TVSquad

(UPDATE: Series creator Greg Garcia responded in the comments to this post that he was the one that decided to insert the bleep. After he left the comment, I called up his office and talked to him about his decision. That conversation is here.)

As Mike S. pointed out in his review of My Name is Earl, a TV Squadder pointed out to him that the word "Amish" was bleeped out of the show right at the beginning of the episode. That TV Squadder would be me. I noticed that right at the beginning of the episode, as Earl and Randy are helping Catalina wax a hirstute neighbor, Earl's voiceover says something like this: "You know how the <silence> go around the village and raise money to build a barn? That's what we did to get Wilma to wax her moustache."

Of course, you know that weirdly silent moment was a word that was bleeped in post-production. And, given the fact that the Amish community is still reeling from the school shooting that occurred earlier this week, and that the community does exactly what Earl described, chances are pretty good that NBC bleeped the word "Amish" from the show at the last minute, in deference to the school shooting in Lancaster County, PA earlier this week.

It seems like every time I've seen Mike O'Malley in a show, he's wearing a baseball cap. He wore a cap on those ESPN ads where he was "The Rick." He wore a cap on the crappy Mike O'Malley Show. He wore a cap on Yes, Dear (even when he got a job as a security guard, he got to wear a cap). And now I noticed that, on his My Name Is Earl guest stint, he was wearing a cap (when his character, Stuart, wasn't in his cop uniform... then he was wearing a police hat). Rich told me that his cap was off during the Earl episode, but it must have been quick, since I missed it.

It's weird, isn't it? I mean, I know why he wears the cap: he's bald as a billiard ball. And I've seen hatless photos of him on the Internet. So here's what I'm wondering: does he have "wears a ball cap" written into every role? Is there a clause in his contract that his character must wear a cap? Does he just wear hats out of what is probably a huge personal collection? Does he realize that this cap thing he's got restricts him to roles centering around slobs and baseball players (well, at least he'd be ready if he's ever cast in The David Wells Story)?

This is something that keeps me up at night. Well, that and global warming. But that cap thing... that the real head-scratcher.