Right at the beginning of Shrek, when the title character finishes reading the story. "Like that's ever going to happen. What a load of—" *toilet flush*
Done in Shrek the Third as well. Upon being told that Fiona is pregnant, Puss tells Shrek that he's f-*Foghorn Going Off*.
"Well you can go and shove that doorbell right up your!" *Door shuts*
Rango (not known as that at the time) blows a toad's cover from a hawk while running away. As the toad is being swept away, the scene ends with the toad shouting “SON OF A—” but then the eagle's loud ~ CAW! ~ is heard.
In Finding Nemo, when Nemo and the Tank Gang have dirtied the tank:
Gurgle: "Don't you people REALIZE we are SWIMMING IN OUR OWN-" Peach: "Shh! Here he comes!"
In Trolls Holiday, the song "Double Down Speed Round" has a part mentioning Bleepy Sound Day, where you can only talk in bleeps.
Used again in Trolls Band Together when one of Bruce's children shows him their pink eye.
Tiny Diamond: OH -bleep-!
Live-Action
Alien vs. Predator, being a Lighter and Softer PG-13 crossover of two R-rated horror franchises, blurs out Lex Woods making a Call-Back to Predator's "You're one ugly motherfucker" one-liner by having a xenomorph screeching at her before she can say the F-word.
During Dr. Evil's cover of Hard Knock Life in Austin Powers in Goldmember, a long string of profanity is silenced out, leaving only,"'till then, I'll j—— on my.....butt.....her brains out......uncalled and splooge in your a——-, that's all!". It should also be noted that the soundtrack CD version censors out the words a bit more so that the silences make the line even less audible.
A version of the "IT" trailer for Birds of Prey (2020) uses one. "I'm so [POP]-ing over clowns!"
The stage play The Front Page ends with the line, "The son-of-a-bitch stole my watch!" The 1931 film version used the line but punctuated with a precisely timed pounding of Adolphe Menjou's fist on a typewriter.
At the end of the classic spaghetti-western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where Tuco's shout of "You know what you are?! Just a dirty son of a...!" cuts the last word by playing the movie's trademark coyote howl, and transitioning from that into the main theme to accompany the "The End" sequence.
In Wayne's World, Wayne and Garth get into an argument outside the airport. Eventually Garth snaps and says to Wayne:
Garth: You know what you can do with your show? You can take a [long sound of an airplane landing, drowning out Garth's voice, interspersed with Wayne's horrified reaction shot; no kidding, it actually takes this long] until the handle breaks off and you have to find a doctor to pull it out again! Wayne: Kiss your mother with that mouth? You've gone mental!
Played with in Blazing Saddles, where Gabby's repeated attempts to yell that the new sheriff is a "ni-" are canceled out by the church bell ringing.
The TV version of the film does this with all swears. For example, when the townsfolk are singing early in the film, the ending of the line "Our town is turning into shit" is replaced with a fart-like false chord on the church organ.
Used to humorous effect in RoboCop (1987), where a man holding up a convenience store with a machine gun unloads on Robocop, clearly swearing for all he's worth, but his own gunfire drowns him out. (The edited-for-TV version, in a change that goes past "irksome" and into "mind-boggling," dubs in the criminal repeating "Why me?" over and over, ruining the gag.)
At the end of RoboCop (2014), talk show host Pat Novak vents his anger at Dr Norton blowing the whistle on the events of the movie and starts delivering the signature Samuel L. Jackson MF-Word, which are simultaneously bleeped out by the studio.
Used to maintain a PG rating in Smokey and the Bandit. Sheriff Buford T. Justice being stopped by a state trooper who looks at his dilapidated police cruiser (result of many incompetent encounters with other police or road objects):
State Trooper: Look, you can't drive this piece of shit on a public highway. Sheriff Buford T. Justice I'll thank you not to use that sort of language in my presence. State Trooper: Oh, I'm sorry. (large semi-truck is approaching) Sheriff Buford T. Justice Apology accepted, now (semi-truck sounds horn as Buford mouths the words:) Fuck off.
In John Waters' film Cry-Baby, there's a scene that calls for three uses of the word "fuck". However, in order to get a PG-13 rating at the time, the first two uses of the word were actually bleeped out in theaters.
Justin: I just don't want see you get hurt. Viola: Aww. You are so full of—[coach's whistle blows]
Used in Ocean's Twelve when Basher (the explosives expert, now a rapper) is arguing with the sound guy that his song is completely obscured in bleeps, while their own Cluster F-Bomb is being covered by a phone. "Where the riiing is that riiinging phone?!"
Made even more hilarious by one final ring after Basher's already answered the phone. "Oh, riiing..."
In Lethal Weapon 3, Roger Murtaugh threatens Tyrone, telling him where he got the gun.
"Motherfucker, you better tell me where this gun from or I'll blow your motherf— (gun cock) head off!"
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: When Grandpa George learns that Mike Teavee, finder of the fourth Golden Ticket, doesn't like chocolate (he took the trouble that he did to track down the ticket simply to show off his tech-savviness, not because he wanted to visit a chocolate factory), he goes on a furious rant. Charlie's mother promptly covers the boy's ears before he — and the audience — can hear the worst of it...
In Phantom of the Paradise, an offhand "fuck" during Philbin's conversation with Swan is interrupted by a burst of feedback from a nearby microphone.
In the 1967 The President's Analyst, peace-loving psychiatrist Sidney Schaefer ends up blasting away at bad guy minions with a machine gun (and growing to enjoy it). He bursts through a cloud of grenade smoke shouting "Take that, you hostile son-of-a-*RATATATATATATAT*!"
Done straight in Fat Pizza, considering the movie itself is a crapload of Cluster F-Bomb, this makes it hilarious.
The TV edit of Demolition Man uses this trick to clever effect: In a future where all swearing is met with a buzzer and a small fine, it compromises by bleeping out anything above a PG rating early. Unfortunately, there are still a few scenes where due to sloppy editing, it seems to go off for no reason at all.
In the film adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles, the main characters set a trap for the goblins chasing them using tomato juice in an oven, which is like sulfuric acid to goblins. As the goblin leader walks into the room, he notices the trap and screams "OH SHI-" and is promptly cut off by the sound of the oven blowing up, vaporizing the goblins.
As the page cut shows, the theatrical edit of Live Free or Die Hard does it to John McClane'sCatchphrase, as he shoots through his own shoulder to kill the film's villain. The unrated version restores the full word.
In the 1971 G-Rated The Andromeda Strain, Dr. Leavitt tells team leader Dr. Stone that she is not happy about the disinfecting protocols being used on them when she now has to be subjected to a device that is going to do an invasive inspection on them:
I have been parboiled, x-rayed and xenon flashed, I'm telling you, Stone, you can take your Body Analyser and shove it up your... [the door closes on her at this point with a "schloop" and a "thump" closed.]
Later on in the movie, after Todd is killed, Julie says to Envy "For the record, I am so pissed off for you right now", in which Envy replies to her "Shut the *glitchy beep sound* up, Julie".
Another, more subtle, example is when Stephen Stills tells Scott he doesn't want his problems with Ramona to "cock-block the rock". The offending part is drowned out by feedback from the bass amp. Strangely, the certification board didn't have a problem with the line "you cocky cock!"
According to Edgar Wright, it was either keep Julie's swears or cut "you cocky cock."
The movie Kuffs both uses and subverts this trope in the same scene, when Kuffs' dispatch radio overrides every swear word in a conversation between him and his police chaperon until the end, where he very clearly enunciates the F Bombhere.
The movie To Sir, with Love features a scene where Barbara Pegg (played by Lulu) calls a classmate a "son of a bitch." It's drowned out by a train going by, but you can clearly see her mouth it.
In the film adaptation of The Cat in the Hat, The Cat (as a chef) starts arguing with the host over his new invention, The "Cupcake-inator". He then threatens the host to end him and ends up cutting his own tail. Sally warns the chef that he cut his tail off, who shouts out "SON OF A B-" before a long bleep is heard and the broadcast is terminated.
In Sucker Punch when Blondie attacks the dragon: "Take that, you ugly motherf- *machine gun blast*
In The A-Team movie on two occasions we have the lines "Alpha, Mike, Foxtrot! Adios Mother F- *explosion*
Various construction noises during Pigvomit's tirade over the closing credits of Private Parts.
The Last Starfighter: Upon Alex finding out that he is, indeed, the only Starfighter remaining to take on the Ko-Dan Armada, what is surely a truly spectacular string of profanity is conveniently drowned out by the engine noise from his and Grig's Gunstar taking off.
The makers of the film adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses deliberately did this when the BBFC requested that portions of Molly's final soliloquy be cut. The result so annoyed the BBFC that they just passed it uncut with an X rating.
In The Martian, when marooned astronaut Mark Watney learns that his crew hasn't been informed that he wasn't killed outright in the disaster that forced them to leave Mars, the scene's vantage point switches to the exterior of the Mars rover where he conducts his communications with Earth, looking at him through the clear canopy of the rover. Thus, we clearly see, but don't actually hear, his reaction of "What the fuck? What the fuck?"
In Star Trek Into Darkness, when Scotty first sees Admiral Marcus' gigantic starship, he starts saying "Oh, sh-", before the sound swiftly transitions into the characteristic, electronic sound of an opening Sci-Fi door.
Star Trek Beyond: McCoy's swearing tirade is cut off when he's beamed away, and at the exact moment, he starts saying the F-word.
Justice League (2017). After a STAR Labs' janitor is kidnapped, a TV reporter interviews the guy's wife... who delivers a Cluster F-Bomb targeted at the kidnappers. The TV channel had to bleep her swearings and blur her mouth... which happens every two or three words. Even after it's muted, you can see the channel in the background, the lady having her mouth blurred for several seconds straight before she finally stops.
Carry On Dick. The Bow Street Runners have discovered that the highwayman Dick Turpin has an unusual birthmark on his [Accordion plays]. Subverted when they're passing on this information to Reverend Flasher, who reveals they're actually using an Unusual Euphemism instead of a swearword, as he keeps Comically Missing the Point, though it's actually Obfuscating Stupidity, as the Reverend is Dick Turpin.
Sergeant Strapp: You see what he means Rector, is that he's got a birthmark on 'is... [Sergeant Strapp whispers in Dick's ear to the sound of an accordion] Dick: Ah! Sergeant Stapp: Aha! Now 'e's got it! Captain Fancey: Ah, you've got it? Dick: Yes, yes, now I have got it, yes. But I honestly don't think it's possible that Jack the Woodcutter- Captain Fancey: Jack the Woodcutter?! Dick: Well he's the only one I know who that has a chopper.
It's a Running Gag in Isn't It Romantic that this happens whenever Natalie is about to curse - first it happens repeatedly with a truck backing up, then with an alarm clock, then finally a champagne bottle being popped open. Since the premise is that she's trapped in a stereotypical Romantic Comedy, it's implied that the universe is actually conspiring against her using R-rated language. She does eventually get to swear without censorship near the end of the film.
In Kill Bill vol. 1, this is used to censor The Bride's real name whenever it's said. It's meant to be interpreted as a glitch in the film reel, rather than deliberate censorship on the part of the editors.
Carry On Cruising: A Running Gag, in that the ship's horn sounds to drown the exclamation made by Haines when he gets his injections.
Carry On Cabby: As Sarge tries to give orders to the Speedee Taxis drivers to help rescue Peg and Sally from Dancy and Punchy:
Allbright: All right, but I don't know what the union's gonna say about all this! Sarge:[microphone feedback] the union!note Cyril Chamberlain's mouth does not actually move during the microphone feedback. Allbright: Well, really!...
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