Hot Stuff

Perhaps due to attrition, editing has never been worse at a lot of major magazines.  I constantly see errors in the two bibles of show biz, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

For instance, in the latter, there was recently an oral history of the sitcom M*A*S*H.  Here's a story about censorship from star Alan Alda.

Alda:  I wrote an episode where Margaret sees a jock strap on the table and starts going nuts.  "How dare you parade that thing before me?"  Standards and Practices said we couldn't show a jock strap.  I got really angry because we'd had countless episodes where we showed braziers and women's panties.  Hawkeye had walked through a clothesline and had them slapping him in the face. Is there something holy about the male genitalia?  They never gave a good reason.  They just stuck to it.

Now it's possible they'd shown a lot of braziers in previous episodes.  Perhaps one had even slapped Hawkeye in the face.  But somehow, I think he was referring to brassieres.