Sound Effect Bleep / Western Animation

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Sound Effect Bleeps in Western Animation

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• One episode of Tiny Toon Adventures was devoted to a caricature of Foghorn Leghorn named Fowlmouth. This episode plays the bleeps in spades, as it's all about Buster trying to get him to start talking clean: including a torture device (complete with washing the mouth with soap). Ironically, while it works, the cartoon ends with Buster picking up the bad words (and being subjected to the same tortures).
• Used through an entire episode of Rugrats, "Word of the Day", where Angelica overhears and starts using a (bad) word used backstage by a disgruntled kids' show host. The sound effects became increasingly inventive/desperate. It started with the horn of a studio cart and ended with a testcard tone (some were also accompanied by Charlotte's horrified scream, which itself serves as the bleep in one instance). She still managed to get it onto national TV and cause the mental breakdown of the disgruntled TV host, so it's all good.
• The Flintstones also did this once, with Fred then asking the speaker to repeat himself and explaining that he couldn't hear him over the bleep.
• Both used and subverted by SpongeBob SquarePants in the episode "Sailor Mouth". SpongeBob learns there are thirteen words a sailor should never use, all of which are covered up by different sound effects (including various horns and sea animal noises). At the end, what seems to be a use of one of them is just the horn from "Old Mister Jenkins in his jalopy".
  • Further subverted when it turns out that [dolphin noise] (the actual noise, not something bleeped by a dolphin noise) is just about the worst expletive ever.
  • There's also the episode where SpongeBob censors out the ingredients of the Krabby Patty secret formula in his song.
• Parodied in an episode of KaBlam!. Henry keeps getting bleeped at least once in every sentence he says, even though he insists that he isn't cursing, and ends up going on a bleep heavy rant. Turns out his co-host June has a device that is supplying the bleeps and is censoring random words to cheese him off. It is implied that by the end of the sketch he is being bleeped for real.
• Futurama. In "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", Leela is put into a robot chair like Captain Pike's in the Star Trek episode "The Menagerie", using a series of beeps to convey her testimony. When Zapp Brannigan makes a lewd comment, Leela tells him to "Go (bleep from the machine) yourself!"
• Constantly skewered in The Simpsons. One example had a rooster appear out of nowhere in a living room to do it.
  • Occasionally, the show even censors itself as a joke, as seen when a TV producer, reacting to Homer's sudden appearance on the set of a soap opera starring Moe, blurts out "What the f(BLEEP)dge?"
  • The most iconic example occurs in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?, Part One". Homer quietly tells the kids to go outside, stands up, takes a deep breath...
    Homer: FFFFFFFFFFFF-
    Church organ hits minor chord, birds flee into the sky, every person in Springfield freezes in place, eyes wide.
    Flanders: Dear Lord, that's the loudest profanity I've ever heard!
  • Back in the early days when Sky 1 was a family-friendly channel, they used to cut all instances of rude words. One exception was in the episode 'A Star is Burns' - when Moe's short film is played, the last word of the song he sings "...and you're out on your ass!" was covered by adding in a soundbite of the audience gasping.
  • The episode "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner" had a scene near the beginning with Homer going into a bleep-laden tirade at being stuck behind an ambulance.
  • Done again in the "Treehouse of Horror IX" segment "Starship Poopers" - justified that the family ends up having to go on The Jerry Springer Show, which regularly made use of this.
    Marge: I'm so *BEEP*ing embarrassed...
  • When Radio Disney played "Do the Bartman", a usage of "damn" was censored by a guitar riff.
• Used to the point of exhaustion in South Park, but with a real bleep. The very first episode has a perfect example when Kyle is cussing out the aliens who are taking his brother, Ike, after they ignore his heartfelt plea.
  Kyle: Hey, you scrawny-ass sh<BLEEP>! What the <BLEEP> is wrong with you!?! You must be some sort of <BLEEEEP> to ignore a crying child!
  Stan: Whoa, dude!
  Kyle: You know what you <BLEEP>ers like? You like to <BLEEP> and <BLEEP> and <BLEEP> and <BLEEP> and <BLEEP> and <BLEEP>!
  Stan: Wendy, what's a <BLEEP>?
  • Notable instance of Painting the Medium in the episode where they see how many times they can get away with saying "shit." In the B-story, Mr. Garrison is indulging his new ability as a recently de-closeted gay man to say "fag." If anyone who isn't gay attempts to use the word, they are bleeped, and everyone is aware of the bleepage. Later one character (Jimbo) says, "Well, that's not fair! I should be able to say 'fag'!" He's not bleeped.
  • It is worth noting that starting with Season 11, DVD and online releases are mostly uncensored. Also, when the episodes that originally aired in SD were remastered into HD and released onto Blu-Ray and online, most of the bleeps were removed, with the notable exception of most of the oldest episodes where the uncensored dialogue hadn't been properly archived.
    • Infamously, "201" was censored with a long, disruptive bleep that actually cuts off the background music. The DVD version cleans it up so the music is also audible, and in the commentary, Parker and Stone actually succeed in tempting the bleep censor by discussing classified material at one point.
  • Everything Kenny says is 'censored' by his muffling parka. This helps disguise when he's cursing, or the many times he explains sex acts in detail to the other kids. If he's talking clean, you can usually get the gist of what he's saying on your second viewing, or in some of the subtitles.
• Profanity in Metalocalypse is bleeped out with guitar licks such as pinch harmonics and whammy bar divebombs. Shortly into the show's first season, swearing on the Adult Swim forums was censored with (guitar riff), and has been ever since.
• Another [adult swim] show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, started out with using the standard bleep for censoring, but by around the third or fourth season, censoring was done with just about every conceivable sound effect but the standard bleep.
  • The crowning moment from 'Gee Whiz':
  Meatwad: "Oh, Boy I apologize. My hormones are goin' nuts. Now please, if you would, get the [elephant trumpent] out of my way. I mean, how many times do I have to [school bell] write ice cream on this [squeak toy] list before someone gets their [horse whinny] in gear, and brings home the [owl hoot] ice cream! Maybe I should get a steak knife AND ETCH INTO YOUR MOTHER [plunger sound] FOREHEAD! HOW HARD CAN IT [squeak] BE!!!!! ICE MOTHER [drumroll] CREAM!!!!! I GUESS THAT'S THE PRICE I PAY FOR LIVING WITH TWO [ringtone] MORONS!!!!!"
  Master Shake: ...What happened to courtesy? Did it just...disappear?
  • In the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, the f-word is alternately bleeped and not bleeped. When it is bleeped, however, it's usually soft enough or short enough that you can still hear the profanity used.
• In yet another, another Adult Swim show, Perfect Hair Forever, most profanity is bleeped by Coiffio's voice saying "F!", no matter who or what. For some reason, this was picked up by Marik of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series fame.
• Drawn Together uses this one for Writing Around Trademarks. The first time, they bleep "Mickey" when Princess Clara says, "Oh my God, it's M[beep] Mouse!" However, when Captain Hero says his name exactly one line later, they bleep the second word instead and so he says "Mickey [beep]".
• The first episode of Family Guy had Lois say "What the-", only to be cut off by the horn from Peter's boat. And in that same episode, Peter said that losing that Talent Show was "BULL-", only to then be bleeped out by applause from the audience to the winners.
  • In another, her cookies finish baking just as she says that she's like a hawk: "Mess with my kids and I'll claw your f[Ding!]ing eyes out."
  • In the 4th Season of Family Guy, Peter set up a TV station which was shut down by the FCC. After an offhand remark from Peter, the FCC starts censoring real life, including removing swearwords through the use of an air horn, leading to this memorable quote:
    Peter: Lois, you are so full of HONK! ...What!?! I can't say HONK in my own HONKing house? HONKing great, Lois, just HONKing great! You're lucky you're good at HONKing my HONK or I'd never put up with you. You know what I'm talking about. When you HONK lubed up HONK toothpaste in my HONK and you HONK cherry HONK Episcopalian HONK extension cord HONK wetness HONK with a parking ticket? That is the best!
  • Best of all...
    Lois: (trying to open a bag of chips) Come on, you son of a [HONK]. (Startles, opens bag, spills chips on floor) Ah, [HONK] me...'''
  • In another one Lois reads her title on the television screen on Diane Simmons' talk show which reads "She's probably more of a bitch then she lets on" and she responds "Go [BEEP] yourself Diane".
  • Seth MacFarlane once said in an interview that back in Family Guy's first two seasons, it was a big deal to even have a swear word bleeped, so they had to use sound effects. However, in the Season 3 premiere, they finally got a standard bleep. (Specifically, after not getting a reaction for a terrible joke, Stewie says, "I don't have to [bleep]ing impress you.") It's gotten to the point where nearly every episode in recent seasons has at least one bleeped-out swear word in it.
• The PBS children's show Arthur used this as the basis of an episode, titled "Bleep", where D.W. heard a teenager using a word that made his mom drop something but didn't know what it meant. She got her whole preschool class using it, and the Tibbles told her that the word also meant that the person you say it to will do whatever you want for you. Her mother finally told her swear words basically mean "I want to hurt your feelings."
  • Ironically despite the aesop, this episode isn't played very often. Parents pretty much raised a fuss over the constant bleeping. This show is aimed at pre-schoolers and runs on PBS after all.
  • In another episode, Muffy wants to use the jungle gym that was already claimed by The Tough Customers. When Molly yells at Muffy, her speech is cut off by the school bell ringing. Later, the two discuss how Muffy can give the jungle gym back to Molly but their plan is cut off by a gardener mowing the lawn outside.

• In an episode of Home Movies, the kitchen catches fire, causing Brendon's mom to say "Holy —", at which point, the smoke detector goes off, effectively bleeping out the rest of her sentence. Brendon appears amused and impressed by the timing of these events.
  • Another ep, which takes place on Halloween, had Brendon swearing at his dad's girlfriend during her pregnancy when she get fed up with his (rather rude) pestering. She response back in kind which all the words bleeped out.
• Would you believe the Finding Nemo DVD Commentary contains not one, but two instances of this, once using a slide whistle sound effect? The other one uses a standard beeping sound, but it's still worth mentioning...
  Lee Unkrich (co-director): Who does the voice of those seagulls, by the way?
  Bob Peterson (co-writer): I believe it's Andrew Stanton, director of Finding Nemo! ^note It had already been mentioned that Stanton also voiced Crush the turtle Were you going to let anyone else do voices in this film?
  Andrew Stanton: See, I knew it was going to go there...
  Peterson: Is that 'cause you haven't won an Oscar, you have to get your voice in everywhere?
  Stanton: First of all, this will never make it to the DVD now.
  Peterson: Well, in that case, [beep] [beep]!
  [all laugh]
• Grodd of Justice League Unlimited was calling Lex Luthor a "sick hominid something" just before having his voice drowned out by the sound of him being shot out an airlock.
  • In another episode, Wonder Woman's "Go to hell!" is cut off by her firing a ridiculously large gun.
• Used for the Unreveal in The Fairly OddParents!, where Timmy goes back in time to when his parents were kids, but their names are still kept resolutely secret through well-timed truck noises:
  Timmy's Dad: Well, my real name is-[Large and extremely noisy truck drives past]-but everyone just calls me "Dad".
• An episode of Animaniacs that started with a dramatic, action-packed, and totally bogus Previously on… sequence included, as a Running Gag, a guy going "Oh my..." and getting cut off by an explosion from off-screen.
  • Dot in the episode "Cutie and the Beast" had a rant in which the only intelligible words were censor bleeped (she was angry due to constantly messing up her Overly Long Name).
  Yakko: That's my little sister who said that. Mwah! Goodnight, everybody!
• In the Pound Puppies (1980s) episode "Ghost Hounders" after discovering that Katrina Stoneheart was going to have all the puppies shipped to a fur factory, Nose Marie declares that Katrina is "nothing more than a...", then a "CENSORED" sign appears and is bleeped out by the "cuckoo clock" sound effect that was often heard in game shows and such. Cooler then tells her to watch her language, to which she responds "Well, pardon my little ol' peaches".
• In American Dad! They briefly parody the famous scene at the end of Jaws with a quote as Hailey's Internet Game Character is about to shoot her arrow at the pressure tank in the monster's mouth. "Smile you son of a—" *arrow woosh*
• Happened throughout a The Powerpuff Girls episode ("Curses", appropriately), where the girls learned a curse word without knowing what it meant (though at the end, after they learn what it means, Buttercup just belts one out anyway and gets a mouthful of soap during the end narration).
  • In the movie, one of the monkeys seeking to be what Mojo Jojo is trying to be—ruler of Townsville—is Hota Wata, whose self-promoting spiel ends with "I don't give a—" before a dam is exploded and it cuts to Mojo who says "Watch yo' mouth!" The original storyboard had Hota Wata completing the sentence.
  • The 2016 version episode, In the Garden of Good and Eddie, the girls get fed up with a caterpillar name Tabitha, or Eddie as she likes to be called, after she unwittingly eats their giant tomato they wanted to enter into a contest. As the girls tell her off, Bubbles adds in something that is drowned out be the sound of a truck backing up. But judging by Blossom, Buttercup and Eddie's reactions, it was obviously a very naughty word.
• The Cleveland Show subverted this when Cleveland ducked back underwater before swearing, but then the swear is still audible slightly later in an air bubble.
• The Dresden Files tries this a couple times even when other swearing progresses as normal. Harry was once tasered while swearing (I think the self-narrator was swearing, so there's no reason to cut off, but he did).
• The Duckman episode "Ebony, Baby" uses an air-horn salesman's display to drown out guest voice-actor Ice-T's profanity-laced rant. He's finally asked to tone it down because the horns are so annoying.
• The Total Drama series, being a parody of reality shows, occasionally makes use of these. One particularly notable example involves Lindsay telling off Heather with an angry tirade composed entirely of one long censor bleep.
• In Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race: After Devin confesses to Emma and Kitty that he has developped feelings for Carrie, they smack some sense into him for not realising Carrie's feelings for him all this time. Specifically, Kitty yells at him "ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME?!" while slapping his cheeks, while Emma tells him something that is censored by the sound of the train.
• In the King of the Hill episode "Father of the Bribe" Dale is getting tired of not getting enough viewers for his radio talk show he says "And I can't drum up any new sales because I'm stuck behind this f(beep)ing microphone 24 hours a day".
• Parodied in the Rocko's Modern Life episode "Dear John": When Heffer reads a chapter in a home improvement book about things you can say when the hammer slips, random sound effects come out of his mouth. Rocko asks to read the book himself and finds the exact sounds written down.
  "If a wrench slips off the pipe and lands on your big toe, you can say... HONK! or BOING! or FWEEP! or AHOOGAH! or BUZZ!"
• The Secret Show: Random sounds at the episode where Changed Daily's original name is mentioned prevent the viewers from hearing it.
• A Cartoon Network bumper had Fred from Scooby-Doo going into profanity-laced diatribe (all bleeped, of course) when somebody asked him about his ascot. The rest of Mystery Inc. looks at him in stunned silence.
• The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen song from The Ren & Stimpy Show contained the line "And we will probably go to (fart)/And that is our great reward". No points for guessing what got bleeped (or, in this case, farted) out. (In all fairness, this was from its Nickelodeon run, so not even a mild swear could normally slip through.)
  • Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon used a duck-like honking sound as a bleep.
• Happens a lot on Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
  Space Ghost: Now, woodpile, did you or did you not masquerade as eels and socked Zorak with that wrench? Answer me! Now, what about these beans?
  Moltar: Those must've fallen out of my hair.
  Beat
  Moltar: Well, you're just making all this BLEEP up!
  Beat
  Moltar: ...Oh, what? You're the only one that gets to make BLEEP up?
  Beat
• This happened in the Garfield and Friends segment "Kiddie Korner", but not with a swear word. The word "Da Dum" would be replaced by a Sting, as if it were a curse word, and it even happened when Orson read Aloysius' card. It was only uncensored once after they did Georgie Porgie.
• In an episode of Back at the Barnyard all about Pig making and selling his Grandma's famous pies, a character asks him what the "secret ingredient" of her recipe is.
  Pig: Well since you asked, the secret ingredient is (a chicken walks in front of him and quacks like a duck, all of the characters make grossed out sounds.)
• In an episode of Baby Looney Tunes Daffy hears the garbage man say a word after he drops a garbage can on his foot. Later Daffy says the word in front of the other babies after losing a game, thinking it's a word to use when angry. Then they all say it to Granny, who tells them not to use the word and to use other ways to deal with anger. This becomes quite difficult for Daffy who suffers a series of misfortunes during the rest of the episode. The word itself is censored by a "squeak-squeak" sound.
• The Loud House:
  • In "Get the Message", Lincoln leaves a strongly-worded message on Lori's phone.
    Lincoln: Hey, Lori, it's your dear brother, Lincoln. There's something I've been meaning to tell you. You are... (Luna bursts into his room and rocks out while Lincoln goes on a crazy rant; she exits) AND THAT IS WHY YOU ARE THE WORST! SISTER! EVER!!!
  • Later, in "Job Insecurity", Lola attempts to bail Lynn Sr. out of his job as a dishwasher by ranting at his employer through the phone.
    Lola: YOU LISTEN TO ME, BUB! NO ONE MAKES MY DADDY WASH DISHES! HE'S DONE WITH YOUR STINKY JOB IN YOUR STINKY RESTAURANT! AND ANOTHER THING— (she takes a deep breath; the ensuing rant is drowned out by Leni's hair dryer)
  • In "Potty Mouth", after Lily says "dannit" while watching TV, her siblings all recall incidents in which they said it in front of her, albeit comically censored every time by various sound effects. The end of the episode reveals that she was really trying to say "donut," but then the dog comes over and steals her donut, which causes Lily to swear for real, which is bleeped this time.
• Seven Little Monsters: In the episode "The Bad Word" Two hears a carpenter named Stinky use a bad word after hitting his thumb with a hammer, which is censored out by a steam whistle. After he utters the word in front of his siblings and later his mother, his mother tells a story about a boy like him who used the same word. Throughout the course of the episode, the word is bleeped out with various animal sounds, such as a goose honking and the monsters' pet cow Belinda mooing.
• Kaeloo:
  • In the episode "Let's Play Peace Man", Mr. Cat drops what is presumably a Cluster F-Bomb over a microphone. The microphone starts malfunctioning and making "beep" sounds every time he swears (but Kaeloo and Quack Quack presumably heard the whole thing though the audience didn't). It's quite easy to make out the words since only parts of them are censored.
  • In another episode, Mr. Cat tries to mention the name of what can be presumed to be an alcoholic beverage, but its name gets bleeped out by the sound of a rubber ducky. It was most likely done for comedic effect as Stumpy also mentions the name of several other alcoholic drinks without getting bleeped out.
• In the Dr. Zitbag's Transylvania Pet Shop episode "Slime Suspect", the Reservoir Frogs croak during parts of their sentences where a swear word would most likely go.
• Parodied in American Dragon: Jake Long, where Jake's parents have a fight in the kitchen and turn on the mixer every time they use profanities.
• In the Middlemost Post episode "The Sleepover", Angus lets one out when he realizes that he followed the directions wrong on a ship in the bottle model, by building the ship before he put it in the bottle.

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