Complaints Against Penn & Teller’s <i>Bullshit!</i>

Thank you, Freedom of Information Act.

Governmentattic has a collection of complaints made to the FCC regarding Penn & Teller‘s Bullshit!

It’s amazing how many people don’t know how to change the channel or can’t stand any form of criticism against their beliefs.

Here’s the PDF of the complaints.

These are my favorite pages:

Page 6 — It includes this comment by Catholic League president Bill Donohue: “In the 12 years that I have been president of the Catholic League, I have never witnessed a more vicious attack on Catholicism than what appeared this week on [the show].”

Funny. He called Chocolate Jesus “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.” Does he keep a list of the worst attacks somewhere?

Page 12 — He saw an online commercial for the show! The horror!

Page 21 — It includes the phrases, “Old black Martin Luther King loves watermelon and red ripple” and “Greedy Rabbi Gold steals his brother’s money and copulates with his brother’s wife.”

(via Reason)

[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

Michael

Penn & Teller ROCK!

But as for this, its just another attempt to censor the free speech of critics. Nothing new, but still just as pathetic. 🙁
writerdd

As I’m sure Penn would say, fuck the FCC and fuck the assholes who don’t know how to change the fucking channel.
Siamang

My favorites are the Daily Show ones. Bonus points for poor spelling and grammar there.

Reading them is just hilarious:

When Jon Stewart described losing his keys as “bad”, I think after that he said that the apocolypse was “shitty”. It didn’t get bleeped, and usually you guys are pretty good at that. Either you slipped up or my ears are going bad, but I played it about 10 times and I’m pretty sure that’s what he said. Either way, please email me at the address above just to let me know. Thanks.

Last night I was watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, on the Comedy Channel, 7 PM, during one of
the pieces about Madonna visiting Isareal, he mentioned her “TIT CONES” on TV.
BZ

Isn’t the Catholic League one guy with a computer?
Tim D.

Isn’t the Catholic League one guy with a computer?

And this is why I love coming here.
Rovakur

See this? Oh…yeah, no you can’t… Well, I’m playing the world’s smallest viola (which I once played…so going with the cliche/violin feels wrong).

[imitation original block quote :)] Isn’t the Catholic League one guy with a computer?

And this is why I love coming here.

Me, too. 🙂 What’s even more amazing is that all these complaints were made by only two individuals: Piss and Moan.

Thanks for the .pdfs Hermant and Siamang.

Just an aside… Did you know Teller is his full legal name?
Spook

Hm. Interesting, but do their complaints really matter? This stuff is all on cable – surely the FCC hasn’t started leaning on them now, have they?
Mriana

Funny. He called Chocolate Jesus “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.”

Hey! I thought that was the sweetest one. 😆
aidan

The Catholic League aka Donohue and a small ex-nun called Philomena, frequently create the impression that the values of Roman Catholicism should somehow govern conduct in civil society. The RC’s don’t ‘own’ Jesus. They don’t possess any copyright that I’m aware of. Yet any time a perceived slight is directed at the person of J, Donohue and minions charge and grab headlines. It might only be a Jesus joke, but if it gets enough play in the media old Bill will be on the case.

One reason the Catholic League offends me on a very personal level is because in my former homeland of N. Ireland the Church exercised a form of ecclesiastical tyranny for centuries. Ireland is just now beginning to throw off the yoke of Roman dominion. I was heartened to read about a poll in which the Irish voted 90% plus in support of access to the over-the-counter ‘morning after’ pill. Needless to say the dinosaurs in the Vatican were none too pleased.
simple z

Every sunday att 10 or 11, Swedish tv broadcasts a mass/service from som church in Sweden. One single hour of a secular week.

We have heard angry complaints about that, tv has been sent lots of letters and email.

I would like to remind swedish atheists to use the same button you are referring to, and simply turn of the telly. It’s possible and can be done.
HappyNat

Thanks for the laughs, some of those complaints are classic. One of the ones from Siamang was about a promo that ran between Chappelle and South Park. You watch those two and are bother by a comercial?

Speaking of South Park and Bill Donohue . . . There is a great South Park (Fantastic Easter Special)where Donohue takes power from the Pope and throws Jesus (“the Jew”) in jail for going against the church. I wonder what Bill thought when he saw that episode.
NYCatheist

Back in 2005, I wanted to watch the episode “Holier Than Thou” (Season 3, episode 5) but for some odd reason it was missing from the list of available episodes on my Showtime On Demand channel. I called my cable company, Time Warner, and they said it wasn’t their fault because they just offer what is transmitted from Showtime. I then e-mailed Showtime and they told me it wasn’t their fault either because all episodes are available on their end. So why was it missing? I still have no idea. Someone was blocking it. Was it because that episode criticized Mother Teresa? When I checked the fan forum on Showtime, many other people, but not everybody, had the same problem. It was very annoying, and unsettling too. This wasn’t a “free” broadcast channel. This was cable! I was paying for it! Showtime has soft-core porn late at night, but they (or was it Time Warner??) block a show criticizing a religious figure. Argh!
Kurt77

What I find a little scary is in one of the complaints someone states that they think it’s time to “Pull the plug” on freedom of speech.

Complaints Against Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!