“$%@!”

Reviewing Network Standards on language to be broadcast in an upcoming family sitcom, the Senior Vice President of CBS Program Practices concludes, “We take ‘screwed.’” His dutiful subordinate informs she will follow up on the other outstanding matter. “I’ll call Amy about ‘smart ass.’”

On a subsequent occasion reviewing similar policy while monitoring a Late Show taping, the same executive concludes, “Show the ‘mother’ but pixilate the ‘fucker.’”

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Spending the day in a SoHo studio recording public service announcements promoting the life-saving value of pap smears and prostate exams in the same space where porn videos are reportedly shot, our production team works with the stylist who crafted hair & make-up for talent in the ubiquitous Snuggie commercial that went viral.  

“Never mind every other shoot I’ve worked” she declares, dismissing her entire body of output on features, commercials and episodic TV.  “They sold over 30 million units of that blanket with sleeves. That’s my claim to fame!”

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Spying vaginal contraceptive film atop the pile of papers on a colleague’s desk, I avert my eyes so as not to stare conspicuously at an item of such intimacy in her personal space. 

Days later, I learn it was a product sample submitted to Program Practices accompanying advertising claims subject to review.

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Piled unceremoniously in a heap behind discarded files are framed certificates proclaiming Cine Eagle Awards won in recent years for various public service projects. 

“Why don’t you hang these on the wall and display them proudly?” asks the intern as she sifts through the neglected laurels and reads the inscriptions revealing the subjects of the accolades titled Holiday Pap Smear, Colonoscopy Sweepstakes and Holiday Prostate with Dr. Schloffengut.

“What you working on now?” she almost hesitates to ask.

I explain the current follow-up to last year’s successful campaign promoting colon cancer awareness and quote its call to action: “If you act now, you can win a free enema!”