I was watching the episode "Log 76: The Militants" and noticed that one of the members of the militant group used what I believe was the n-word. He referred to a "house n-" but the audio was purposely clipped on the MeTV broadcast. So I assume in the original version of the episode the character used the word and it aired unedited.
Can anyone confirm whether or not it was indeed as I suspected?
I can't recall the scene in that particular episode, but there's another episode where a robber is identified as a black man, but when Malloy & Reed catch him, it's a white guy wearing a wig and blackface. I believe he uses the "n" word as well. Not sure if MeTV will air that word, but I think they did before at least once.
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I was thinking about this topic recently myself.
TV changed more in the early-'70s than any other five year period in terms of content. And things going on in the culture during the '60s which television didn't dare address were being dealt with on TV left-and-right by the early part of the '70s.
And between 1971 and 1974, some TV shows -- certain cop shows, and of course the political sitcom ALL IN THE FAMILY -- used the "N-word" a few times, but I think network executives quickly realized there was just no way to incoporate the word into TV series dialogue for purposes of realism because the word was just too awful.
So they stopped. After that, you might hear the word on something like ROOTS in 1977, but not in a primetime weekly series anymore.
Even today, more than 40 years later, the word is bleeped in reruns, and probably rightly so.
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The most profound of sin is tragedy unremembered.