Favorite Live TV Bloopers?

[Tim-In-Houston]

Close, Tim....got it, it was Don Ohlmeyer,and, for what it's worth, here are some comments from Wikipedia:

Arrgh!  Thanks for the correction.  I thought it was odd that "Eric Overmeyer" was suddenly a producer for "Law & Order" after being president of NBC West Coast.  I gotta start doing research again when I want to respond.

[LABreeze]

There's also another SNL moment from the 1980-81 season (when the show producer role was taken over by by Lorne Michael's weak successor Jean Doumainian (sp?) and man was her stint as a producer went bitterly south after that). There was an episode when Charlene Tilton (Lucy from Dallas) hosted the show. If anyone can remember at the close of the show when they were saying their goodbyes, series regular, the late Charles Rocket uttered these words that shocked viewers (depending on who was really watching at the time): "Charlene, can you please tell us who the f*** shot JR?" I read somewhere that when Fred Silverman then head of programing at NBC, had wind of this while watching at home and asked, "Did he just say what I think he said on live TV?"

[Stanislav]

There's also another SNL moment from the 1980-81 season (when the show producer role was taken over by by Lorne Michael's weak successor Jean Doumainian (sp?) and man was her stint as a producer went bitterly south after that).

It wasn't terribly far "north" to begin with. With her inept leadership and an entirely new cast (none of whom, except Gilbert Gottfried, ever went on to do anything of value) I think that season set the record for the most profound nosedive in quality of a show from one year to the next.

There was an episode when Charlene Tilton (Lucy from Dallas) hosted the show. If anyone can remember at the close of the show when they were saying their goodbyes, series regular, the late Charles Rocket uttered these words that shocked viewers (depending on who was really watching at the time): "Charlene, can you please tell us who the f*** shot JR?" I read somewhere that when Fred Silverman then head of programing at NBC, had wind of this while watching at home and asked, "Did he just say what I think he said on live TV?"

This was mentioned earlier -- his actual quote was "I'd like to know who the f--k did it." It only went live to the Eastern and Central time zones, of course. It was (obviously) edited out for the West Coast and repeats. You know, this might turn up on YouTube someday -- after all, it was 1980, and that's 5 years into the VCR era. Someone, somewhere taped it live that night and has a Beta or VHS tape sitting in a box in a closet somewhere. I'd like to see it less for Rocket's f-bomb and more for the reactions of the rest of the folks on stage. I understand Charlene Tilton did a major shocked, covering her mouth "take" while the regular cast kind of half-smiled and looked at each other nervously (probably thinking, "oh, well....guess I'll be looking for a job tomorrow.....")

[LABreeze]

The sad truth about the fall 1980 season under Doumanian's supervision, is that the whole concept of the truancy of SNL was all worng. The theme music was changed up but the closer theme remained the same. It's no wonder the 1980 mini-season of SNL took a big nosedive in viewership and that the sketches in the show we're not all that funny. Unfortunately another program that was ABC's answer to the show was Fridays. From there it did a lot better than the three and a half month wonder Jean went and sabotaged.

And thanks for the actual quote that late Charles Rocket said about who shot JR. After that series he was out of the job as a series regular.

I wonder what other slip-ups live TV can do nowadays?

[Stanislav]

And thanks for the actual quote that late Charles Rocket said about who shot JR. After that series he was out of the job as a series regular.

No big loss, to be sure. My cat is funnier than he ever was. 

I wonder what other slip-ups live TV can do nowadays?

If it's live, it's ripe for a blooper. Although, nowadays nothing is really "live" because the FCC is cracking down on even unplanned, spontaneous profanity. If you're doing a live shot somewhere and a passerby looks at the camera and shouts an obscenity, that could be 5 or 6-digit dollar fine, even though there is no way to control that sort of thing. So everyone is on delay now. What's funny is when all three major news channels (CNN, MSNBC, Fox) are covering an event like a press conference, and if you flip back and forth, they are all out of sync with each other on this supposedly "live" remote, cos they are all using different delays. 

I don't care about profanity (to me, there are no inherently "dirty" words -- just words that have been randomly designated as dirty by people who can't deal with reality). What is far more offensive to me is the mangling of the English language that takes place by supposedly educated news anchors and reporters. You can't watch more than an hour of CNN or its ilk without hearing at least a couple of words (that any 8th grader should know) horribly mispronounced. And when they don't do that, they just make up words. When the hell did "effort" become a verb? ("We are efforting to get him on the phone...") What -- "making an effort" is too wordy now? And when did "white supremacist" become "white supremist?" Three syllables too many to deal with, so we'll just arbitrarily drop one?

(You have to forgive me.....I'm about to turn 50 and am plunging headlong into the "cranky old guy" phase of my life....) 

[WMC2006]

Wow....you are almost a half-century old 

We will effort to buy you a birthday cake.    

[Stanislav]

Wow....you are almost a half-century old 

Yup...when I was born, probably 95%+ of TVs were black-and-white (and they were about as big as a small piano), videotape had only been used commercially for a couple of years, UHF was still a mystery to many folks (you either used channel strips, a converter, or if you were lucky a built-in continuous tuner that was almost impossible to "lock" on to a station), no satellite feeds, coaxial cable only covering from the biggest markets down to mid-size (dozens of stations still relying on delayed kinescopes/tapes or off-air pickups for their network service), tons of small markets where you could still only pick up one station (if that), etc., etc. Now look how far TV has come -- see how beneficial my presence on earth has been the last 50 years!!