It Was Probably the Right Call to Bleep This Seth Rogen Golden Globes Joke About Ryan Gosling

Some jokes are just too-hot for TV — especially for CBS — even if they’re delivered in the loosey-goosey Golden Globes ballroom (and even when those Golden Globes are hosted by Nikki Glaser).

Ironically, the bleeped (really, it was just an audio dump) joke of Sunday evening was not delivered by Glaser, a veteran standup comedian who has made her bones with vicious roast jokes. No, it was the lovable (and Canadian, so you know he’s polite) Seth Rogen delivering a line about the beloved (and also Canadian) Ryan Gosling.

The setup: Rogen and Catherine O’Hara (another Canadian and the star of “Schitt’s Creek”) were presenting for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television. Jodie Foster would win the trophy for her starring role on “True Detective: Night Country.” (Find all of the night’s winners here.)

But before Foster was announced and could accept the award: the banter. The general joke here was how much Rogen and O’Hara value the Golden Globes, as well as the awards show’s north-of-the-border sibling, the Golden Antlers (not real). They rattled off some funny made-up shows and movies they’ve each received the faux Canadian accolades for: O’Hara as “Mama Morissette” in an Alanis Morrissette biopic and Rogen for portraying a young Gosling in “Gosling,” an unauthorized Gosling biopic. (Morrissette and Gosling are also famously Canadian.)

How unauthorized was that last one? The audio dumped joke: “Yes, it was unauthorized,” Rogen reiterated, “and the Mickey Mouse Club handjob scene was controversial, but we felt very important to depict.”

Art isn’t always pretty, ladies and gentlemen. But it’s important?

Gosling did not attend Sunday’s Golden Globes (zero noms for “The Fall Guy”).

If it wasn’t clear by the Gosling joke, the Globes are generally an (almost) anything-goes atmosphere. The bar is open before the show and during commercial breaks, so the attending celebs know what they’re getting into. Glaser gave it to them good, though most of her jokes were tame by her own established standard. Balance was the order of the evening.

Though Glaser suffered zero audio dumps (for the record, the audio was also censored on streaming service Paramount+, which is not bound to the same FCC rules as broadcast television is), she came close a few times; find her monologue material here.

Dick Clark Productions, which owns and produces the Golden Globes, is a Penske Media company. PMC is also IndieWire’s parent company.