Blooper - Examples

Examples

One of the earliest known bloopers is attributed to 1930s radio broadcaster Harry Von Zell, who accidentally referred to then-US President Herbert Hoover as "Hoobert Heever" during an introduction. Reportedly it was upon hearing of this mistake that Kermit Schafer was inspired to begin collecting bloopers, although the exact circumstances of the event have been debated. A similar situation occurred decades later when then-new president Gerald Ford was introduced as "Gerald Smith", the same name as an American Fascist leader from the 1930s.

One famous out-take from Australian television is from the gameshow Who Dares Wins, hosted by former cricketer Mike Whitney. The scene involved Whitney introducing a challenge by throwing a water balloon from hand to hand and delivering the line, "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, and we'd play with water balloons? You'd throw them all over the place and they'd burst and water would go everywhere". The out-takes of this scene, aired after the credits of the show, feature Whitney delivering the line in the following ways:

  • "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, when we were young, when we were kids, when we were young ..."
  • "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, and we'd play with water balloons? You'd throw them all over the place and they'd burst and water would go all over the place. That's two all over the places."
  • "Remember when we were young, when we were kids, and we'd play with water balloons? You'd throw them all over the place and they'd burst and water would go everywhere everywhere."

On an episode of The Red Skelton Show in the 1950s, a skit involving Red's "country bumpkin" character "Clem Kadiddlehopper", had him leading a cow onto the stage. Several seconds into the skit, the cow defecated on-stage during the live broadcast. Whereupon the audience laughed uncontrollably, and Skelton resorted to the use of the ad-lib, saying "Boy, she's a great cow! Not only does she give milk, {pause} she gives Pet-Ritz Pies!" He followed up with, "Why didn't you think of that earlier?", "You have bad breath too!" and finally, "Well, it's like in psychiatry... {long pause} Get it out of your system!" Red then finally broke into laughter, and the network cut to a commercial.

A much-bootlegged recording of Bing Crosby has him singing to a recording of a band playing "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams", when he realizes that the master tape had not been fully rewound, and ad-libbed vocals to the truncated music. He begins, "Castles may tumble, that's fate after all/ Life's really funny that way." Realizing the shortened music, he ad-libs, "Sang the wrong melody, we'll play it back/ See what it sounds like, Hey Hey!/ They cut out eight bars, the dirty bastards/ I didn't know which eight bars he was gonna cut/ Why don't somebody tell me these things around here?/ Holy Christ, I'm goin' off my nut!" This recording was first made available to the public by Kermit Schaefer in Volume 1 of his Pardon My Blooper album series for Jubilee Records in the late 1950s.

On the Wild Bill Hickok radio series in the early 1950s, a newsflash caused an unexpected blooper when it broke into the show. With sound effects providing the sound of horses' hoofs galloping and guns firing, Guy Madison spoke the line "Cut him off at the pass, Jingles!" Whereupon an announcer interrupted with, "We interrupt this program to bring you a bulletin from the Mutual newsroom in New York! According to an announcement from Moscow radio, Lavrenti Beria, former head of the Soviet secret police, has just been executed! We now return you to Wild Bill Hickok." At this point, Andy Devine (as Jingles) was delivering the line "Well, that oughta hold him for a little while, Bill!"

In a similar vein, New York children's radio show host "Uncle Don" Carney supposedly delivered the ad-libbed line "Are we off? Good...well, that oughta hold the little bastards" after signing off on his show one night, thinking his studio microphone was switched off. As a discredited urban legend has it, the remarks went to air, eventually leading to the show's cancellation and "Uncle Don"'s disgrace; apparently, Carney himself would tell the story of his blooper, especially it became popular after the release of Schaefer's records. However, according to the debunking website Snopes.com, not only did the alleged incident never happen, the much distributed recording of the incident was a fabrication. (The alleged incident was even parodied in the 1993 Simpsons episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled".)

An episode of the radio drama Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons was presumably introduced as "Mr. Keen, Loser of Traced Persons." (Bob and Ray once did their own parody of this program under the title "Mr. Trace, Keener Than Most Persons".)

A popular story among Texas broadcasting circles has it that a station manager's late change in programming from Les Brown's orchestra to a religious programme marking the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur led to the staff announcer's billboard urging his listeners to "Stay tuned for the dance music of Yom Kippur's Orchestra." (Many gentile DJ's have urged their Jewish listeners to "Have a happy Yom Kippur!")

A radio commercial for A&P food stores ended with the announcer excitedly blurting out "...and be sure to visit your nearby A & Food P Store!" In much the same vein was an ad for instant tea as came out in the end "Instant White Rose, hot or cold — Orange Tekoe Pee" and a bakery advertising itself as having "the breast bed and rolls you ever tasted; I knew that would happen one night, friends," all the while breaking out in fits of uncontrollable laughter trying to get the line right.

During the Davy Crockett mania of the mid-1950s, a radio ad for children's bedding cashing in on same had the line ". . . with scenes of Davy Crockett in action on the mattress," a clear example of how unintentional double-entendre can translate into blooper material.

A public-service announcement urging young women to volunteer as nurses during a critical shortage thereof ended with the appeal "Volunteer to be one of America's white-clapped angels of mercy," confusing a slang term for infection with syphilis with "white-clad."

The announcer of a radio ad for the 1948 Bob Hope film The Paleface, which costarred buxom actress Jane Russell, enthusiastically promised: "Bob Hope, America's favorite comedian, and Jane Russell...what a pair!"

A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio announcer's station-identification message once allegedly came out "This is the Dominion Network of the Canadian Broadcorping Castration," in turn coining an oft-used sarcastic term for the public broadcaster. Like other blooper recordings distributed by Schaefer, a recreation was created as the original recording was not preserved, leading to debate over whether the event actually happened.

A radio adaptation of Don Quixote over the BBC had one episode ending with the announcer explaining where "I'm afraid we've run out of time, so here we leave Don Quixote, sitting on his ass — a word that could refer either to the buttocks or to the animal, jackass -- until tomorrow at the same time."

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