I caught the last half hour of a great interview with Roger Ebert on the Howard Stern Show this morning. Although Ebert was on to promote his new book, the interview itself was all around funny and interesting and it showed that Ebert and Stern both possess a quick wit and a good deal of intelligence.

One thing that was fascinating: Ebert told a story about the last time Ebert saw his friend, Russ Meyer, alive. If you don't know who Russ Meyer is, go read this work-safe article. Anyway, the "punchline" of the anecdote involved something Meyer had said on his hospital bed about a nurse and it contained the t-word.

But rather than just bleep the offensive word, the entire end of the Ebert's story was edited right out. What made it fascinating was that when the edit occured, at that instant Stern wasn't even sure what had made it out onto the airwaves, he had to check with his producer. What ensued was then a discussion of the FCC and its current censorship crusade.

Ironically, Stern's show is usually much raunchier and this anecdote was actually quite innocent in comparison, but because it contained a single offensive word it was cut out...