Late-night TV has always been a game of creative evolution, with hosts borrowing and building on one another’s bits. Steve Allen’s man-on-the-street interviews inspired David Letterman’s remote segments, which in turn laid the groundwork for everything from “Jaywalking” on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show to Jimmy Kimmel’s recurring man-on-the-street questions. And on it goes.
But if we had to bet, we’d say that when the team at Jimmy Kimmel Live! introduced the show’s long-running “This Week in Unnecessary Censorship” segment, they had no idea that concept had once been explored by one of late-night’s earliest icons: Jack Paar.
In 1963, on his Friday night primetime series The Jack Paar Program, the former Tonight Show host debuted a bit that played with TV censorship in almost the exact same way.
In the segment, Paar—much like Kimmel decades later—inserted random bleeps into otherwise harmless sentences, turning them into something unexpectedly risqué. The idea wasn’t just a gag; it was inspired by a real commercial trend of the era.
At the time, Personna brand razor blades was running a popular ad campaign featuring testimonials from customers who claimed they preferred Personna to competing brands like Gillette and Schick—except those rival names were bleeped with a cuckoo-like sound. Paar ran with the idea.
“A show like this that’s considered controversial, it’s hard to get sponsors sometimes,” Paar told his audience. “We’re proud to announce tonight that we have a new sponsor, and it is the makers of [cuckoo sound] razor blades.”
“You’ve all seen those commercials, and it’s a clever technique,” Paar added. “But I was thinking: just removing one word from a commercial like that can change the whole meaning; can make it sound like quite a different proposition.”
He then read a series of bleeped slogans and ad taglines, giving each a new, suggestive twist. Among the targets: Anacin (“Mother, please, I’d rather do it myself”), Arpège perfume (“Promise her everything, but give her Arpège”), and Hertz rental cars (“Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat”).
Fast-forward 40 years, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! premieres with “This Week in Unnecessary Censorship” quickly becoming a signature. The bit even made its way to the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2012. Some of those featured have even celebrated the honor—like the KLAS 8 news team during JKL’s Las Vegas residency in 2019.
In late night, some jokes get passed down—others just resurface when the moment’s right.
