Summary
- Robin Williams was a master at improvisation and pushing boundaries, as demonstrated by his appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in 2013.
- Williams playfully mocked the CBS censors, testing their limits.
- His ability to sneak in foul language and jokes past TV censors was not limited to this appearance.
Robin Williams was one of the most electric comedians of all time. He had a lightning-quick wit, and could spin a joke out of seemingly anything, as evidenced by his numerous comedy films and stand-up specials. Williams was also a gifted improviser, however, which was made abundantly clear whenever he was invited on to late night talk shows.
Williams dazzled the likes of Johnny Carson and David Letterman, but he saved arguably his most outlandish performance for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in 2013. Within a few seconds of sitting down with the host, Williams proceeded to mock the CBS censors and figure out workarounds for some off-color remarks.
Robin Williams Used Replacement Swear Words During His Late Late Show Appearance With Craig Ferguson
Robin Williams was a frequent guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, as he got on incredibly well with the host. The two comedians would often make jokes in a fake Scottish accent, which they did during the 2013 appearance, but the conversation quickly went off the deep end when Williams inexplicably joked about putting a finger in a certain part of a cat's body.
The audience howled with laughter, and Williams, emboldened by the response, went on to ask the off-screen CBS censor (a recurring character on Ferguson's Late Late Show) whether he could say the words "lick a cat" without getting into trouble.
He managed to get the seal of approval, but then he pushed things a step too far when he said a word that was visually as well as audibly censored on the show. It's difficult to tell what the censored word is, but judging by the face of the CBS censor, who smiled and shook his head, it's safe to assume that the word is another, less appropriate term for a cat.
Still, Williams seized the opportunity to get another big laugh out of the audience:
"The line is cat, yes, feline, yes, [censored word], no!"
The conversation between Williams and Ferguson actually continued to toe the line when it comes to censorship as they threw out other terminology that verged on crude, including:
- "Cunning linguistics"
- "Talking in tongues"
Robin Williams' Jokes Led Craig Ferguson To Question The CBS Censors On The Air
Robin Williams clearly had a blast messing with the CBS censors, but part of what made the talk show appearance so funny is the way that Craig Ferguson repeatedly looked over to make sure what his guest was saying was not going to get him in trouble.
After Williams' first joke caused the CBS censors to speak up, Ferguson interjected and asks: "Can he say that?" When he got a "no", the talk show host asserted how famous his guest was, and the audience vocalized their support.
The best part of the exchange is that Williams' bad behavior encouraged Ferguson, who decided to throw in a four-letter word for good measure:
"What do you mean he can't say [that]?! It's Robin f***ing Williams, man!"
The interview calmed down a bit, with Williams and Ferguson discussing the late comedian Jonathan Winters, but Ferguson couldn't help but bring the censorship bit back around and jokingly blamed the CBS censors for making TV less funny than it was in the 1970s:
"This was before all you corporate monkeys took over comedy and sucked all the f***ing joy out of it."
The censored word delighted Williams, in what ended up being his final appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. The actor would die a year later, and Ferguson would remember him fondly during a 2019 appearance on the About Last Night Podcast with Adam Ray. Ferguson called Williams a "friend" and said he "loved" working with him.
Robin Williams Had A Long History Of Sneaking Bad Words Past TV Censors
Robin Williams' appearance on The Late Late Show may have been one of his most iconic in terms of foul language, but the comedian actually had a long history of messing with censors and sneaking in things that would have otherwise been taken out to appease TV ratings.
Williams rose to fame on the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy, and during an interview with Pioneers of Television, he admitted to swearing in different languages during takes, so that the network censors wouldn't be able to tell what he was actually saying.
The fact that he was playing Mork, a literal space alien known for making random statements, made it that much easier to pull things over on the censors. Williams told the outlet that he got so good at it, in fact, that ABC had to hire a censor who spoke 3-4 different languages:
"Eventually they had to have a censor who spoke three or four different languages because I was sneaking things in in different languages. They went 'She knows what that means.' Really? The idea that, you know, we would try different things, and it was just kind of to see what could get under the radar."
The same thing happened when Robin Williams made the jump to making family movies. He famously did multiple takes of scenes, and Chris Columbus, the director of the 1993 hit Mrs. Doubtfire, told Entertainment Weekly that there was an R-rated version of the film that had to be censored so it could appeal to a wider audience:
"We would basically go on anywhere between 15 to 22 takes, I think 22 being the most I remember... [Robin] would sometimes go into territory that wouldn't be appropriate for a PG-13 movie, but certainly appropriate and hilariously funny for an R-rated film."
Williams' propensity for messing with censors in order to get a laugh is part of what made his energetic brand of comedy so appealing for fans. He always pushed the envelope, and did so with a childlike glee that proved infectious, whether it be for Hollywood directors or talk show hosts like Craig Ferguson. We're glad he did.
