And Jane Fonda thought the reception she got after Vietnam was rough.
The two-time Oscar winner has the Parent Television Council up in arms over her inadvertent use of the C-word as she was discussing her role in the upcoming 10th-anniversary performance of The Vagina Monologues during an appearance on the Today show.
Fonda had been telling cohost Meredith Vieira about turning down an offer to read a piece containing the offensive word—she used the term to further press her point about why she said no.
"I said, 'I don't think so, I've got enough problems,' " the 70-year-old actress recounted. (Check out a video of the exchange in The Hum.)
Because Today is run under the auspices of NBC News, it is not subject to the same delay as the network's entertainment fare.
Meanwhile, the Peacock could end up with a whole host of problems, thanks to Fonda's slip-up and the PTC's ever-watchful eye (or always open ears), although the word was silenced and Fonda's face covered by a still photo when the show aired in Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones.
Vieira, sending there would be controversy, explained onair about 10 minutes later that Fonda had quoted a word from a play that, as a rule, doesn't have a place on broadcast television.
"It was a slip, and obviously she apologizes, and so do we," she said, presumably feeling Diane Sawyer's pain when the Good Morning America host had to deal with the aftermath of Diane Keaton's impromptu F-bomb. "We would do nothing to offend the audience, so please accept that apology."
Alas, some were offended.
"There is no excuse for airing one of the most patently offensive words in the English language on broadcast television, especially at the breakfast hour," PTC president Tim Winter, a former NBC employee, said in a statement Thursday.
"While NBC's apology is helpful, it is not enough—millions of families were indeed offended. NBC must change it's broadcasting practices and implement a time-delay on all of its live broadcasts, thereby ensuring that this type of language does not air on the publicly-owned airwaves…
"Just a few weeks ago, ABC's Good Morning America allowed the F-word to slip by unbleeped. How many times does this have to happen before expletives are no longer 'fleeting'?" The public is entitled to the expectation that television is not going to assault their families during certain times of day and NBC clearly violated that expectation today."
Added Winter: "Concerned citizens must petition the FCC in order to communicate clearly to NBC that this type of language is a violation of their broadcast licenses."
The FCC, not usually one to shy away from a fine these days, will likely be all ears.