Precision F-Strike/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

* ''[[The Daily Show]]'''s Jon Stewart likes to use this trope a lot, along with [[Sophisticated As Hell]]. Most Triumphant Example: [http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-march-4-2009/cnbc-financial-advice this].

* ''[[Firefly]]'', "Jaynestown". Kaylee mentioned that she never heard Simon swear, and Simon admits he only does it "when it's appropriate". Then they arrive in a dirt-poor town to find a statue of [[Heroic Sociopath|Jayne]], the ship crew's [[Token Evil Teammate]].

** Earlier, in "Safe," River spouts the only "normal" curse she's ever spoken onscreen, to highlight just how badly her latest round of madness is driving her.

** Book, being a preacher, hardly ever swears, either in English or in Chinese, but in the episode "War Stories," when Zoe and Wash return from Niska's base and Book learns that Niska has cut off Mal's ear, he lets loose with one of the worst Chinese swears on the show, translating to "filthy fornicators of livestock."

** In "The Train Job", after Mal realizes what they just stole from the train (medicine), he lets out a self-loathing "Son of a bitch."

*** Consider also that in the 4th and 5th seasons he is under far more stress than ever before for a variety of reasons, not least of which is his {{spoiler|becoming a parent, and then a single parent.}}

* ''[[Life On Mars]]'' has some great examples:

Sam: Shit. }}

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' Season 3, the Mayor is quite [[Affably Evil]]; acting fairly friendly towards the heroes he's planning on destroying, and generally being an all around nice guy (who wants to turn into a giant snake monster). When Buffy puts Faith in a coma, the Mayor actually [[Papa Wolf|loses his composure and calls her a whore.]]

* The season 3 final of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' had two, from Claire and Sylar respectively. The show usually shies away from profanity, so Sylar's "The truth. Stings like a bitch." came across especially powerfully.

** There is a much earlier example in an early episode of season 1 after Nathan has told thousands of people that Peter is suicidal. Peter punches his brother and shouts, "You son of a ''bitch''!" To which Nathan calmly replies, "Careful, Pete. That's our mother you're talking about."

** In an earlier episode, "Mad Dogs And Servicemen," Col. Blake tells bed-ridden Radar, who was bitten by a feral dog, that the dog was not rabid and he won't have to get any more rabies shots.

* ''[[Spaced]]'' was allowed just the one "fuck" per show, according to the DVD commentaries. They went to some lengths to make sure that they used it in the funniest way possible.

* In the UK version of ''[[The Office]]'', a show which rarely if ever used the word "fuck", David Brent tells [[Jerkass|Chris Finch]] to fuck off in the [[Christmas Episode]] when he makes lewd and inappropriate remarks about Brent's new girlfriend. It's easily the [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for Brent, and the show.

* The ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'' episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", which ends with a heartbroken Kirk telling his crew "Let's get the hell out of here." (The word "hell" didn't exactly feature much on television during that era.)

** There's another example in episode one of the first season:

'''Charles''': Your career, as we have hitherto understood it, is fucked. }}

* ''[[The Middleman]]'' used this in the first episode, despite the fact the word in question was actually bleeped. The fact that his one and only swear word immediately followed a discussion about how odd it was that he never swears makes it all the funnier, as well as making it clear just how badly wrong things have gone.

** And when in an alternate universe the alternate Middleman drops [[Cluster F-Bomb|Cluster F Bombs]] all the time, the difference is made very clear.

* Lampshaded in ''[[Flight of the Conchords]]'':

'''Murray:''' * long pause* ...Go fuck yourself, Brett! * storms off* }}

** Made perhaps funnier because Rhys Darby (the comedian who plays Murray) swears a LOT in his stand-up routines.

** Kitty is so holy and innocent that she can't even find it in her to tolerate the use of the word "ass", as common and not too offensive as it is. So when Kitty gets pissed and starts with the Red Forman-esque language, it can send shivers down one's spine.

'''Kitty''': DUMBASS! }}

** There was one instance in the Dona and Eric Are Engaged arc where Red commends Eric for sticking to his guns, which drives Kitty to lose all sense of composure or decorum and she ''[[Atomic F-Bomb|screams]]'' at Red, using several [[Sound Effect Bleep|sound effect bleeps]] in the space of about thirty seconds. It was the ''only'' time in the series that Kitty lost her composure like that, and [[Crowning Moment of Funny|it was the funniest]], [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|coolest]] moment of the series.

* Robert Klein opened the very first HBO comedy special in 1975 by celebrating the fact that he was allowed to drop a consequence-free "fuck" on television.

* The [[Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon|live action]] ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' generally had mild or no swearing, but in Makoto's/Sailor Jupiter's debut we got this exchange:

'''[[Monster of the Week|Youma (still in human disguise)]]''': Because it's fun.<br />

'''Makoto''': ...Fuck you! * Punches the youma in the face.* }}

** Interestingly, Makoto has been known to say "shit" (widely translated from the Japanese "kuso") a few times in the anime proper.

* ''[[Chappelle's Show]]'' had significant amounts of this trope. The more well known examples were when [[But Not Too Black|Wayne Brady]] starts swearing, and when he recounts Disneyland's '''Mickey Mouse''' greet him with " Oh, ho ho!! I'm, Rick James BITCH!!" In a high-pitched voice.

* On the ''[[Top Gear|Top Ground Gear Force]]'' Comic Relief special, James May (who is normally pretty even-tempered, and doesn't normally go much beyond "Oh, cock" when things go pear-shaped) gets irritated with Clarkson for destroying his shed:

'''May''': You're a [[Curse Cut Short|fu--]]<br />

'''Hammond''': Guys! }}

* Didier Drogba's (somewhat justified) rant into a TV camera after Chelsea were knocked out of the UEFA Champions League by Barcelona:

* Inverted in ''[[The Thick of It]]'': Malcolm Tucker drops [[Cluster F-Bomb|Cluster F Bombs]] constantly, but when he holds back on the swearing it's a sign that he's ''really'' angry.

{{quote|- "If you don't run and get me some cheese I'll pull your head off and give you a spinedectomy."|"In my quest to try and make you understand the level of my unhappiness, I'm likely to use an awful lot of what we would call 'violent sexual imagery', and I just wanted to check that neither of you would be terribly offended by that."}}

** ''[[In the Loop]]'' features an [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome]] Precision ''C'' Strike in the midst of a [[Cluster F-Bomb]]:

* In the season 1 finale of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', O'Neill (two Ls) refers to something just explained to him as "Bullshit." This was when the show was on Showtime, where swearing isn't as taboo, but even then there was very little profanity on the show.

** Although it's a mild swear word, there's a scene in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' when Daniel Jackson has just died (sort of) and come back. His first word is a slightly annoyed "crap". Not even the worst swear word ever used on the show, but still hilarious.

* "School's Out", the finale for ''[[Degrassi High]]'', had one so memorable (on a series that had, until this point, never been very graphic or profane) that it became a [[Memetic Mutation]] in Canada. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I3uVT-ajME Watch it here.]

* ''[[Supernatural]]'' had a case of this in the fifth season. In all of [[Straight Man|Castiel's]] appearances up to this point, he had been very formal and very grave. Then "Free to Be You and Me" comes along and we see not one, but two examples of this:

'''Castiel''': [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Maybe one day. But today, you're my little bitch.]] }}

** Castiel has always been extremely respectful of his father/God, but in 'Dark Side of the Moon', also in Season 5 he finds out that {{spoiler|'''God is walking the Earth, knows about everything that's happening, and doesn't care to get involved.'''}}

* Cat Deeley has a reputation of being a very quiet, composed, sweet girl. It makes [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV_gdLLZPj0 this] appearance on a British parody show even funnier.

* ''[[All in The Family]]'' had Edith go through menopause, and shout "Damn it!" during one of her mood swings out of nowhere. The episode is worth watching just for the audience's stunned reaction.

* In [[Star Trek: The Next Generation]], Jean Luc Picard is almost always well composed, diplomatic, and well spoken. However, in one episode he let loose with an exasperated "merde," which means "shit" in French (his native language).

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' doesn't have a lot of swearing, besides the occasional "Oh hell," but manages to pull the occasional [[Precision F-Strike]]. The two most striking characters to pull this off are Timov, one of Londo's wife: in the middle of some very mild verbal fencing she manages to drop a "Bitch" that leaves everyone speechless. And, of all people, Delenn gets not one, but two. The second one has her barging in the room yelling "Bastards," shocking Sheridan: "Did she just...?". The most memorable however has to be:

** Sheridan has a really nice one in his small altercation with Kosh Naranek. It's not a true f-word. The implication of the words used, and the way they are delivered ([[Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?|to one of the most powerful entities in the show]]) however, definitely qualifies it as a precision F-Strike.

'''Sheridan''': Up yours! }}

** There is one simultaneously [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Awesome]] and [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Funny]] moment in Season 3 when Marcus knocks out everyone in a Downbelow dive. But the awesome line starts with an instance of [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]...because he uses a ''British'' swear word that isn't well-recognized in the US:

* In an episode of ''[[Mad About You]]'' Jamie invites Paul's mother to stay with them for the night, confident that the offer will be refused. When Paul's mother gratefully accepts the invitation, Jamie smiles broadly, turns to Paul, and almost under her breath mutters "Shit."

* In the ''[[Bones]]'' episode, "The Baby in the Bough", ''[[The Spock|Dr. Brennan]]'' gets one of these, in what is also both a CMOA and a CMOH. {{spoiler|"There was a BABY in that car, you son of a bitch!"}}

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' is generally very low on swearing (thanks partly to its liberal use of [[Unusual Euphemism]]), which is used to this effect on the few occasions where they use real swear words (such as the 'Twat it!' line in ''Polymorph'').

* [[Conan O'Brien]] appearing on ''The Chris Rock Show'' to interview [[Jive Turkey|Pootie Tang]]:

'''Conan: ''' I'm sorry, but what the fuck are you talking about? }}

* ''[[Deadwood]]'', of all shows, had a brilliant [[Precision F-Strike]] when upright, straitlaced, intimidatingly classy Alma Garrett urged E. B. Farnum to sell her his hotel: "What is it you males say? 'Shit, or get off the chamberpot'?"

* In BBC's [[Merlin]], in which the worst language ever to be used is "damn", Arthur learns that he's been served with an arranged marriage and lets out a vehement "WHAT THE FFFFF---" before the camera cuts away.

* There's a pretty dramatic one from Scully in [[The X-Files]] episode 'Beyond the Sea'. It's particularly effective since, before this, she rather came across as [[The Stoic]]. When she learns that an (alleged) psychic's information has led her partner Mulder into a trap, seriously injuring him, and it was partly her fault for believing him, we get this exchange...

** That's because it's Mulder. As mentioned on that page, Mulder and Scully are each other's [[Berserk Button]].

* Conan O' Brien had Ray Romano as a guest on his new TBS show. Ray related a story about a website with the classic "Fuck, Marry, Kill" game and took the time to ask if was okay to "say the F-Word" on cable. Ray goes through the story and uses "Eff" for every instance of the word. He was ranked against Drew Carey and Jerry Seinfeld, with 8 out of 12 votes in the "Kill" column. Whereas some people might view this as bad, Ray said, "It's really only the second worst choice, 'cause if you're not gonna fuck me just kill me."

* In New Zealand in 1979, Arthur Baysting, as his comedy alter ego [http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-neville-purvis-family-show-episode-1978 Neville Purvis], dropped the F-bomb during the end credits of his character's namesake show - the first incidence of its type on New Zealand TV. The show was immediately cancelled amidst the ensuing controversy, and Baysting was forced to work in Australia for some years.

* ''[[Coupling]]'' has a few examples:

** In the [[Rashomon Style]] episode about Patrick and Sally's first kiss, we see a scene from Sally's memory in which Susan complains about how she's always stuck with calling a taxi for the office drunk. "It's becoming part of my job description." Sally tells her this is "a bit unfair." We then see Patrick's version of events (though he was not present for this exchange), in which Sally is the aforementioned "office drunk", and declares that "That is a ''fucking shame''!

* Normally, the [[Top Chef]] judges don't indulge in any cursing compared to the cheftestants. However, when she guest judged season two, episode three of Top Chef Canada, season one host Thea Andrews had every right to shout an F-bomb when one of the cheftestants nearly ran over her '''''pregnant body''''' in his rush to get ingredients during the start of a Quickfire Challenge.