A COUPLE OF TV NO-NOS SEEN & HEARD ON 'SNL' & '60 MINS.'
"Saturday Night Live" viewers apparently don't give a, uh, er . . .
darn . . . about profanity. But viewers of CBS' "60 Minutes" do care about
getting bare breasts with their news.
NBC didn't receive a single call in reaction to cast member Cheri Oteri's accidentally uttering the s-word during Saturday's telecast, according to a source familiar with the situation.
On the other hand, CBS, according to a spokesman, received a higher-than normal amount of calls commenting about "60 Minutes' " telecast of a brief snippet from the film "SOB" in which Julie Andrews flashes her breasts.
"I didn't have to show them," "60 Minutes" executive producer Don Hewitt, said of the brief shot. "But this was the complete Julie Andrews. She's not Mary Poppins."
Hewitt said he was surprised that folks complained about the clip, considering what else was said during the segment.
"I really thought the line where she said Blake Edwards told her she had 'lilacs for pubic hairs' sounded more racy than the 'SOB' scene," Hewitt said.
"I'm sorry if we offended anyone," he added.
Unlike the case with "60 Minutes," Oteri's "SNL" swearing wasn't planned. The comic dropped the line "You believe this s---?" during a skit when her outfit got stuck on a prop.
Citing company policy, a show spokesman declined to say whether the program received any viewer calls following the telecast.
"It was truly an accident," he said of the incident.
He added that Oteri, a first-year cast member, would not be punished
for her indiscretion. NBC editors bleeped the offending word on the taped
feed for West Coast viewers.