4 Classic Comedy Shows Targeted By the Religious Right

1 Three’s Company

For all the commotion around Three’s Company being at the forefront of Jiggle TV in the 1970s, there was surprisingly little sex on the sitcom. Naughty misunderstandings, sure, but none of the roommates engaged in so much as a kiss.

That didn’t stop Wildmon and the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) from planning a “blitz” against Three’s Company. “It is not that we are against sex,” said NRB spokesperson Carl Richardson, according to Come and Knock on Our Door: A Hers and Hers and His Guide to Three’s Company. “What we are concerned about is gratuitous, excessive and perverted sexuality being depicted on screen. I don’t think homosexuality and impotence are matters to joke about.” 

Singer Anita Bryant joined in, complaining that Three’s Company made homosexuality seem “natural and normal,” despite no actual gay characters existing on the show.

The protests backfired, as the criticism helped propel Three’s Company to the top of the ratings. 

2 Saturday Night Live

From its first episode, when a representative of the Archbishop of New York called to complain about George Carlin’s God monologue, the religious right had issues with Saturday Night Live. 

Wildmon, now fronting the American Family Association, took particular offense to a 1998 sketch called “Nude Beach,” or as it was known around the office, “The Penis Sketch.” The offending bit was written by two young scribes named Conan O’Brien and Robert Smigel.

Wildmon organized a letter-writing barrage that sent 46,000 complaints to NBC, according to Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live. The protests led to Domino’s Pizza, Ralston Purina and General Mills pulling their ads, but as you may have noticed, SNL carried on for another 36 seasons and counting anyway. 

3 Family Guy

It was bad enough that the American Television Council tried to get Fox to boot Family Guy. To make matters worse, at least one of its zealots attempted to recruit a cast member to join the cause.

That was Patrick Warburton’s mother, even though the comic actor was supporting her with the money he made from the show. “She tried to get me to sign the petition,” Warburton says of the woman who passed out anti-masturbation pamphlets in his neighborhood while he was a teen. “I said, 'Mom, if you don’t think I’m going to talk about this publicly, this is the greatest irony. You’re laundering money, you’re laundering it to yourself.”

Not all of his family’s letters and petitions went to advertisers. Warburton’s religious father wrote him a six-page letter after Warburton appeared shirtless on Seinfeld, just to let his son know how disappointed he was.

4 Married… With Children

A woman named Terry Rakolta almost got Married… With Children canceled, thanks to her anger over sex-themed jokes told during “the Family Hour.” She wrote letters to advertisers accusing them of “pandering and supporting soft core pornography,” threatening to lead a boycott if they continued their sponsorship.

Somehow, the press got wind of the one-woman campaign, and others jumped on board. Ultraconservative Jesse Helms squawked about the show on the floor of the U.S. Senate, according to Married… With Children Against the World. Fox was still a fledgling network at the time, and its nervous executive vice president, Rob Kenneally, called Rakolta to personally apologize. 

The woman’s campaign had a two-pronged effect. First, she succeeded in convincing major sponsors, such as Coca-Cola and Kimberly-Clark, to pull their ads.

But the publicity spotlighting the show’s raunchy comedy alerted viewers that Married… With Children contained some spicy laughs. Rather than getting the show canceled, the hubbub surrounding Rakolta’s complaints increased the sitcom's ratings by a whopping 117 percent.