G Science

Angel, Avatar The Last Airbender, Bones, Buffy, CSI, Desperate Housewives, Heroes, Prison Break, Ranma_½, Hellsing, Lost, Terminator TSCC, The Big Bang Theory, Two And A Half Men, Blink and you’ll miss it, but if you have the pause button ready to go then you’ll get an extra treat at the end of every show produced by Chuck Lorre Productions. We’re all familiar with vanity cards (even if we didn’t know it). They’re the credits at the end of the show that tell you who produced the show. Some are memorable such as Gary David Golberg’s “Sit, Ubu, Sit! Good dog”, J.J. Abrams’ “Bad Robot” or Joss Whedon’s “Grr! Argh!”. But then there is Lorre’s. Chuck Lorre personalizes his vanity cards for each show he works on, and they are very often funny and many times poignant. I look forward to Lorre’s vanity cards at the end of every episode of ‘The Big Bang Theory’, but last night’s really caught my attention because the card spoke of how the first card he submitted was rejected by CBS. Well this had me intrigued, so I went hunting for the original and was happy to find that all former vanity cards had been posted. Here’s the vanity card that aired at the end of last night’s “The Big Bang Theory: CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #198 Censored! Well, wouldn’t ya’ know it. Just two episodes back from the strike and I’ve already managed to write a vanity card that is completely unacceptable to the good folks at CBS. I wasn’t trying to offend. Honest. I just saw an opportunity to poke some proverbial fun, to knosh on the hand that feeds, if you will. They were not amused. If you would like to read my latest exercise in poor judgement, I’m sure you can find it somewhere on that thing we writers were striking to claim dominion over. Just to be on the safe side, I apologize in advance. Please know that my aim was only to provoke a bit of gaiety through the judicious use of a little thing I like to call “the truth.” Unfortunately, in the television business, the truth rarely sets anyone free. More often than not, it just pisses them off. After the jump is the original #198 that was censored by CBS… CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #198 (CENSORED) In tonight’s episode we explored the subject of lying to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. During the climactic final scene, the character of “Cousin Leo” blamed his fabricated drug addiction on having been molested in the Philippines by an equally fabricated Naval officer named Chaplain Horrigan. In the original shooting script the make-believe molester was called Father Horrigan. CBS strongly objected to this. Their concern was that Catholic viewers would be offended by any suggestion that a Catholic priest would molest a child. I argued that several billion dollars in punitive damage payments established a reasonable link between priests and diddled kids. My argument fell on deaf ears (no offense to our hearing-impaired viewers). Outraged, I decided I was an eight-hundred pound gorilla and threatened to shoot the scene as written. Their lawyers, eight-pound spider monkeys at best, threatened to cut it. I immediately blinked and changed the word “father” to “chaplain.” CBS’s problem went away. Apparently, a non-denominational, drunken pedophile is inoffensive. But more importantly, our Catholic viewers did not get their feelings hurt. Now you have something more to look forward to after watching ‘The Big Bang Theory’ (besides ‘How I Met Your Mother’ of course).