History Main / UnusualEuphemism

** Also, in the scene where Stantz refers to ObstructiveBureaucrat Walter Peck as "Dickless" and Venkman follows it up with "It's true, your honor... this man has no dick", the lines were changed to "that weasel" and "It's true, your honor... this man is some kind of rodent," respectively.

Can sometimes even be the result of censorship: see the Bowdlerization: Film subpage.

* The Eddie Murphy remake of ''The Nutty Professor'' is a strong example of this, including numerous instances of "face" replacing "ass".

* In ''The Ninth Gate'', a woman who just slept with Johnny Depp's character tells him "don't fuck with me," to which he responds, "I thought I just did." The TV edit changes "fuck" to "mess" making Johnny Depp's response unintentionally bizarre.

* In the censored version of ''The Faculty,'' every use of the word fuck is replaced by "fooey." The hilarity of Elijah Wood and Josh Hartnett hopping up and down over aliens with the stream of dialogue "Fooey fooey fooey! What the fooey just happened? Fooey you!" had me in fits.

* An NBC broadcast of ''The 40-Year-Old Virgin'' dubbed over the term "fuck buddy" with "sex buddy" (which isn't much of an improvement, but whatever...) though the character's lips make it obvious that the line was redubbed. Most other profanity not suitable for over-the-air broadcasts was simply muted.

* When aired on ABC Family, ''Better Off Dead'' gets an edit that results in making no sense at all. In the scene where French-speaker Monique says "testicles" when she means "tentacles," the offending "testicles" is overdubbed with "tentacles." So it's very strange that she says, "tentacles," and Lane corrects her, "No, you mean 'tentacles.'"

* One of [[Creator/SamuelLJackson Sam Jackson's]] earlier roles with a gun was also for language edited on the BBC. In ''ComingToAmerica'', Mr Jackson is heard to say "Why me, why me!" as he rushed out of an aborted robbery. However, you don't have to be a versed lip reader to tell exactly what he said instead of "why".

* The quote on the [[Quotes/UnusualEuphemism Quotes page]] from ''The Lonely Guy'' is a subversion, in which Steve Martin's character is writing a {{romance novel}}. It's supposed to illustrate how awkward he is at romance in general.

** One that isn't added later on is when The Dude calls TheBigLebowski for a "human paraquat".

[[caption-width-right:301:They're talking about screwing, right?]]

* The DVD releases of ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead'' and its follow-up ''HotFuzz'' have among their special features a compilation of clips where they were forced to replace words -- the replacements are mostly nonsense, and very much played for laughs, especially when {{lampshaded}} by being brought together. They range from simple letter substitution (What the funk?) to the downright bizarre (You stupid barstool). And the outright hilarious (peas and rice!).

* In a rather amusing TV edit from ''Film/DumbAndDumber'', instead of "Right on my ass after you kiss it!" [[http://youtu.be/g_wBtVN6bXE?t=1m17s we get this euphemism instead.]]

* ''Film/SpyKids'': They felt the need to do this to Carmen's infamous "Oh, Shiiiiiiitake mushrooms!" quote for the TV broadcast. They muted out the first syllable, completely ruining the joke by turning the line into "Oh, --take mushrooms!" instead.

* ''Film/TheBigLebowski'' contains a scene where an enraged John Goodman smashes up a car and repeatedly yells "Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?" On TV, it becomes "[[http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2726955/big_lebowski_dude_do_you_see_what_happens_do_you/ Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?]]" and "...When you feed a stoner scrambled eggs?" This is quite funny, because it makes absolutely no sense story-wise, and leaves one wondering why they didn't simply bleep the offending words out. That's because the Coens themselves apparently wrote the new lines for Goodman to read.

* The UK's ITV network was pretty infamous for this in the early 1990s. Probably the worst example was their dub of ''Film/RoboCop1987'', though the film was shown late at night. Clarence threatens to shove a cocaine operation "so far up [the drug lord's] ''nose'' that he'll be ''sneezing'' snow for a week." It'd help if the two dubbed words sounded remotely like the original actor (or if cocaine wasn't ''supposed'' to go up one's nose to begin with). The immortal line near the end that "Dick Jones is wanted for murder" became "Dick Jones is an imposter" -- this author had no idea of this until receiving the [=DVDs=] several years ago.

* ''RepoMan'', a cult movie which was broadcast on network TV with the expression "motherfucker" repeatedly dubbed as "melon farmer." The voices are done by the original cast members, and the choice of words was made by the director as a humorous commentary on censorship.
* ''TheBigLebowski'' contains a scene where an enraged John Goodman smashes up a car and repeatedly yells "Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?" On TV, it becomes "[[http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2726955/big_lebowski_dude_do_you_see_what_happens_do_you/ Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?]]" and "...When you feed a stoner scrambled eggs?" This is quite funny, because it makes absolutely no sense story-wise, and leaves one wondering why they didn't simply bleep the offending words out. That's because the Coens themselves apparently wrote the new lines for Goodman to read.

* One of the funniest is the censorship of network broadcasts of ''{{Scarface}}'', the two best being "This city is like a big pussy waiting to be fucked" changed to "This city is like a big chicken waiting to be plucked", and "Where'd you get that scar? Eating pussy?" to "Where'd you get that scar? Eating pineapple?" Also "I only tell you once. Don't fuck me, Tony. Don't you ever try to fuck me" to "I only tell you once. Don't fool me, Tony. Don't you ever try to fool me."

-->-- ''ABitOfFryAndLaurie''

** On the ''HotFuzz'' commentary, director Edgar Wright expresses his surprise that Timothy Dalton, even at sixty, can still cause "ladyquakes."
** Another ''HotFuzz'' commentary has Edward Woodward talking about using "Baskets!" on a show he used to work on back in the day, and then continuing to use it through the rest of the commentary.

* A TV broadcast of ''TheUsualSuspects'' included the immortal line "Hand me the keys, you fairy godmother."

* The for-all-ages trailer of ''BeingJohnMalkovich'', which can be found on the DVD, has a fairly glaring example of changing a seemingly innocuous word into something that makes the context weird. In the trailer, Maxine says to Craig -

* In ''ForrestGump'', the scene where he invents "shit happens" is edited in an unintentionally funny way ("Whoa, whoa, you just ran through a big dogpile right there!" "It happens" "What? It!") The bumper sticker gets censored too.

* "[[RagingBull Did you shampoo my wife?]]" as heard on ''SaturdayNightLive'''s "The Joe Pesci Show." Lampshaded when Joe Pesci (played by Jim Breuer) stated that the original dialogue wasn't suitable for TV broadcast, so they had to use euphemisms.

Can sometimes even be the result of censorship: see the Bowdlerization: Film subsection of this page.

* In a TV broadcast of ''UpInTheAir'', when Alex tells Ryan, "Just think of me as you, only with a vagina" into "Think of me as you, only with a miffler." Uh...what the hell?

* One of [[SamuelLJackson Sam Jackson's]] earlier roles with a gun was also for language edited on the BBC. In ''ComingToAmerica'', Mr Jackson is heard to say "Why me, why me!" as he rushed out of an aborted robbery. However, you don't have to be a versed lip reader to tell exactly what he said instead of "why".

* In ''[[DisneyFairies The Tinkerbell Series]]'' much strange fairy slang is used. Including, but not limited to: "Who gives a pile of pebbles?", "Flitterific!", "Splinters!", "Teetering Teapots!", "By the second star!". And from the book: "Fly with you", "I'd fly backwards if I could" and the popular slur for humans: "Clumsies."

->''"We are fast approaching a point where ordering a sandwich at a deli will land you in prison."''
-->-- '''Tycho Brahe''' (the comic character, not the astronomer), ''Webcomic/PennyArcade''

* ''Film/SharkAttack3Megalodon'': What do you say I take you home and[[hottip:*: "...I lick your pussy?"]] we watch ''ILoveLucy'' ?"

* The UK's ITV network was pretty infamous for this in the early 1990s. Probably the worst example was their dub of ''{{Robocop}}'', though the film was shown late at night. Clarence threatens to shove a cocaine operation "so far up [the drug lord's] ''nose'' that he'll be ''sneezing'' snow for a week." It'd help if the two dubbed words sounded remotely like the original actor (or if cocaine wasn't ''supposed'' to go up one's nose to begin with). The immortal line near the end that "Dick Jones is wanted for murder" became "Dick Jones is an imposter" -- this author had no idea of this until receiving the [=DVDs=] several years ago.

* In ''KillBill Vol. 1'' the 'Pussy Wagon' was turned into the 'Party Wagon' for the edited-for-TV version with the word "Pussy" digitally altered to read "Party" on the back of the truck (even though the license plate still read "PSY WGN").

* UnusualEuphemism/StandUpComedy

->''"I apprehended the accused and advised him of his rights. He replied, 'Why don't you ram it up your pimhole, you fusking clothprunker.'"''
-->-- ''ABitOfFryAndLaurie''

[[caption-width-right:301:[[DontExplainTheJoke They're talking about screwing, right?]]]]

Contrast UnusualDysphemism. Compare to NeverSayDie, ForeignCussWord, PardonMyKlingon, GoshDangItToHeck, CurseOfTheAncients, HoldYourHippogriffs, GettingCrapPastTheRadar and InformedObscenity.

** There's even a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTWiBeRcWlQ&eurl=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnusualEuphemism DVD featurette]] about this censorship.