Unusual Euphemism / Live-Action Films

aka: Film

Straight Examples

• In 10 Things I Hate About You:
  Kat: Well, now that I've shown you The Plan, I'm gonna go and show The Plan to someone else.
  • When asked later by Patrick how she distracted the teacher, she replies that she dazzled him with her "Wits".
  • There's also the brilliant TV-edited "the squid hath hitteth the fan."
• Subverted in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen when the group are on the moon, and the queen (just her floating head) comes to save the Baron and friends from the cage. All the while, she is moaning and making odd noises. The girl (Sally?) asks what's wrong with her, to which the Baron replies "the king is...tickling her feet". Strangely enough, it soon cuts to the king and the queen, in bed, under the covers...and it turns out he IS in fact tickling her feet...
• In Alien Nation, the aliens use the term "sykes", which is later revealed to translate as "excrement cranium". Coincidentally, the main human character is named Sykes...
• Seen early on in Almost Famous: Anita tells her mother to "Feck off"; when their mother reacts as to the actual swear, William (eleven years old at this point) comments that she said "feck". "What's the difference?" "The letter "U".
• In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Ron Burgundy does this quite a bit, at one point saying "Son of a beesting" and, more oddly, things like "Great Odin's Raven!" or "Knights of Columbus, that hurt!"
• The Big Doll House: It's a Girls Behind Bars movie. Fred and Harry are two sleazeballs that have a concession in which they sell fruit and sweets to the imprisoned women. Fred is telling Harry that he, Fred, anticipates that he will get a lot of action from all the horny female prisoners. He says that there are usually too many guards around, but "One of these days, zap!". When Harry asks what the heck "zap" means, Fred says "Zap! R-A-P-E, zap!". (He further clarifies that he expects one of the women to rape him.)
• The original version of Bulletproof Monk was rated R, when they revised the film to PG-13, they were forced to rename the character to Mr.FUNKtastic as opposed to his original, more obscene moniker. The other result of this is that to avoid makeup costs, they simply glued a large gold chain to his chest to cover up his now un-PC tattoo.
• Bullshot. During a WW1 air battle Captain Bullshot Crummond salutes his Worthy Opponent, only for the dastardly Hun to respond with what's described by The Narrator as an "ancient Teutonic gesture".
• In Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve has no idea what "fondue" is and thinks it's got some kind of dirty meaning in French.
• In Carry On Dick, Captain Desmond Fancey and Sergeant Jock Strapp are told to look for a birthmark on Dick Turpin's "diddler", prompting the following exchange:
  Maggie: Diddler! You know what a "diddler" is, don't cha?
  Sergeant Strapp: A "diddler" is a slang term... [Sergeant Strapp whispers in Captain Fancey's ear as an accordion plays]
  Captain Fancey: Hoooo! Flap me sideways! I've never heard it called that before!
• Cats & Dogs had Butch exclaim "Son of my Mom!" for finding out Mr. Tinkles plot. It counts as a Parental Bonus.
• A Christmas Story,
  • When Ralphie's father is fighting with the furnace, or about anything else, he utters a string of gibberish which could sound like curses. Evidently, they listened to those bits over and over, slowed down and speeded up, to make sure there weren't any dirty words sounded out by mistake or otherwise.
  • Ralphie says, "Oh fudddddddddddddge!" when he drops the lugnuts. The narration makes it clear that he didn't really say "fudge," but the "eff dash dash dash" word.
  • When Ralphie loses control after being bullied once too often, he whales on Scott Farkus while nattering gibberish like his old man. The writer made Peter Billingsley memorize the nonsense syllables, perhaps out of fear that a recognizable word might slip out in the excitement.
• The Crucified Lovers: Otama the maid tells Osan, the mistress of the house, that Ishun the master has been trying to have sex with Otama by saying "the master wants to buy me clothes."
• Crush: Dillon and his girlfriend Stacey use "going over her speech" (for her class president campaign) when they actually mean sex. Paige, nearby, drily says they aren't fooling anyone.
• Deadpool (2016): After breaking his fist on Colossus's metal face, Deadpool spits out "Canada!", making it sound very much like a curse. Of course, it could be yet another reference from the medium-aware Deadpool to his actor's nationality.
• In the clean, nice Utopia of 2032 in Demolition Man, you get a 1 credit fine for swearing, so people use 50s era euphemisms like "Jeese louise" and "jeepers"; the main character uses this to his advantage — when he's unable to figure out how to operate the 'modern' toilets of 2032, he stands beside the nearest microphone and swears a blue streak at it until he has enough swearing tickets to use in the washroom.
• In Dirty Dancing, when asked how the performance went at the other hotel, Baby (innocently) tips off Penny that she and Johny had sex with the line "I didn't do the lift, but it was good". she might not have meant it as a euphemism, but it was one.
• Doctor in Trouble: When talking about how Captain Spratt plans to steal Dawn from him, Wendover calls Captain Spratt's penis his "compass".
• Subverted in the film Drive Angry: Piper pulls a come-hither move on a bar employee and tells Milton she's off to "paint her nails." Cut to the bar guy literally painting her toenails; he even lampshades it by asking, "Are we going to do it?" However, this could arguably be a form of foreplay.
  • Well, she did initially tell him that it would depend on how well he would do her nails...
  • "Aim for their tires."
• In an early scene in The Empire Strikes Back, C-3PO tells R2-D2 to "switch off" at one point, which is clearly meant to sound like he's telling him to "shut up".
• In the spoof film Epic Movie, a parody of Mystique drags the main character Peter into tent to have sex with him. After making out for a bit, she asks him what he likes in a woman, since she's a shapeshifter. He asks for "Big Hooters with Silver Dollar Nipples" (Bigger breasts), "a Ghetto Booty, like, a lot of junk in the trunk" (a larger ass), a "Mamabrow" (Unibrow), and "Big Flabby Grandma Arms/Bingo Wings like a fat blue Britney Spears" (A fat and flabby old grandma body type). Definitely some odd phrasing...and odd requests in general...
• Father Figures: When Rod is telling to Peter and Kyle that their mother was a Sex Goddess, he describes her as a "dick whisperer".
• In the network TV airings of Good Morning, Vietnam, Cronauer's observation that a superior officer is needlessly uptight is bowdlerized to said superior being "in more need of a 'real' job than anyone else..." instead of the film's reference to fellatio.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005):
  • Ford exclaims "Oh Belgium!" at one point while under fire from the Vogons. In the universe of the books, radio series and film, "Belgium" is coincidentally a very strong curse word everywhere in the galaxy, except for Earth. In the US prints of the third book, the word "fuck" is replaced with the already established "Belgium", to protect delicate American sensibilities.
  • Also played with when Arthur loses Trillian to Zaphod at a party, with the line "I'm from another planet. You wanna see my spaceship?" When they meet up again, Arthur realizes Zaphod wasn't kidding.
  • Played with again when Zaphod is running around yelling "Humma Kavula!" Once the group meets the character, Arthur says, "That's Humma Kavula? I thought [Zaphod] was just swearing!"
• The Hobbit film trilogy:
  • Ori makes a reckless Badass Boast about fighting Smaug in An Unexpected Journey:
    Ori: I'm not afraid! I'm up for it! I'll give him a taste of Dwarvish iron right up his jacksie!
  • In the Extended Edition of The Battle of the Five Armies, the dwarves in a goat-drawn chariot are pursued by an armored troll:
    Dwalin: Bring it down! Shoot it!
    Kíli: Where?
    Dwalin: Aim at its jambags!
    Kíli: It doesn't have any jambags!

"

• Idiocracy. Since most businesses have been converted into brothels, whatever their previous product was, is now used as a euphemism for sexual acts. For example, in Starbucks lattes are really handjobs and H&R Block now has "adult" tax returns.
• The 1927 film It is nothing but this. Characters constantly refer to the protagonist as having "it", which is a euphemism for "sex appeal". Even the theme song, "She's Got 'It'", uses it:
  She's got 'it'
  And plenty of it, brother
  She's got "it"
  I never saw another have so much of such-and-such
  Well, she's really not exquisite but after all what is it
• Johnny Dangerously. Romon Maroni is a Sir Swearsalot who delivers Cluster F Bombs that are entirely composed of unusual euphemisms such as "cork-soakers," "farging" "somanumbatches" and "icehole." Everyone reacts as if he's swearing profusely.
• In John Wick: Chapter 2, The criminal/assassin society in the movie is full of unique euphemisms for their activities.
  • The High Table is the 12 member council of criminal lords that controls all the world's assassins.
  • Accounts Payable is the branch of the Continental that records and issues the bounties.
  • Markers are favors that must be repaid no matter the circumstance. Refusing to redeem a Marker (or trying to harm someone who holds your Marker) is grounds for being declared Excommunicado, at a minimum.
    • This at least, isn't too unusual. "Calling in a marker" is an established way of saying "calling in a favor".
  • The Sommelier is the guy in charge of the Continental's armory. He has a variety of euphemisms that refer to various types of weapons that he sells, to the point the his dialogue with John Wick sounds like they're at a wine tasting. He's also an actual sommelier.
  • Excommunicado means that an assassin is officially expelled from the assassins' underworld, being unable to draw on the resources or establishments that cater to the Continental network.
• A memorable example occurs in Labyrinth, when Sarah uses her lipstick to mark a tile on the ground while finding her way through the maze. As she leaves, a little goblin pushes the tile up, cusses angrily in gibberish, and ends with the colorful "Your mother is a fraggin ardvark!" before flipping the tile around and slamming it shut. Or something of the sort.
• In the 1933 adaptation of Little Women, Jo is constantly reprimanded for bursting out with 'Christopher Columbus' when astounded, surprised, or angry.
• In Lockout, Snow uses the inventive phrase "toss my caber!"
• Lola Montes: King Ludwig I is displeased with the portrait of his mistress Lola, wrapped up in a fur parka. The artist negotiates with Lola until he convinces her to pose, as the circus master says, "all in pink". Cut to a scene of a nude portrait of Lola being delivered to the king.
• On the 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.
• Maria Full of Grace: Maria is offered a one-time gig as a drug mule. The way Franklin, the "recruiter" describes the assignment, she is going to take a trip to New Jersey with a bunch of "film rolls", be picked up and taken to a safe location where "the films will be developed" i.e. they will wait out for her to pass the heroin-filled pellets she swallowed. All 62 of them.
• Annie Wilkes, the insane villain from the film (and novel) Misery, replaces all swear words in her vocabulary with childishly bizarre words or phrases such as 'cock-a-doodie' or 'dirty birdie.'
• In one of the more famous examples that has since passed into common usage, the king of Swamp Castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail makes repeated reference to his son's fiance's "huge... tracts of land". Amusingly enough, he meant it literally at first (this being the reason he arranged the marriage in the first place), then began using the phrase euphemistically while expounding on her other... *ahem* ...assets.
  • This euphemism is carried over into Hetalia: Axis Powers — Ukraine's large breasts are often referred to (even in canon) as her 'tracts of land'.
• Mythica: "Fyke" is used rather than the f-word in the series.
• In Om Shanti Om, Om Kapoor frequently yells "Fish!" instead of the more obvious alternative.
• In One Fine Day, George Clooney's character does this in order to discuss romance with his psychiatrist in front of his young daughter, leading to lines like, "I just want to find a fish who isn't afraid of my dark chocolate layer... and of course she'd have to love my cookie too."
  • Perhaps lampshaded when it doesn't work. When talking about a woman in whom he is not really interested, the daughter later explains to the love interest that "He wants a fish who'll love his cookie, and she's not the type."
• Pineapple Express:
  Dale: I'm sorry, that sounded really mean... just to hear that, that sounded really mean.
  Saul: No, I see. The monkey's out of the bottle now!
  Dale: What? That's not even... a figure of speech.
  Saul: Pandora can't go back into the box - he only comes out.
• Remember the Titans: When Petey tries to explain to the girls ogling Sunshine that he's gay:
  Petey: I don't want to be the one to break y'all's hearts, but Sunshine's from California.
  Girl: Yeah, a California dreamboat!
  Petey: No. Sunshine is from California. He's a Californian.
• The antagonist of The Marx Brothers movie Room Service is fond of "jumping butterballs".
• In a Scooby-Doo movie, one monster calls his balls his "round tables".
• Sex Drive has "visiting my grandma" as a euphemism for having sex.
  • Incidentally, this is also a Shout-Out to a skit in The State, in which a character mentions visiting his grandma, his tablemates tease him by suggesting that he has sex with her, and then he coolly admits it.
• Sleepers: If the alcoholic lawyer Snyder/O'Connor doesn't do his part in the trial, he will "go down for the dirty nap". Snyder/O'Connor himself even lampshades he's never heard that expression.
• The Smurfs:
  • The Smurfs use "smurf" for many things, some of which are rude (e.g. "Where the smurf are we?").
  • Gutsy once calls his privates his "giblets" and then his "enchanted forest".
  • In the sequel, someone calls Gargamel's balls his "smurfberries".
• In Spartacus, Depraved Bisexual Crassus indicates his interest in his slave Antoninus by means of a metaphor involving oysters and snails. Antoninus gets the point...and runs off to join Spartacus's slave rebellion.
• Spider-Man: Far From Home: When asked by Fury how well the black suit fits, Peter answers that it's tight around the "shooters" and visibly stretches the crotch area.
• In Splash, the tour guide who first sees the naked Madison shouts "Bocce Balls!"
• In the first Spy Kids movie, Carmen reacts in dismay in one scene with "Oh shiiiiiiiiiitake mushrooms." Also done in the sequel. "You are so full of..."
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home brought us Spock's immortal Unusual Euphemism for swearing itself:
  Spock: Your use of language has altered since our arrival. It is currently laced with, shall we say, more colorful metaphors. "Double dumb-ass on you" and so forth.

And later:

Spock (in a stressful situation): Are you sure it isn't time for a colorful metaphor?

• To this day, the article on profanity on the Memory Alpha Star Trek encyclopedia wiki is entitled "Colorful metaphor."

• Star Trek (2009):
  • "Are you out of your Vulcan mind, Spock?"
  • Also, only a pissed-off Spock could make "Live long and prosper" sound like "Eat shit and die".
• In Star Wars, "Poodoo" is sometimes used as a euphemism for "crap", which is especially unusual as its literal translation is "fodder".
• Used in the 1994 movie Threesome when a character reveals what he has found out about the main character.
  Stuart: Eddie is a proud homeowner. A homeboy. Homo Erectus... A fag.
• Up in the Air: An example that's about business euphemisms instead of sex, but is very unsettling: "Career Transition Counsellor". He helps your transit into unemployment.
• W. C. Fields movies. Fields was the grandfather of this trope, since he wrote his own movie screenplays under bizarre pseudonyms. Phrases like "Godfrey Daniels!" littered his movies so that he could get around the censors of the day.
• Werewolf In A Girls Dormitory gives us "coming of age", which seems to have something to do with lying. The insane vagueness of the phrase allows the Incognito Cinema Warriors XP crew to have a field day sliding it into different contexts.

Bowdlerization Examples

• Repo Man, 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.
• The Big Lebowski 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 "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. The answer is the Coens themselves apparently wrote the new lines for Goodman to read. One that isn't added later on is when The Dude calls The Big Lebowski for a "human paraquat".
• The UK's ITV network was pretty infamous for this in the early 1990s. Probably the worst example was their dub of RoboCop (1987), 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".
  • There's a scene where Robo interrupts an armed robbery in a mom-and-pop store. The robber watches as his bullets bounce off and backs away, exclaiming "Why me? Why me?" which seems to work better, and be funnier, than the original version.
• The Eddie Murphy remake of The Nutty Professor is a strong example of this, including numerous instances of "face" replacing "ass".
• There is the infamous Die Hard censorship of John McClane's immortal line "yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker".
  • And Samuel L. Jackson calling him a "racist melon farmer" in Die Hard With a Vengeance.
  • Variations include the popular "yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon," which makes very little sense^note At one point, Colonel Stuart does use the radio call sign "Falcon" though it is not clear how McClane could have known this., and "yippee-ki-yay, Kimosabe".
  • Thank goodness in Italian it still came off as "yippee-ki-yay, piece of shit".
  • In the German dub, it has been changed to "yippee-ya-yay, Schweinebacke", which translates to "pig cheek".
• Ghostbusters: At the end of the Onionhead sequence, Venkman's "We came, we saw, we kicked its ass" inexplicably becomes "What a knockabout of pure fun that was!".
  • Feeling quite proud that in Italian that was if possible made more grating by having Venkman state triumphantly: "We came, we saw, we totally raped its ass!"
  • According to the commentary, that scene and others were ad-libbed several times in a row until they came up with something they liked. The replacements may be alternative takes.
  • And one in all versions that's either an overdub or a Last-Second Word Swap, to avoid a higher rating — "Mother pusbucket!"
    • This is lampshaded in the audio commentary. But I believe it was in the script to begin with.
  • Also, in the scene where Stantz refers to Obstructive Bureaucrat 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.
    • Another dub of the same scene turns "Dickless" into "Wally Wick." Unusual to say the least. "It's true," cuts off there without a punchline.
    • In the Italian dub Stantz doesn't call Peck 'dickless' so Venkman's following remark ("this man has no balls") comes off as another instance of his offbeat humour.
  • According to commentary and other sources (IMDB), they actually shot some scenes twice just in case they needed to be toned down for re-rating or whatnot. So they aren't re-dubs, they're alternate takes.
• The Mask: "Margaret! You son of a bitch!" (during the scene where Kellaway and Doyle search The Mask and find weird objects, one of which is a picture of Kellaway's wife in lingerie with the words "Call me, lover" written at the bottom) becomes "Margaret! You son of a pig!" or "Margaret! You son of a witch!" Other edited versions just cut off after Kellaway shouts, "Margaret!"
  • Even without any Bowdlerization, The Mask is full of Unusual Euphemisms, especially in the park scene with The Mask trying to seduce Tina as a French lover.
    The Mask: "Kiss me, my dear, and I will reveal my croissant. I will spread your pâté. I will dip my ladle in your vichyssoise."
• Who's The Man? had a TV Edit where Ed Lover calls someone a "Lousy motherLIAR!".
  • And another character utters the immortal, "Motherfunny please, motherfunny please."
• The DVD releases of Shaun of the Dead and its follow-up Hot Fuzz 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!).
  • The related "bar-steward" is a common humorous euphemism for bastard in the UK.
  • On the Hot Fuzz commentary, director Edgar Wright expresses his surprise that Timothy Dalton, even at sixty, can still cause "ladyquakes."
  • Another Hot Fuzz 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.
• Used with great success in the "Edited For TV" short by LoadingReadyRun. It featured the characters' swear words blatantly dubbed over by the narrator.
  Ash: [GOSHDARNIT], I can't believe you guys are still arguing over that [BLOODY] piece of [POO] jacket!
  Morgan: This [MELON FARMER] thinks it's his [FRUITY] jacket! I had it way before [FREAKIN'] he did!
• Seen in the TV broadcast of The Matrix, where Neo's cry of "Jesus CHRIST, that thing's real?!" is toned down to the rather more comical "Jeepers creepers, that thing's real?!".
  • Alternatively, "Judas Priest, that thing's real?!".
  • Or how about when he offers to give Smith "the flipper"? Cutting out the gesture itself is understandable, but their renaming of it is... confusing.
  • And the security guard's reaction to seeing Neo armed to the teeth becomes "Holy smokes!"
• A TV broadcast of The Usual Suspects included the immortal line "Hand me the keys, you fairy godmother."
  • YouTube link. A commercial for Showcase (Canadian TV network) also had a Take That! against movie censorship, turning it into "fuzzy socksucker".
• The for-all-ages trailer of Being John Malkovich, 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 -

  And fifty other lines to get into a girl's hands.

• The TV broadcast of Liar Liar cleaned one of Fletcher's rants quite adeptly by avoiding unusual euphemisms:

  Fletcher: ...so what I'm gonna do is [piss becomes whine] and moan like an impotent jerk, and then bend over and [take it up the tailpipe becomes take it like a grown man].

  • Earlier on, twice even, "Son of a BITCH!" becomes "I'm such a SNOT!", which sorta cancels out the well-handled rant.
• 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.
• One of the funniest is the censorship of network broadcasts of Scarface (1983), 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."
  • There's even a DVD featurette about this censorship.
• Raging Bull: "Did you shampoo my wife?" as heard on Saturday Night Live'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.
• Snakes on a Plane: The censored version makes a complete hash of its most famous line "I've had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!"
  • The Agony Booth pointed out many more highlights.
• Shark Attack 3: Megalodon: What do you say I take you home and^note "...eat your pussy?"we watch I Love Lucy?"
• Scorcese's Casino gets a great many of these. See any line of Joe Pesci's dialogue, and this great one from Sharon Stone: "Oh, freak you! Freak you, Sam Rothstein, Freeeak youuuu!"
• When Fast Times at Ridgemont High is broadcast, a cashier at a fast-food restaurant is mad at the customer who has become somewhat demanding because the meal is supposed to be "100% guaranteed", so he says, "If you don't shut up I'm going to kick 100% of your ass!" When the film is broadcast, it's changed to "100% of your face," and the customer complains because of his comments. Later his boss asks him "Did you use profanity or threaten this customer?" Since he didn't use profanity, they should have deleted that line from the manager's comments (or at least shorten it to "Did you threaten this customer?" Even if the cashier didn't use profanity, he still threatened the customer by saying he was going to kick him in the face).
• 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.'"
• The DVD version of Crank has a "Family Friendly Audio" feature that replaces all the spoken swears (even minor ones like "damn") with tame versions. However, the full unedited video is still present, so the movie starts by showing a DVD with the words "FUCK YOU" written on it, in which the villain talks about how he "just freakin' killed you" with "synthetic Chinese stuff".
• In Kill Bill 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").
  • Which became even funnier in Vol. 2 when Esteban brings up why The Bride isn't driving the 'Party Wagon.' When she explains that the truck broke down, Esteban utters, "The Party died."
• In a TV edit, one of the best lines from Back to the Future was edited with... very poor enunciation. Poor Doc Brown goes from "excited" to "hyperactive teenage girl".

  Doc Brown: When this baby hits 88 miles an hour, you're gonna see some serious STUFF!!

  • In some TV runs, Biff's line "You cost 300 bucks damage to my car, you son of a bitch" is changed to "...you son of a butthead."
  • Marty's numerous uses of the word "asshole" are frequently changed to "idiot" - resulting in a full-on Hong Kong Dub effect - for TV runs.
• 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.
• When TBS and the Hallmark Channel aired The Breakfast Club, Bender's line "Eat my shorts" (which wouldn't become a popular insult until Bart Simpson made the scene in the late 1980s; The Breakfast Club came out in 1985) was inexplicably changed to "Eat my socks." Any "Fuck you!"s were replaced with "Forget you!" Another network's version had them dubbed with "Thank you!"
• The network TV airings (and Cartoon Network's airings) of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? contain several instances of this. Most notably, when one of the weasels reaches down Jessica Rabbit's dress and gets his arm caught in a bear trap, Eddie Valiant's line "Nice booby trap" was re-dubbed as "Nice going, Jess".
• Tv broadcasts of Smokey and the Bandit replace the sherrif's memorable "sumbitch" to "scum bum". That almost fits the lips, too. According to many fans of the films, "scum bum" actually fits the character's persona better.
• In a TV broadcast of Up in the Air, 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 Sam Jackson's earlier roles with a gun was also for language edited on the BBC. In Coming to America, 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 a rather amusing TV edit of Adam Sandler's movie Mr. Deeds, every instance of "shit" or "bullshit" was dubbed over with "spit" or "bullspit", resptively. It's rather amusing when a raging football player screams that he wants to renegotiate his "bullspit contract", and Adam Sandler's character immediately tells him to watch his language in the presence of ladies.
  • Unfortunately, one of the most hilarious lines in the movie, where Sandler exclaims "Buh-buh-buh-BULLSHIT!!!", was changed to "Buh-buh-buh-bullspit". It wouldn't have been so bad had the dubbing over not toned down the intensity at which Sandler had said the final word. Originally he was nearly screaming the last word in rage, but in the edit it seemed like he was just using the word dismissively.
• In Caddyshack the famous final line by Rodney Dangerfield was "Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid." In television it's changed to, "Hey everybody, let's all take a shower," which doesn't sound like anything Czervik would say (and actually makes the line more sexual than what was originally there). Nice going, censors.
• The quote on the 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.
• In A Christmas Story, when Ralphie's father is fighting with the furnace, or about anything else, he utters a string of gibberish which could sound like curses. Evidently, they listened to those bits over and over, slowed down and speeded up, to make sure there weren't any dirty words sounded out by mistake or otherwise.
• In 10 Things I Hate About You:
  Kat: Well, now that I've shown you The Plan, I'm gonna go and show The Plan to someone else.
  • When asked later by Patrick how she distracted the teacher, she replies that she dazzled him with her "Wits". There's also the brilliant TV-edited "the squid hath hitteth the fan."
• Pulp Fiction:
  • In one edited-for-TV version, Jules's line "English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?!" is changed to "English, little sucker! Do you speak it?!"
  • Not to mention:
    Jimmie: Do you wanna know why you didn't see that sign? Because storing dead African-Americans ain't none of my rooty-toot-tootin' business, that's why!
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall: "asshole" is changed to rascal.
• Spy Kids: 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.
• In a rather amusing TV edit from Dumb and Dumber, instead of "Right on my ass after you kiss it!" we get this horrible/hilarious euphemism instead.

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