When it comes to network television, we normally get about 100% of whatever a network produces. There are some exceptions, depending on whether the local station might have a concern about the content of the network program. This is not unusual. I recall an episode of the seemingly harmless sitcom Valerie getting pre-empted in the Albany area because WNYT didn’t want to air a sitcom that featured a character purchasing contraceptives.
Sometimes stations will black out the network show to run their own local content. We never got American Bandstand in this area because the ABC affiliate at that time would show some other program – most likely syndicated crap like The American Sportsman or the like. And I wrote a whole blog post about how WRGB ran a ton of vintage “Movie of the Week” programs before they let this new sci-fi program called Star Trek air in this region.
I say this because … well … you know the situation. You want to watch Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and apparently you can’t. At least for now.
And you might think something like this is unprecedented – that a late night television host would get censored for a joke or a comment.
Well, guess what. Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t the first late night talk show host to run afoul of the suits upstairs.
Let me take you back in time to 1960.
Jack Paar was one of the many hosts of NBC’s The Tonight Show, he was the program’s legendary host prior to Johnny Carson. He was intelligent, he was erudite, and he was not immune to a joke or three that might catch someone off guard.
Well, at one point one of those jokes caught NBC off guard. Paar had a double-entendre joke about mixing up a “water closet” (an old euphemism for the bathroom) for a “wayside chapel,” and, well, the joke pretty much writes itself. Footage of the “water closet / wayside chapel” joke is not available online, but this WordPress blog from 2011 recounts the joke in its entirety.
Now this is 1960, and jokes about toilets and bathrooms were taboo subjects. Heck, television characters didn’t even GO to the bathroom until maybe 1970, when someone heard an audible toilet flush on an episode of All In The Family.
Now NBC didn’t like the “water closet / wayside chapel” joke, and they deleted the pre-recorded comedy bit from The Tonight Show‘s broadcast.
Which upset Paar so much … that he walked off the show.
This was in February of 1960. First, Paar talked about a little wind-up toy – including some discussion about whether the toy’s mechanics would allow certain male or female figurines to kiss each other – then he went into a discussion of the “water closet / wayside chapel” joke itself and its impact … then he left the stage.
Eventually, though, cooler heads prevailed, and Paar returned to the broadcast some time later.
At that time, Paar’s public exodus from The Tonight Show was considered the most resounding form of censorship on a late-night talk show.
Until last week, when Jimmy Kimmel was suspended from his Jimmy Kimmel Live! show for comments that upset the MAGA world. Well, last night, Jimmy Kimmel returned to his late night slot (except in Albany, where WTEN’s parent company Nexstar forbade us to watch the program).
Well, I’m not owned by Nexstar. (checking my WordPress agreement) (yep, no Nexstar)
So if you missed Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue last night …
I got cha covered.
Chuck The Writer 
Let me correct ya, Chuck. The American Sportsman, w/Curt Gowdy & friends, was also an ABC program that was a seasonal Sunday afternoon show during the 60’s, 70’s, & 80’s. American Bandstand eventually made it here, after the first of the affiliate switches, circa 1977, brought ABC to WTEN, or vice versa. Channel 10 carried Bandstand from 1977 until ABC cancelled the show in 1985. At first, channel 10 would black it out in favor of Soul Train, the inner-city equivalent of Bandstand, but they eventually caved, and on some Saturdays, ran the two shows back-to-back.
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