The Worse Word

It's wrong to make fun of people, you know, but it’s so fun sometimes. I've written for some TV shows, and, you know, on a major TV show you have to be careful about what you say about people 'cause a lot of people get offended, or so it has been explained to me.

I was once — I’ll tell you this, I was writing for an awards show once, and I got into some trouble. I wrote a joke for this awards show that had the word "midget" in it. And someone from the network came down to our offices and he said to me, "Hey, you can't put the word midget on TV," and I said, "I sure would like to." And he said, "No! 'Midget' is as bad as the 'n-word.'" First off: no. No, it's not! "Do you know how I know it's not," I said to him, "is because we’re saying the word ’midget,' and we’re not even saying what the 'n-word' is! If you're comparing the badness of two words, and you won’t even say one of them? That's the worse word.

Also, I don't mean to gloss over what, like, little people have been through in this country, but you cannot compare the plight of midgets to African-Americans. That is outrageous! Midgets were never enslaved... unless you count the Wonka factory. So we get into this argument, we're going back and forth, he goes, "You can't put that word on TV.”
And I said, "I want to," and he said, "If you put that word on TV, there could be a protest of midgets on this building!"
And I said, "Promise?" How tempting would that be?