Penn & Teller: Bullshit! - Title

Title

Since the show's title contains an obscenity (by common standards in the United States), the series is often listed in newspaper television listings there under the alternate title B.S. Some printings of the show's DVD releases also carry this alternate title. Dish Network and DirecTV list the show as Penn & Teller: Bulls...! Comcast Digital Cable lists the show as "Penn & Teller: Bull!" Netflix lists it as "Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t", while the iTunes Store lists "Penn & Teller: BS" (though one of its graphic icons for it has "BULL SH T" with Teller standing about where the I should be). This bowdlerization makes searching difficult. On Netflix, typing "bullshit" in the search box results in Bullitt as the top result, while doing the same in iTunes gives various songs with the word in their title (rendered as "B******t" but searchable by the complete word). Neither returns the Penn & Teller program in its results for this query.

In the "Profanity" episode, Penn tells the viewers that the planned title for Bullshit! was Humbug! This, Penn goes on to say, relates their skepticism (and TV show) to Harry Houdini's reactions to the popular misconceptions of his day; but the idea was scrapped because humbug had less of an impact than the more profane, more informal word, bullshit. It is also discussed during the profanity episode that humbug was considered as profane at one time as bullshit today. During that same episode, Penn and Teller themselves did not use any profanity, even changing the name of the show to Humbug! for that episode. At one point, Penn suggests the use of the phrase Jesus Christ! by a non-Christian is not profanity, but as Teller apparently drops a bowling ball on his foot just as he mentions the phrase, his yelling of the expression makes its use ambiguous. (See Wikiquote's transcription of the quote.)

When discussing Bullshit! on his radio show, Penn would either break the word in half, usually with a clap and a slight pause, for example BullsHit, or change it to Bullshot. He would also frequently refer to Criss Angel's show "Mind Freak" and how it was "the perfect title, everyone KNOWS what you mean and you can advertise", whereas they could not. In an episode of the public radio program Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, Penn refers to the show as Bushlit.