William Clotworthy, ‘Saturday Night Live’ censor, dies at 95

William Clotworthy, who as the in-house censor for Saturday Night Live from 1979-1990 decided whether Eddie Murphy could say “bastard,” whether Joe Piscopo could make fart jokes and whether inebriated Romans could vomit on network television, died Aug. 19. He was 95.

Clotworthy, who described himself as “a professional square,” had never seen an episode of Saturday Night Live when he arrived in 1979, coming off a career of nearly 30 years in advertising and looking for a midlife career change.

His predecessors had struggled with the late-night sketch show’s limits-pushing humor, and often rejected entire skits. Clotworthy was different. A trained actor, he fell in love with the show and its brand of satire, and he worked with its writers to tweak questionable material.

“A writer once asked me what was the first thing I did when I read a script, and I said, ‘I laugh,’ ” he wrote in his memoir, Saturday Night Live: Equal Opportunity O≠ender (2001). “After I laugh, then I go to work with the scissors and blue pencil.”