NBC CENSORS COMEDIAN’S ‘LIVE’ JOKES

Comedian Sam Kinison, who is known for having the loudest routines in stand-up comedy, is also known for stretching the boundaries of taste to win laughs. On Saturday night he apparently pushed too far for the NBC censors. The comedian got the electronic hook when both audio and pictures were cut off for about 13 seconds during two segments of his five-minute stand-up routine on “Saturday Night Live.”

The NBC censors were able to interrupt the West Coast broadcast of the show (a slide showing last year’s “SNL” cast was put on the screen), but the routine went out unedited in all other markets, according to “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels.

Kinison was talking about the government’s war on drugs when the first of two edits occurred. “They’ve taken the pot, there is no more pot,” Kinison said. “You can’t get any more pot. If you give us back the pot, we’ll forget about the crack.”

According to Michaels, the joke, which Kinison did not perform at the program’s Saturday-evening dress rehearsal, violated a recent policy on drugs at NBC. “They (the censors) didn’t consider his drug references negative enough,” Michaels said in a telephone interview Monday. “The policy at NBC now is that the only references to drugs must be negative.”

The lengthier of the two edits came while Kinison was in the midst of a commentary about TV preachers: The sound suddenly went dead. “I’ve read the Bible, I follow the calendar!” Kinison said just before the picture was killed. Moments later, audiences saw Kinison return saying good night and thanking the audience to loud applause.

Michaels, who in the past has threatened to quit when the censors intervened, said this time he understood. “When you work on network TV you have to play by the rules and Sam didn’t play by the rules,” Michaels said.

The producer said that Kinison had performed a joke about the Crucifixion at dress rehearsal and had been asked to cut it for the show and did not. He said the comedian did not perform the drug joke at any time before the show aired.

“My reaction was mixed because Sam hadn’t done the joke at dress so the censors were unprepared,” said Michaels. “But I disagreed with the decision to cut it. . . It seems foolish to me to say all comments about drugs are pro drug. I thought his comment was a very smart comment.”

Kinison could not be reached for comment by press time.

Kinison also appeared as a guest on “SNL” last season and was edited at that time as well, Michaels said. The show has no time delay at all during broadcast, which made it impossible to interrupt the routine in the East.

Michaels said the nature of the cut was an indication of how times have changed. “What I really resent is the assumption that I or the show are somehow pro-drug, which we certainly are not,” Michaels said.