Sound Effect Bleep: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"Yippi-kay-ay, motherfu-"'' [gunshot]|'''John McClane''', ''[[Live Free or Die Hard]]''}}

Normally used when a character is going to say something rude in a programme where the FCC (or other [[Media Watchdog|Media Watchdogs]]) will leap on it. It's the audio equivalent of [[Scenery Censor]].

* A sex scene near the end of the original [[Lupin III]] manga series had various words bleeped out. The scene was interrupted by a fan letter saying, "What the bleep is up with all the bleeps?", with a similarly censored reply.

* In ''[[Lucky Star]]'', the discussion between Konata and her dad about ''[[Gundam|Gund*ms]]'' is filled with these. Soujirou's monologue uses this even on non ''Gund*m'' words.

* In ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]? Fumoffu'', the swear words in Sousuke's hilarious [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] rugby training routine are bleeped with what sound like sped-up loon calls. It's a complete ''non sequitur'', but it made the scene that much funnier.

* In ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'', there's one scene where Nagi realizes she's alone with Hayate in her bedroom and thinks, "What if he does '''''BLEEP''''' and '''''BLEEP''''' and ... no! Anything but '''''BLEEP'''''!" (Of course, he doesn't do anything inappropriate, which irks her.) Also, instead of a visual for what she was imagining, the artist substituted a scene of a cruise ship: "Due to content restrictions, this footage has been replaced."

* 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.

* Used to humorous effect in ''[[RoboCop]]'', 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.)

{{quote|'''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.

* 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) {{spoiler|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 [[Emergency Broadcast|broadcast is terminated]]}}.

* In ''[[Sucker Punch]]'' when Blondie kills the dragon: "Take that, you ugly motherf- *machine gun blast*

* In ''[[Film/The A|The A]]-Team'' movie on two occasions we have the lines "Alpha, Mike, Foxtrot! Adios Mother F- *explosion*

== [KABLOOIE!] Literature ==

* "---- me! A ----ing wizard! I hate ----ing wizards!" proclaims a character in the ''[[Discworld]]'' book ''[[Discworld/Mort|Mort]]'', "effortlessly pronouncing a row of dashes". Obviously, the response is, "well, you shouldn't ---- them, then."

** Captain Carrot, in his early appearances, has the unusual skill of being able to pronounce "D*mn!"

* This was sometimes done in 19th-century novels as well. Perhaps in response to this, Patrick O'Brian also -ed out some of the swear words in his [[Aubrey-Maturin]] series, resulting in one humorous scene where Diana introduces herself by yelling at her horse, "Get over, you -," which intrigues Jack, who had never heard a woman say - before.

** In yet another example, Mulder uses the phrase "No shit, Sherlock" on the phone to Scully, with the profanity covered up by phone static.

* ''[[Project Runway]]'' and ''[[Top Chef]]'' do this, but are trying to do it ineffectively. For instance, in one ''Project Runway'' show from season two, a contestant crows a two-syllable F-word, and the buzz is hiding the "ing."

* One scene that probably confused many a young viewer from ''Christmas Eve on [[Sesame Street]]'' took place when Oscar had cause to say to Big Bird, "You are, without a doubt, the stupidest [passing subway train suddenly makes his speech incomprehensible, this goes on for [[Overly Long Gag|some time]]] bird I ever met."

** One creative soul on [[YouTube]]-- if the attributions on some copies of the video are to be believed, it's [[Neil Cicierega]]-- censored every instance of the word "count" used as a verb from The Count Song. As a result, it sounds like Count Von Count is doing some very ''interesting'' things to the spiders on the wall... and the cobwebs in the hall... and the candles on the shelf... and when he is alone, he [bleep!] himself.

* The Australian police mini-series ''Phoenix'' got quite a few complaints over its use of foul language, so the sequel ''Phoenix 2'' often masked offending words with various background noises.

* In ''Father Goose'', Walter is about to call Frank "a silly English son of a-" when the last word is cut off by the sound of a boat "accidentally" hitting another boat.

* During a scene of the ''[[Andromeda]]'' episode "The Warmth of an Invisible Light" where there are mortars falling on them as Dylan, Rommie, and Beka are walking down a hall, Dylan promises the Beka from an alternate reality that if she helps him, she can have his ship. When she asks (not knowing he's talking about one of the most powerful ships in the Universe) "What do I want with some old tug from Starship Habitats?", to which Rommie says "'Old tug' my a..." *mortar explosion*.

* ''[[The Middleman]]'' not only bleeps out what would be actual swearing instead of [[Gosh Dang It to Heck]], but [[Censor Box|Censor Boxes]] their mouths as well.

* For the ultimate version of this trope, courtesy of ''[[The Two Ronnies]]'', [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZK_w1bUpYA see here].

* A ''[[Corner Gas]]'' episode has a large rant by Lacy (the least likely character to do so) blocked out by the camera cutting to a very loud passing train, and ends with her putting $20 in the swear jar.

** In the episode "Face Off," Wanda is announcing at a hockey game and exclaims, "The Dogs score! Holy sh--" Then she accidentally hits the buzzer.

{{quote|"Happy Hanukkah, mother-*gunshot*"}}

* ''Foul Ups, Bleeps, and Blunders'' had a segment that used the bleep sound to hilarious effect on a "Question of the Day" where a certain question was asked to random passers by. When one of the presenters (usually Steve Lawrence) says the question the first time, part of it (the main topic of the question) is bleeped out, leaving the audience to wonder what it is and end up laughing at the answers given, before the whole question is eventually revealed by Lawrence, with his co-host Don Rickles sometimes adding sarcastic remarks beginning with "If you were thinking something else..." (for instance: "How often do married couples <bleep!>?" (one answer involved getting on a motorcycle). The bleeped word was "argue")

* Every week [[Late Night Show|Jimmy Kimmel]] presents a video of [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|"Unneccesary Censorship"]], with quite some funny results, for example, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrqsfXoNVug here].

* Done with the charcter of Vince in ''[[Mongrels]]'' who can't get through a sentence without at least three bleeps. Another example of the "bleeps" making it funnier.

* Used extensively in both ''[[The Office]]'' and ''[[Parks and Recreation]]'', the latter of which uses it to allow for its liberal dropping of the F-bomb.

* An episode of The Day Today, an English satirical news programme from the 90's, featured an interview with Fur-Q, a pretty spot on spoof of Gangsta Rap and how it is (or at least was) covered on mainstream TV. For the majority of the song, the only word censored is mother[trumpet stab], despite bitch and cock (which are used extensively) remaining. The final verse is just a long stream of swear words, only some of which are bleeped out.

* On ''[[Maury]]'', this happens often. It can become disconcerting when someone cusses inaudibly but is still beeped, causing random beeps during what seems like cuss-free conversation.

* [[Don't Trust the B In Apartment 23|"I'm not perfect, I'm no snitch/ But I can tell you, she's a (''door buzzer sounds'')!"]]

*** Some versions also block out "sex", "pants", and "nuts", as well as "getting horny now".

* "Beep" by the Pussycat Dolls, where the sound censor was actually the main lick (no pun intended) of the song, and again aimed at making it sound dirtier than it probably was: "I don't give a <beep> Keep lookin' at my <boop> Cause it don't mean a thing when you're lookin' at the <beep> I'm goin' do mah thing while you're playin witchyour <beeeep>..."

* Subverted by the band James for the MTV edit of their song "Laid". The album version of the song (oddly, also used on the radio without edit) features the line "But she only comes when she's on top." The MTV version features the edit "But she only sings when she's on top" - and a close-up of the lead singer's face while he obviously sings the original line.

* A musical number in ''[[Evil Dead]] [[The Musical]]'' (yep) has a line that goes "And then we'll take that chainsaw and we'll shove it up your-" "Ash!" which is a bit of a moot point, since there's musical numbers titled "Stupid Bitch" and "What the Fuck Was That?"

* ''"Da Mystery of Chessboxin'"'', and other tracks by the Wu-Tang Clan, often used standard Kung Fu sound and voice effects to censor curses in radio and video versions.

* The rap song "Super Brooklyn" by Cocoa Brovas (sometimes [[Misattributed Song|mis-credited]] to the Wu-Tang Clan, incidentally) samples the theme from ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' for its backbeat. Naturally, in the radio edit, the swear words are covered up with Super Mario sound effects.

* The Lo-Fidelity All Stars' "Battleflag" contains a bit of a [[Cluster F-Bomb]] in its uncut album version<ref>(about forty percent of the lines in the song use the adjective "motherfucking")</ref>. The radio edit version covers up the expletives by extending a reverb effect that was already used in the uncut verses. Many listeners didn't even realize it ''was'' edited because of this.

* Eric Idle's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj7zi9Tp5s4 "I Bet You They Won't Play This Song on the Radio"] uses creative bleep sounds in lieu of actual swearing.

* Martin Mull's "Humming Song" does something similar. In it he claims to have had second thoughts about the language in the song he's just written, such that he's chosen to hum in place of anything that might have been objectionable. The original, it's implied, would have been lurid indeed. It begins "Last night, I took you home, we began to... hmm, hmm hmm...." and proceeds from there.

* Huey Lewis and the News' "The Heart of Rock & Roll" substitutes a drum beat for the word "ass".

* Subverted by Denis Leary's ''Asshole Song'' video, which lets all the words go through, but puts a large graphic of horizontal stripes with BLEEP across the center on the screen.

With a smile on your mouth and your hand on your (huh!) }}

** In "Telephone" it's both averted and played straight: Gaga's "motherf**er" isn't beeped out, however, when [[Beyonce]]'s "boyfriend" is killed, she's calling him a "mother[BEEP]", [[Finger on Lips|putting her hand over her mouth]], [[Skewed Priorities|acting all embarrased about her swearing]].

* The radio edit of Lily Allen's "F**k You" is, understandably, in need of a lot of these, and it steps gamely up to the plate with quacks, neighs, spinning plates and a descending note on a swanny whistle.

** The CD version of Lily Allen's "Friday Night" also utilizes this trope, though from the [[Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion]] it's quite clear what belongs there.

{{quote|It's quarter two and we get to the front

Girl on the guest list dressed like a [record ripping noise] }}

* The radio edit of Missy Elliot's "Work It" features a well-placed ''elephant trumpet'': "If you got a big *PHWOO* let me work it"

* The German singer and comedian Frank Zander used these to parody censorship in music in his song "oh, susi (der zensierte song)". He tells the story of a song he wrote that the record company had censored. He sings the song with the lyrics censored by means of countless sound effects, and it seems like quite some nasty and R-rated stuff has been removed. Afterwards, he sings the uncensored version?which is revealed to be squeaky clean and actually have a different meaning than what one would suppose from the censored version.

** However, after roughly 8:50 of silence, you hear {{spoiler|Every expletive that Casey Kasem used over the course of the song, all in rapid succession.}}

* Bob Rivers has "What if Eminem Did Jingle Bells?" in two versions. One of them covers up the swearing with sound effects and makes for a much more interesting listen than the uncensored version.

* Two [[Brave Saint Saturn]] songs, "Enamel" and "Heart Still Beats", had the words "hell" and "pissed" obscured by record scratches and static. This was done on ''the actual album'', and without telling the band beforehand.

* The radio edit of DMX's song "Party Up" uses various sound effects to cover up the copious cursing and references to murder in the song.

* The clean version of Mylo's "Drop The Pressure" changes the [[Cluster F-Bomb]] to something unintelligible.

* The Harvard fight song "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard" is perhaps one of the oldest examples of this. Most people know the fourth verse only and some know the dog-Latin first verse ("Illegitinum non carborundum"), but during the instrumental parts the percussion section sings a filthy pseudo-Latin second verse that ends in a raucous English "and save some for me" and a third verse that consists entirely of "la" and "fuck" (these date back to at least the 1940s). The dirty verses are mostly inaudible due to the instruments drowning them out (which is the intent).

* In "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" by [[The Offspring]], "They're gonna kick his lilly a__" is usually censored with either a bleep or a drum hit.

* Big & Rich's "Rollin' (The Ballad of Big & Rich)" has "I'm a crazy son of a [bad word] / But I know I'm gonna make it [[Stealth Pun|big and rich]]." Another voice literally says "bad word" over the offending word.

* Two comedy bits that used this: Jim Backus' "Dirty Old Man" and Hudson & Landry's "Obscene Phone Bust."

* Unexpectedly used, or at least implied, in ''[[Adventures in Odyssey]]''. Jason struggles to get an uncooperative answering machine to work...

{{quote|'''Jason''': Operate! Operate, you worthless hunk of- ''[BEEEP!]''}}

* Used in the [[Hudson and Landry]] skit, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=676MEmAPAWA "Obscene Phone Bust"]. A variety of sound effects are used to censor the Badmouth's insults to the cops, what exactly he said to women on the phone, and also his name and ''how it is spelled''.

{{quote|'''Officer''': Now just a minute! What's your name, badmouth?

** "Meet the Scout" and "Meet the Spy" do it too, but less as a gag and more to make a point: "If you were from where I was from, you'd be f***in' dead." in the former, "And now he's here to f*** ''us!''" in the latter.

*** This is also present in the Spanish "[http://store.steampowered.com/app/5063/ Meet The Sniper]" video. In the English video, there is no such bleep (the English line is "I gotta be honest with ya: My parents...do not care for it").

* ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]''

** The end of ''[[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando]]'' has [[Girl of the Week|Angela]] yelling "What the *HONK* is going on around here!?" Her mouth was also black barred, so no lip reading, either.

* [[Leisure Suit Larry]] 7 features a pirate named Peggy who swears every other word, but each one is bleeped out. They even bleep out the word "stump".

* ''[[Da Capo]]'': Suginami helpfully whispers to Nemu the ''other'' meaning to her "[[Innocent Innuendo|I want you to do it both ways]]", ending with a confused Nemu saying "Please ???? my ????, and take your ???? and put it deep and stir, niisan?"

* In the video game compilation ''Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits'' (and in subsequent re-released versions, including Midway Arcade Treasures), whenever Eugene Jarvis says a naughty word in the various interview segments, he's bleeped out by the sound effect from Defender (and its sequel) that's heard when a lander kidnaps a human.

* ''[[Sam and Max]] Season 2'' has Timmy Two-Teeth, whose dialogue is mostly bleeped out because he has "terminal [[Hollywood Tourettes|Tourettes Syndrome]]". In the Season Finale, ''What's New Beelzebub?'', you find {{spoiler|the bleeps are being produced by Hugh Bliss, who is working in [[Take That|the FCC Department]] of Hell.}}

{{quote|"You have got to be [Flarking] [Pooping] me! [Flarking] [Pooping] me!"}}

** One comic censors [[Flipping the Bird|fingers]] ([[Rule of Funny|ineffectively]]) with little black boxes saying things like "[How] [Rude!]"

** [http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=061024 Or two.]

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' used a [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20000716.html bleep-concealing box] on several occasions, [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20060222.html often to hilarious effect.]

** Best of all....

{{quote|'''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...'''}}

** [[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.

** Ironiclly 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.