Big Brother clearly wasn't watching over Bryant Gumbel last week. While CBS claims there will be no foul language on their latest reality show, Big Brother (debuts tonight at 9 p.m.), the Eye Network could not censor its Early Show host.
Last Thursday, Gumbel was caught dropping the F-bomb to denounce a guest he had just interviewed. "What a [bleeping] idiot," Gumbel appeared to mouth as a wayward camera swung in on him just as he concluded interviewing Robert Knight, spokesman for the Family Research Council, who had been supporting the Supreme Court decision to allow the Boy Scouts of America to exclude gays.
Gumbel's mike was snapped silent before the expletive could be heard, but The Los Angeles Times reports that a review of the videotape appears to support Knight's claim of rude and inappropriate comment from a so-called newsman.
The accidental airing of the F-word led another conservative group, the American Family Association, to call for Gumbel to be axed, but the organization now says it would settle for an apology. (As would Knight, who tells USA Today that Gumbel "didn't know he was on television.")
For its part, CBS News is denying Gumbel even made a gaffe. In a brief statement, the network says: "During a weather segment on Thursday morning's Early Show, a two-second camera shot with virtually no audio of Bryant getting up from his chair accidentally appeared on the air. He was making a casual remark of some sort, but it is unclear what the comment was and, in any case, it bears no relevance to the content of The Early Show."
Gumbel supposedly went on vacation following Thursday's show. Today a CBS spokesperson was unable to say when he would be back.
The always opinionated Gumbel, whose career and private life have been the subject of considerable controversy, was rehired by the Eye last year in the hopes of raising ratings for the revamped, renamed morning show, which trailed NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America.
In an effort to goose its numbers, The Early Show has recently resorted to blurring the line between news and entertainment, endlessly promoting the network's Survivor and Big Brother. Expelled Survivor castaways have been interviewed on the show the day after getting their torches extinguished on TV. Now, the show's news-reader, Julie Chen, is actually hosting Big Brother, which, of course, was heavily featured on this morning's broadcast.