MovieChat Forums > The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) Discussion > What do you think the taboo word Ritche ...

What do you think the taboo word Ritche said was?


What word do you think Rich said and wrote on the black board?

The way they were acting I thought at first it was the F word, BUT for that time it could have been something as simple as "damn" or something. OR could it have been something like "fart"? I remember back when I was in 1st grade we would have been in trouble for using that word even and that was in the mid 80s.

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We'll never know! I think the idea was to leave it to the imagination of the audience. Rob and Laura never used that language so obviously Ritchie picked it up from a friend, maybe the new boy Tommy Kirk.

It's just funnier to imagine what he heard. People will fill in the blank with whatever word is most shocking to them.

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I don't think the D word would have gotten sophisticated suburbanites all riled up in the early 60s. Either the F word or the S word.

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I thought it MIGHT be something like "crap" or "fart", b/c I'm recalling back when I was in 1st grad kids got in trouble for saying EITHER of those words, and those are words kids tend to say a lot.

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I just recently started watching this series on Hulu, and saw this episode the other day. I aslo wondered what the word was, but my biggest question from the episode was about the priest, How did that happen? Maybe I'm wrong, but when I see a collar like that, I think priest, but maybe he was a pastor in another denomination. It's a good joke, but the priest not only having a son, but also being married, didn't add up to me.

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Reverend Lovejoy from the Simpsons is married and has a daughter.

It depends on, as you said, the denomination. I think recently even Catholic priests are now allowed to marry.

Seize the moment, 'cause tomorrow you might be dead.

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I think some Methodist reverends wear those collars, and maybe Presbytarian~sp~

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A lot of ministers wear a clerical collar such as Lutherans and Methodists. The reverend in the episode was definitely not a Catholic priest.

Priests in the Roman Catholic Church are NOT allowed to marry. Priests in the Eastern Catholic Church are able to get married.

There are some exceptions. For instance if a man is an Episcopal or Anglican priest and he converts and comes into the Roman Catholic CHurch, he can do so if he is married. But if his wife dies, he couldn't remarry.


Lot of different rules, I know. But Rev. Kirk was not a priest!

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In the '60s, my brother wrote the S word and the F word on one of his school books for some stupid reason. My dad saw it and was afraid he'd get expelled, so he took a marker and managed to alter them to "Shirt" and "Book". People wondered why it said "Shirt Book" on my brother's book, but at least he didn't get in trouble.

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That was a very creative solution!

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Back then we used to make covers for our textbooks out of brown paper grocery bags, but my wicked little brother had written the forbidden words on the white edge of the closed pages.

I also remember, from being a kid 1960s, the same age as Richie Petri, getting my mouth washed with soap for saying "bitch" and "hell". My aunt once admonished my poor cousin for saying "darn". My dad had been in the Navy and my uncle had been in the Army Air Force in WWII, and both were pretty tough guys, but they never said the F word in the presence of kids or women, and the S word was heard only in rare and extreme situations. It was a different time!

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It sure WAS a different time! In the 1960's my dad was fond of playing pool. One day my mom went into the pool hall to get him and he read her the riot act. He was upset with her coming into the place because, according to him, "A lot of the guys in here curse a lot!"

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The little country gas station/grocery store down the road from us had a pool room in the back, and our parents instructed us kids that we were NOT to go in there! I did go in a time or two, though, when there was no one else in there. They did have some interesting calendars on the wall -- just cheesecake, though, near as I recall.

Yes, it was a different time.

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