The Wonderful World of TCM: The Survivors.

What better way to kick off Movie Week here at Cultureshark than to revisit the Wonderful World of TCM? Our good friends at Turner Classic Movies offered a relative rarity last month in the 1983 Michael Ritchie film "The Survivors," an offbeat comedy co-starring Walter Matthau and Robin Williams, who get a lot of help from Jerry Reed.

I don't have a lot of in-depth analysis on the movie here, but I agree wholeheartedly with Ivan at TODY, who opined...

Yes, I know this movie is uneven and has more holes than Albert Hall. I don’t care.

He calls it one of his own guilty pleasures. Go read Ivan's take on "The Survivors," and then I'll share my own interest here.

Here's where I confess to a little thrill at not just seeing a lesser known but entertaining picture on TCM in the wee hours, but at hearing the magical F-bomb--you know, variations of the word known here as "f***" because I consider this a family blog and in my family we don't know how to spell with asterisks--on Turner Classic.

That's right, call me immature, call me juvenile, Call Me Bwana (sorry, but it was Bob Hope night Sunday on TCM), but I do get a kick out of hearing salty language on The Filthiest Cable Channel Known to Mankind.

Well, it's far from the filthiest channel, of course, but isn't it fun hearing a naughty word or two in there sometimes? I mean, I 'd hate to hear hardcore profanity on the channel all the time, or even often, but as long as it's mostly confined to later hours and special occasions, I have zero problem.

Quite the contrary--I chuckle at the notion of the hip but still basically staid TCM entertaining this kind of language. For all I know, esteemed host Bobby Osbo sounds like mid-1980s Eddie Murphy off camera, but in my mind, he doesn't even think the f-word. Even if Tony Curtis lets it slip during some anecdote about "Some Like It Hot," I believe Bobby's internal filter processes it, automatically changes the letters to asterisks, and only then lets the word pass safely into his noggin.

On a more serious note, seeing and hearing this kind of thing on Turner Classic is a reminder of the network's commitment to screening uncut movies in their original form whenever possible. TCM even showed Jamie Lee Curtis' breasts via "Trading Places" last year. I believe Bobby Osbo's internal filter processes female breasts by...eh, let's not go there.