For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 28, 2010

sad, but true. i miss Red Skelton’s gentle humour.

I think it is not fair that Elly watched the TV with explicit words. FCC would NOT allow the people using the explicit words to swear front of the camera for TV broadcast. I heard the word, “Bleep!” many times. That drove me NUTS!

Oh great flopping fishes, I’m trying to clean up my language. I remember once hearing a comedian say that if you had to swear to be funny, you weren’t.

I can just see kids … they pick this kind of language up at some point or another anyway. Best they get some coaching from the parents.

Joe-Allen “Joe” Doty said, 11 minutes ago “She must have been watch the Comedy Central cable network….But, on what used to be the family hour on broadcast TV networks are shows which use lots of vulgar words and expressions.”

Except that Lynn herself said earlier this month (http://www.fborfw.com/fun/blog/archives/004313.php) that this strip is a retrospective, i.e., set in 1981, before remote controls and certainly before Comedy Central and family hour broadcasts.

Her statement earlier this month, however, completely contradicts what is on her Q&Eh? section of the website, http://www.fborfw.com/behindthescenes/q_eh/, Storylines section, responds to the question “Hi, now that FBOFW has had a reboot, what year is it supposed to be taking place?” with “It’s taking place in the modern day.”, which makes more sense in terms of the content of today’s strip, but certainly not in terms of other recent strips like Connie’s Montreal trip and makeover.

So I guess we’re to take our pick: it’s either 1981 or 2010, depending upon whether or not the content of the strip fits, but it’s not really set in stone on a day-to-day basis.

you got it yyyguy…Red Skelton was great. I miss that whole era - red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Carol Burnett…..made us laugh without the extreme behavior.

yyyguy and emory458

I miss Red Skelton and Carol Burnett too. So funny, with never a foul word, just a raised eyebrow or a quirk of the lips to get the point across.

Ellie may have turned on Showtime or HBO or one of the other “premium” channels. They don’t censor language.

yyyguy said, about 6 hours ago

“sad, but true. i miss Red Skelton’s gentle humour.”

I saw a PBS show about Red Skelton last night, talk about nostalgia.

What’s a Pollygone? A dead parrot. (Red Skelton)

Good night, and God bless.

\\//_

well, at least she didn’t seem too happy about it - and did turn it off when Michael came in.

I’ve always thought it weird that Americans (don’t know about Canadians) seem to think it OK to show pretty bad violence to kids but if you can see a nipple somewhere - just a natural part of the human body, it’s strictly off limits. Seems really twisted to me.

LuvH8, I agree with whoever said that. It makes me cring the language that some use, just ordinarily… other things that ARE censored are less offensive to me than some that ARE. As to comedy (other than the topical kind that is only good in its own time) I have always loved Sid & Imogene, but Carol Burnett was also good, and Steve Allen- AND the Pythons in their best sketches. Topical humor - Rowen & Martin, TW3, and too many to remember;-) Gleason was good in a few of his characters (not the Honeymooners) and slapstic such as Berle, Marx, Lewis, the Stooges and others is not my taste.

It doesn’t matter what kids hear out in public, their house should be a safe zone to get away from the bad behavior.

The old time comedians were great - I met Tim Conway once, what a great guy! Sinbad is a good clean comic too. Once my husband and I turned on Comedy Central and Chris Rock was on - couldn’t follow the dialogue because of all the beeps. That’s not funny to me.

FYI Re: Broadcast vs. Cable. The FCC in the US does not apply to cable programming, only “over the air” broadcasts of CBS, NBC, ABC and the like.

There are some good more modern comedians as well. I miss the days of Tool Time and Cosby and Everyone Loves Raymond. Reality shows are depressing and for the birds.

hildigunnur, that most likely comes from the history of our country, from the Puritan origins to the need to have a gun to settle the country. In some parts of the country, those beliefs are still held strong. That said, the younger generation certainly are not hidden from some skin showing. They see that at a younger and younger age on the internet. Watching TV is almost old-fashioned.

To all that miss the “old, clean” humor - so do I. The only comedian I liked that uses profanity is Robin Williams, and that’s because I realized his brain was going so fast that he what was coming out of his mouth wasn’t for shock value. But give me Carol and Red any day. Even the Marx Brothers.

vldazzle: you’ve been reading my mind again. I agree with you 100%

JanCInVV and vldazzle, You didn’t like the Honeymooners? Oh dear!

The only “new” tv show that I like is “Modern Family”. It’s very funny without being nasty and portrays real families.

Red, Jackie Gleason, Carol Burnett, Heck, even The Captain and Tenille’s short-lived variety hour…

Those were the days, my friends, we thought they’d never end……

I really don’t believe that Elly is the type to watch shows regularly, with bad language in them. Just my take on the type of family that I think they are.

another one i don’t get. if it was indeed a comedy, she certainly wasn’t laughing and watched the obscenities for four panels. why not switch channels as soon as the vulgarity begins? this would be more in keeping with elly’s vanilla character. this strip has nothing to offer today except for some nice coloring work

I loved it when Red would get tickled with himself in a skit, blow his line, and break the ‘fourth wall’.

I dunno, the way I remember it, an awful lot of comedy in the “good old days” was just as much about sex and body functions as “modern” comedy; the difference was that a wink and a gesture and a double-entendre communicated the same thing as a vulgar word. Meanwhile, I also recall the days when you couldn’t say “dam” on TV (Skelton actually made a joke about that, pointing to a picture of a mill pond and saying “Look, a d a r n –you can’t say ‘dam’ on TV”), but racial, ethnic and gender slurs were commonplace. What’s “offensive” changes over time…

I guess that’s why cartoonists use “#$*&%%!!” instead–the symbols never lose their meaning!

vldazzle - It continually baffles me how they decide what to censor and what not to censor.

Burgundy2 I did like that, I even made a note.

Red Skelton seems to be a favorite, I’ve never seen his performances. I just ordered it from the library, thanks for the suggestion everyone.

Burgundy 2, I’m starting to get away from swearing.

Someone mentioned “Modern Family.” I like it, too, but another good one and clean is “The Middle.”

I like Modern Family, but there are several issues in the show that are inappropriate for kids. The Middle is hilarious. I love to see people from my favorite old shows back again.

Can someone please tell me what was so offensive about my take on misbehaved children being the result of their parents yesterday? Not only did most people agree with me, but LuvH8 later reiterated my entire comment as if it were her own, yet because I posted the idea, the same bunch of harrassers had to have it removed?

I want to know what was SO OFFENSIVE in what I said, please, or do you just take pleasure in flagging everything I post?

same page as the Red Skelton and Danny Kaye, Carol Burnett, Bill Cosby - and the only comedian to use foul language and it works is Robin Williams

I saw nothing funny about Lucille Ball’s charactor, continually whining, and manipulating her husband, Or Jackie Gleason in the honeymooners w/ implied domestic violence. At the same time I’m not amused by a great deal of what passes for comedy these days. I will vote for Carol Burnett, Bill Cosby, and Robin Williams.

Robin Williams is filthy mouthed and strange. I thought Mork was just a character, but it was how he always was, WEIRD. Garp was the final straw for my tolerance for Robin Williams. Jim Carrey is another one who is really, really weird, all the time, but I never heard Jim do standup full of expletives. Neither one of them are funny at all, just weird.

Robin Williams was drugged out of his mind on cocaine at that time in his life.

howtheduck said, about 13 hours ago

The Code of Ethics of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters defines the “late viewing period” as the hours from 9:00 PM through 6:00 AM. Outside this period (i.e. from 6:00 AM through 9:00 PM), the Code of Ethics prohibits programming containing sexually explicit material or coarse or offensive language. If Elly wants to watch comedy which doesn’t use bad language, she needs to watch television during this time.

True, But she might have HD tv or satelite, and gets HBO, they don’t bleep the swear words. Trailer Park Boys is full on swearing, as is Dexter, in the early evening too. So there you go.

Chapelle Show

When did Elly turn into such a prude? It’s one thing to want to wait to expose your kids to slang until they are older, so I am not objecting to her turning it off when Michael arrived; what I am objecting to is the fact that she was registering disapproval before he walked in.

When my son and I were on a bus here in Quebec, a man speaking to his friend had a very foul mouth. F— this and that. My son, then 17, looked at me and said, “Boy, he sure likes seals a lot.” OK, it’s funnier if you know French.

She shut off the TV because Michael was there but maybe she was going to shut it off anyhow because it just wasn’t funny!

I find it interesting that folks like hildigunnar like to bring up the nipple but never want to say that the bleeep is just a normal part of the body. Your point has no merit.

@jaeldid66, there was a much-beloved citizen of Montreal, Nick auf der Maur (some people called him Nick off der Wall) (he’s dead now), who wrote a book called “Ouate de Phoque”. You have to be somewhat bilingual to appreciate this. Ouate is the tufts of cotton that women use to clean their faces, apply various lotions, etc., and un phoque is a seal.

So that gives you an idea of his sense of humour, and of his knowledge of the two cultures.

Melissa auf der Maur used to be known as his daughter, but now he is known as her father. She is a musician, in California I think.

Incidentally, it is interesting to compare different cultures’ use of swear words. In France, they swear using much the same words as in English - sex, body parts, excretion. But in French Quebec, the swear words refer to religion - the holy chalice, the tabernacle, etc.

In several cases, I tried to explain to some young (early 20’s) Quebecois boys that they must NOT use “the F word”, what a bad impression it would make on English-speaking people, but I couldn’t get thru. They couldn’t understand it at all.

dsom8, what’s your point?