of COPS while pursuing a "fear monster" in LA; of course, every obscenity was beeped. Even lampshaded by Mulder: "I don't think we're on live television, Scully, she just said [beep]."
    • Mulder uses the phrase "No shit, Sherlock" on the phone to Scully, with the profanity covered up by phone static.
  • Project Runway try to do it ineffectively. For instance, in one Project Runway show from season two, a contestant crows a two-syllable F-word, and the buzz is hiding the "ing" part.
  • Top Chef, but they are careful to make it possible for its audience to recognize the dirty word.
  • Top Chef Masters leaves in Ludo Lefebvre's several outbursts of "merde" and "merdeux".
  • One very good example from The Chaser's War On Everything occurs during the infamous "Eulogy Song". Andrew Hansen calls various celebrities by increasingly harsh names and whatever he uses for Kerry Packer is covered up with an "Arooona!" sound effect. Quite probably, this is intentional, because it certainly makes the song funnier than if an actual piece of swearing had been used.
  • In the Fox's The George Carlin Show, the episode "George Speaks His Mind" is loaded with LOTS of these.
    • George O'Grady, after dropping off his ex-wife Judy and her husband off, gets a passenger who tells George to go to the South Bronx, who happens to be an inspector for the city's cab companies. A driver cuts George off and...
      George: Hey! Putz!
      Other Driver: HEY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!
      George: I'm driving! What the hell are YOU doing?!
      Other Driver: HEY, [BLEEP-BLEEP] YOU!
      George: [BLEEP-BLEEP] YOU, TOO!
      Other Driver: HEY, [BLEEP-BLEEP] TWICE!!
      George: [BLEEP-BLEEP] ... WITH A BROOMSTICK!!!
  • Black Books:
    • An interesting variation occurs after Bernard is accidentally locked out of the shop by the new security door and Manny's unhelpful reaction prompt an invective-strewn rant; however, because the security door is soundproof and we're seeing it from Manny's perspective, we don't actually hear what Bernard is saying, only see him hysterically jumping up and down waving his arms about and shrieking what are clearly some very unflattering things about Manny in the process.
    • In another episode, a customer asks what kind of coffee Bernard's shop does, because "all the other bookshops do coffee." Bernard launches into what looks like a vicious rant accompanied by garroting gestures, but everything he says after "Listen, you—" is drowned out by the deafening construction equipment down the road.
  • Pushing Daisies:
    • In the episode "Circus, Circus", Ned tells Emerson that a secretary said a clown they're tracking was "A no-good lowdown—" only to be interrupted by a loud flame thrower being shot across a scene by a circus performer. Once the flame clears, Emerson stares at his mild-mannered associate and remarks that "I've never heard you use those words before..." This episode also used a Curse Cut Short, a similar trope.
    • Then in the next episode, from a resurrected nun in a convent:
      Sister Larue: Are you [church bell bell rings] kidding me?
      Ned: Shh!
      Sister Larue: You shh! I've been putting up with silence for ten [church bell rings]—
      Ned: Can we just ask you a few questions?
      Sister Larue: I've got a question for you? Where's my white light? I knew the afterlife stuff was [church bell rings]! Where's my [church bell rings] diamonds?
  • On an episode of The Bill Cosby Show from the late '60s (where Cosby played high school gym teacher Chet Kincaid), one of his students constantly swore; his profanity was covered by the Road Runner's "Beep Beep" sound.
  • The Colbert Report Christmas Special featured Jon Stewart describing the "Jewish mistletoe tradition" with what added up to a forty-five second censor bleep. With hand gestures clearly visible throughout.
    "...with a lamb shank."
    (Extremely dodgy black slang from a proper news channel on President Obama)
    Jon Stewart: "That was f[BLEEP]ed up."
  • One edition of Dead Ringers featured 'Ozzy Osbourne' on QVC (a shopping channel) hawking a profanity buzzer which used a new sound effect each time.
    • Which soon ran out of [BEEPS] and had to use a variety of other sounds (including wedding bells) before breaking. There was too much swearing to censor.
  • One episode of Titus had the titular character in jail, with his father laughing at him through the glass window. This particular cell had a switch on it that could cut off the sound. His dad had fun switching it off every time Titus said a swear word.
  • The Friends episode The One Where Joey Dates Rachel has Phoebe swearing vehemently at the top of her voice at a video game machine just as Ben, Ross's ten-year-old kid enters. But we don't hear anything — Beethoven's Ninth (!) plays over it.
  • One episode of Martin had a situation where Gina became popular on his radio show and became a D.J./announcer for a while. At the end of the episode, a man called the show and started to insult her. Martin was in the studio and grabbed the phone from Gina once he heard the man start to go off on her. This ended up with Martin's boss and co-host having to grab the control for the broadcast (they were live), carefully watching Martin's face and listening to his rant, pressing the 'bleep' button quite often as the credits started to roll.
  • Done very nicely using static on the Subspace Ansible in the final season episode 'The Dogs of War' on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, when Quark is talking to the Grand Nagus. Words static-ed out include 'b*crackle*stard', 'f*scrrrk*ing' and 'sh*sqrk*ging'. Interestingly, the bleeped words were included in the subtitles, though the f-bomb was toned down to 'frigging'.
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Glory stomps her foot in anger in an already damaged building, causing it to collapse mid-profanity.
  • Seinfeld:
    • In the episode "The Pool Guy", Jerry points out that George won't like Elaine's newfound friendship with Susan, prompting Elaine to respond, "I don't really give a sh—", with her profanity cut off by her slamming of the bathroom door.
    • In the episode in which Jerry is dating Miss Rhode Island, Kramer is singing the Miss America theme, and Jerry interrupts him: "Oh, shut the [BEEP!] up!" Seeing as they are riding in the back of a limousine, the noise was an actual car horn.
    • "The Non-Fat Yogurt" used plenty of actual bleeps.
  • In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Heroes, Part 1", Jack O'Neill did this after Senator Kinsey attempted to use a conversation with Jack being caught on camera for political ends. Jack first made absolutely certain that the camera crew were still filming him, then, "You smarmy, self-righteous, opportunistic ass—*intercom and siren*Unscheduled off-world activation. You're nothing but a l—Repeat, unscheduled off-world activation." Judging by mouth movements, situation, character, Kinsey's expression, and the timing of the intercom's interruptions... the rest was very rude.
    • In another episode, Sam Carter refuses to ask out another female staffer on Jonas Quinn's behalf, telling him, "You are such a chickensh-" before getting cut off by an alarm.
  • The 1990s Australian police mini-series Phoenix got quite a few complaints over its use of foul language, so the sequel Phoenix 2 often masked offending words with various background noises such as passing cars.
  • In Father Goose, Walter is about to call Frank "a silly English son of a-" when the last word is cut off by the sound of a boat "accidentally" hitting another boat.
  • In the pilot of The West Wing Mandy is driving aggressively while talking on her cellphone. When she runs a red light, a passing car honks and cuts off her swearing.
  • During a scene of the Andromeda episode "The Warmth of an Invisible Light" where there are mortars falling on them as Dylan, Rommie, and Beka are walking down a hall, Dylan promises the Beka from an alternate reality that if she helps him, she can have his ship. When she asks (not knowing he's talking about one of the most powerful ships in the Universe) "What do I want with some old tug from Starship Habitats?", to which Rommie says "'Old tug' my a..." *mortar explosion*.
  • The Middleman not only bleeps out what would be actual swearing instead of Gosh Dang It to Heck!, but Censor Boxes their mouths as well. Aside from being a joke, this also referenced the fact that the series aired on ABC Family a network that (at the time) aired primarily family-friendly programming (that changed).
  • The "Swear box" sketch by The Two Ronnies has two friends meeting up in a pub, making frequent use of a word that's bleeped out, and costs them five pence each time they say it. Then one of them uses a different word, which is blanked out by a buzzer, and costs ten pence. Then one of them refers to his wife with a word that is represented by an over-the-top "boing" sound, and costs a whole pound.
  • Three characters on That '70s Show had their moment when they flipped out and started yelling profanities, always bleeped out: Red has his in season 1 when he told Hyde to move in with the Formans, Kitty in season 5 when she learned Eric was about to move out, and once again in season 7 at the car show when Red paid no attention to her (this moment, however, was brief and the only profanity was masked by a honk instead of a bleep), and Bob in season 8 when he finally told off Red after "all those years cutting [him] down, calling [him] dumbass" (but apologized immediately after).
    • Also the famous moment with The Unreveal of Fez's real name. As he is trying to tell a girl he likes his name, the school bell rings and drowns him out so the audience cannot hear him.
  • A Corner Gas episode has a large rant by Lacy (the least likely character to do so) blocked out by the camera cutting to a very loud passing train, and ends with her putting $20 in the swear jar.
    • In the episode "Face Off," Wanda is announcing at a hockey game and exclaims, "The Dogs score! Holy sh—" Then she accidentally hits the buzzer.
  • Jerri's "Packing a Musket" poem on Strangers with Candy: "When I straddle and squat/To show you my —" (*bell rings*) Of course, you can still clearly see her say it, and it's also worth noting that what we do hear of the poem is undeniably filthy — it just doesn't contain any actual swearwords.
  • The Travel Channel show Madventures features two insane Finns hitchhiking around the globe into insane situations. Their SFXB is rather low-pitched, so it sounds like the host is saying "FOOK!".
  • The premiere of The Jeff Dunham Show has the following line from Bubba J. when a Jew is on the firing range:
    "Happy Hanukkah, mother-*gunshot*"
  • Foul Ups, Bleeps, and Blunders had a segment that used the bleep sound to hilarious effect on a "Question of the Day" where a certain question was asked to random passers-by. When one of the presenters (usually Steve Lawrence) says the question the first time, part of it (the main topic of the question) is bleeped out, leaving the audience to wonder what it is and end up laughing at the answers given, before the whole question is eventually revealed by Lawrence, with his co-host Don Rickles sometimes adding sarcastic remarks beginning with "If you were thinking something else..." (for instance: "How often do married couples <bleep!>?" (one answer involved getting on a motorcycle). The bleeped word was "argue")
  • Survivor Series has the occurrence of contestants swearing. Tribal camp sound effects are used over.
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live! has a weekly segment entitled "This Week In Unnecessary Censorship", which uses strategic bleeping to make benign television clips seem a lot more raunchier than they really are.
    "And just as I, Gary Oldman, would never join an NBA team just because I'm famous, I Gary Oldman would very much appreciate it if professional basketball players would STAY THE [BLEEP] OUT OF MOVIES!"
  • Done with the character of Vince in Mongrels who can't get through a sentence without at least three bleeps. Another example of the "bleeps" making it funnier.
  • Hot in Cleveland: As Melanie confronts her ex at the airport, a hapless flier has to keep passing back and forth through a beeping metal detector in time to her profanity. For ironic effect, the rest of the episode thoroughly establishes Melanie as preferring the Unusual Euphemism to actual profanity.
  • There are two episodes of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody wherein a loud noise prevents the audience from hearing Zack and/or Cody being cussed out. The first is the sound of a bus horn while Zack's miniature golf date Ella cusses him out for being a poor sport. The second is when the ship's horn drowns out the sound of Carey cussing the boys out for shanghaiing her into doing practically every bit of entertainment on the ship.
  • In one episode of Clean House when Niecy asks the homeowner what her family thinks of the junk on her dining room table. She's promptly sound effect bleeped. The sound effects range from a car horn to a game show buzzer. Niecy immediately afterwards remarks how she "likes how you said that with a smile."
  • In the Swedish version of Come Dine With Me, the narrator asked one of the guests to tell a dirty story — but asked her to remember that it was a family program. She delivered:
    Guest: Well, there were two [BEEEEP] sitting at a [BEEP], and one of them said [BEEEEEP], and then the other one sniffed and said "That's funny, I just thought I smelled [BEEEEEP].
    Narrator: ...Well! And you at home, you should be happy you didn't hear that. It would have put you off your appetite.
    • Later, when she tells the joke to the other guests, the camera cuts away for several seconds until it returns.
  • In the episodes of Will & Grace that had Sandra Bernhard as a guest star, her cursing was continually overlapped with other noises (workmen drilling, someone making blender drinks...)
  • Dad's Army. In "The Two and a Half Feathers", Arthur Lowe plays a foul-mouthed sergeant in the Sudan War, with his swearing censored by disgusting fart-like sounds.
  • When Restrepo, a documentary about a small band of soldiers holding a tiny outpost in Afghanistan, was shown on the National Geographic Channel the language was bleeped only on the closed captions (a few slipped in).
  • Beadle's About was a popular hidden camera prank show on British TV during the 1990s. Any swearing on the show would be replaced with bleeping, and the offender's mouth covered with a cartoon Speech Bubble reading "Bleep" or "Oops." Its presenter Jeremy Beadle admitted that this was done even when someone wasn't swearing, just to make it funnier for the viewer.
  • After one of Super Dave Osborne's daredevil stunts inevitably went horribly wrong, e.g. his car being dumped into a crusher with him still in it, he often threw in a comment along the lines of:
    Super Dave: By the way, if anyone ever wanted me to kiss my *bleep*, I just did.
    (beat)
    Super Dave: I hope they didn't bleep that. There's nothing wrong with kissing your elbow.
  • In the According to Jim episode "Bad Word", Gracie learns a swear from Jim which is censored with various noises whenever mentioned.
  • Subverted in the Suburgatory episode "Thanksgiving":
    Tessa and Dallas: That son of a...
    (car horn as both pause)
    Both: BITCH!
  • Used extensively in both The Office (US) and Parks and Recreation, the latter of which uses it to allow for its liberal dropping of the F-bomb.
  • The Day Today:
    • One episode featured an interview with Fur-Q, a pretty spot-on spoof of Gangsta Rap and how it is (or at least was) covered on mainstream TV. For the majority of the song, the only word censored is mother[trumpet stab], despite bitch and cock (which are used extensively) remaining. The final verse is just a long stream of swear words, only some of which are bleeped out.
    • Another episode has an interview with a Tory MP, which takes place while The IRA are carrying out a series of bombings across London. The MP, enraged by the IRA's behaviour, swears several times during the interview, but each time he does, he's drowned out by the sound of another bomb going off.
  • Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende usually will censor stuff in certain ways with specific sound effects. For example, during the "meetings" in the No Laughing 24 Hour shows, celebrity names are often censored with a gunshot when discussing a potentially embarrassing situation, while references to penises (usually the use of the chinko machine, among other things) is done via an electronic jingle.
  • On Maury, this happens often. It can become disconcerting when someone cusses inaudibly but is still beeped, causing random beeps during what seems like cuss-free conversation.
  • The theme song for Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23: "I'm not perfect, I'm no snitch/ But I can tell you, she's a (door buzzer sounds)!"
  • Used hilariously in an episode of Cinematech: Nocturnal Emissions to censor the swear-laden dialog in the first Saints Row video game.
  • After Simon Horton dumps Geraldine in The Vicar of Dibley, she blows her stack at a parish council meeting and cusses out everyone present. Most of it is drowned out by a jackhammer from a construction crew outside, though you can pretty easily tell what she said by lip-reading.
  • Battlestar Galactica Blood And Chrome: "Frak" still gets a free pass, but any "normal" oaths get concealed by convenient locker slams, spanner drops...
  • Spitting Image. In the "Last Night at the Yobs" skit, clashing cymbals are used to (not quite) obscure the F-word in the British louts' unique version of "Land of Hope and Glory".
  • This has happened twice on, of all shows, Wheel of Fortune:
    • Sometime in 1988 or 1989, a contestant was making random gibberish guesses when trying to solve the Bonus Round puzzle. One of their guesses was apparently (and unintentionally) a little off-color, so it was censored with a "cuckoo" sound borrowed from Pyramid.
    • On a January 2013 episode, a contestant uttered "Oh, crap, I forgot!" after being told that Round 3 was a Prize Puzzle (meaning that she would win a bonus prize for solving the puzzle). The producers censored the word "crap" with the buzzer that sounds whenever a wrong letter is called.
  • Father Ted used this not to censor foul language, but to prevent the audience from learning Mrs. Doyle's first name.
  • A rare example of a non-profanity sound effect discretion edit: mere days after John Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan, an episode of The Greatest American Hero aired in which not only did the name of the protagonist, Ralph Hinkley, happen to come up naturally in conversation but—and here's what really induced the panic somewhere up the production chain—June Lockhart (playing Ralph's girlfriend's mother) just happened to have a speech in which she declared that her daughter's beau must be a good man because his name sounded so nice. Since the conversation took place at an airport, Lockhart's references to Ralph's last name were hurriedly dubbed over just prior to transmission with the sound of an aircraft taking off. Both times. (The rest of the references to Hinkley's last name were equally brutally dubbed over with "Mister H", and the next week he suddenly became Mister Hanley.) The amazing result (discussed here):
    Mrs. Davidson: Ralph! Oh, it’s such a nice name. You know, I’ve always thought that you can tell a great deal about a person by his name! [VROOOOARRRRR!!]—it’s just the perfect name for an educator, don’t you think so, Daddy?
    Mr. Davidson: Hmm? Yeah, it’s alright.
    Mrs. Davidson: Ralph [VROOOOARRRRR!!]—it says a great deal. Solid! Capable! Stable! Feet on the ground! [Cut to Ralph in the suit, flying over the desert, feet kicking in the air]
  • One episode of Supernatural is almost entirely rendered as a reality show being shot by some ghost-hunting nerds. The trope is invoked to let Dean and Sam use words they can't normally use on the show.
  • American Idol has sometimes done this during the audition rounds with angry rejects, as seen in this video of a particularly upset reject named "Rhonetta."
  • Happens on frequently Border Security. People tend to swear when arrested or something they can't bring into Canada is found in their possession.
  • On the special Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, this occurs as the gang leaves the subway and Big Bird gives another idea as to how Santa can get down a chimney.
    Big Bird: Hey Oscar, I know how Santa gets down the chimney! All he does is take that big belt of his and tie it really tight around his waist, and it makes him so skinny he fits right down the chimney!
    Oscar: You are without a doubt the stupidest (train goes by drowning him out) bird I've ever met!
  • Justified on Rescue 911, which uses bursts of static to bleep out Real Life victims' addresses during replays of 911 calls, in order to preserve their anonymity.
  • Forged in Fire uses standard beeps to censor swearing, which is pretty common whenever something's Gone Horribly Wrong with the forging process.
  • In the event that an answer on Match Game must be censored, a slide whistle plays as the celebrity says it. In the '70s versions, a sign reading "OOPS!" is placed over the card and the celebrity's mouth to prevent lip-reading. In the Alec Baldwin-hosted revival, the celebrity's mouth is blurred.
  • Super Password: On the December 14, 1984, episode, Vicki Lawrence and Dick Gautier give clues for the password "erect". Lawrence's second clue gets censored by the series of beeps used to introduce the Ca$hword segment, and the contestant gets it. In a similar vein to the Match Game example above, a voice balloon reading "OOPS!" is placed over Lawrence's mouth.
  • Sharpe once did this with cannon fire to censor some of Sharpe's parting words to the Prince of Orange (played by Paul Bettany, no less). Due to it not hiding his mouth movements — and the fact he's flipping off His Royal Highness at the time — it's pretty clear what the first two words are.
    Sharpe: [CANNON IMPACT]-k you, you royal high twat!
  • In the short-lived Thats Amore (hosted by the same guy that did the original Italian version, no less), a honking duck sound served this function.
  • Discussed in Keeping Up Appearances, when Hyacinth asks a television repair man to insert one of those little things that goes "bleep" over every expletive.

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