Every Swear Word on Every Episode of the Sopranos, Ever, in Chronological Order. (video)

A fun, weird little experiment by director Victor Solomon. "I've been chopping away at it for a year, here and there between other jobs," he explains.

I was laughing for the first 30 seconds, then kinda hypnotized, then just creeped out, and still couldn't stop watching. Simple and brilliant.

"For those of you watching The Sopranos on A&E, here’s what you’re missing," he says. "This is every single curse, from every single episode of the sopranos, ever."

Here it is on Vimeo, here it is on his project page. 27:18.

[#1 posted by Cory Doctorow , February 9, 2009 6:36 AM]

Pure genius

[#2 posted by frankieboy , February 9, 2009 6:48 AM]

Fuck.

[#3 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 6:52 AM]

OK, I literally LOL'd at the clip at 1:24.

[#4 posted by bifter , February 9, 2009 6:52 AM]

Oh no, my Vimeo player seems to have tourettes disorder. Fuckin, fuck, fuckin, shit, mother fuckin awesome...

[#5 posted by jonoellis , February 9, 2009 7:00 AM]

I think that there might be one missing around about 14:23!

[#6 posted by Variable Rush , February 9, 2009 7:01 AM]

This also works as a synopsis of the entire series.

[#7 posted by MrWeeble , February 9, 2009 7:02 AM]

I am somewhat surprised at the low occurrence of the word "cunt" and its derivatives. In the first 5 minutes of the vid (haven't watched it all) I counted it only twice (one at about 2:30 and one at about 4:00). Is this because even HBO has a strong taboo against the word or is it just not that a big a part of the vocabulary of Italian American gangsters?

[#8 posted by Andrew Katz , February 9, 2009 7:29 AM]

The BBC provides a similar (text-based) service to potential licensees of its programming worldwide.

See for example: www.bbcprograms.com/pbs/catalog/fatherted/docs/flagreport_Father%20Ted.doc

Presumably this is intended to allow licensees in more childlike jurisdictions to bleep out the relevant naughtinesses.

[#9 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 7:36 AM]

Ha! "I love you" around 1:30.

[#10 posted by J France , February 9, 2009 7:40 AM]

I'm surprised (possibly naive) that any station - cable! - would pick up a show with so many expletives and attempt to air it censored.

Bloody cunting shit double standards about violence. And stuff.

MrWeeble: I think America in general is a bit touchy about the C word... it's relatively common (for some, me) in Australia.

[#11 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 7:41 AM]

The DVD for Robin Wiliams' "Live on Broadway" special had this as an Easter Egg alongside the family-friendly "every sound effect Robin made during the act" feature.

[#12 posted by patterson , February 9, 2009 7:43 AM]

I got to 2:35 . darn

[#13 posted by Elisa , February 9, 2009 7:45 AM]

I really demand that this kind of data be visually represented through pie charts, bar graphs or both.

[#14 posted by downdb , February 9, 2009 7:47 AM]

Now we just need the same thing for Deadwood.

[#15 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 7:48 AM]

Reminds me of the MAD TV skit with the Soprano's re-runs on PAX TV. (airs from 9:00 to 9:05)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp4QVYNAFcQ

[#16 posted by Palilay , February 9, 2009 7:51 AM]

Anyone else make it past 03:35? What's the record?

[#17 posted by HotNachos , February 9, 2009 7:51 AM]

Daaaaamn. Tony can even turn "I love you" into a swear word (1:23).

[#18 posted by bardfinn , February 9, 2009 7:54 AM]

mrweeble @#6: For a Sicilian-cultured entitled/privileged male, there are two attitudes towards women: Sainted, as in "My Sainted Mother", and potential sex partner - thus, the word you're looking for is the Sicilian equivalent of "Prostitute", Putana. Which is still not /as/ denigrating as the English word you asked about.

[#19 posted by Bottlekid , February 9, 2009 7:54 AM]

#8, BBC America made the same mistake when it tried to present Trailer Park Boys censored. It was impossible to follow the dialogue with all of the bleeps. You can't watch an episode titled "If I Can't Smoke and Swear, I'm Fucked" with bleeps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GGL0qGk5lA

[#20 posted by HotNachos , February 9, 2009 7:54 AM]

@#11 DOWNDB: I second that. It would probably have too many syllables per swear to get the nice staccato rhythm of the Sopranos one, though.

[#21 posted by Nelson.C , February 9, 2009 8:01 AM]

After about ten minutes it starts to sound like a malfunctioning steampunk engine firing on five out of eight cylinders, or like a perverse Ivor the Engine.

[#22 posted by mack , February 9, 2009 8:12 AM]

Okay. Now someone must step up to the equally important work of doing this for "Deadwood," which should deliver an equally musical, if somewhat more polysyllabic fugue state with the use of the word "cocksucker."

Just a suggestion.

[#23 posted by samuraizenu , February 9, 2009 8:40 AM]

Since when is douchebag a swearword?

[#24 posted by bellebouche , February 9, 2009 8:42 AM]

A work of genius! Some very clever pacing in the editing of this and something of a labour of love I'd imagine.

I'd love to think that there's a "it's a retirement community" plea in there but I only made it to 04:16 in before being too unsettled to continue.

[#25 posted by Contrasoma , February 9, 2009 8:54 AM]

#20: I've made it 15 minutes in and haven't heard it, but yes, that would've been a great interjection.

I'm just impressed by the fact that "Pine Barrens" seems to occupy just about a full minute of the whole reel.

[#26 posted by SamF , February 9, 2009 8:54 AM]

Someone did something like this with The Big Lebowski a while back. It's called "The Fucking Short Version". I think it's probably on Youtube somewhere.

[#27 posted by holtt , February 9, 2009 9:10 AM]

How can one forget the short version of Scarface?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KANukZsWD9Q

And I'm with #10 / Elisa. Statistical analysis!

[#28 posted by oscar , February 9, 2009 9:17 AM]

There's a bunch of hilarious f-bomb-only edits of movies on YouTube. It's also reminiscent of the brilliant "profanity only" version of Straight Outta Compton.

One of the funnier skits on MadTV was The Sopranos edited for broadcast on PAX TV (a religious network, for anyone outside the US):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m43o5IhAcec

[#29 posted by erzatsen , February 9, 2009 9:20 AM]

on topic, i respectfully submit Pulp Fucktion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxcei2eOCMo

[#30 posted by Bart , February 9, 2009 9:50 AM]

Seems like it's all "fuck" and "shit". No "asshole"?

[#31 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 9:55 AM]

Expect in the next couple of days the A&E version with "forget you".

[#32 posted by FoetusNail , February 9, 2009 10:19 AM]

About 15 seconds. Fuck that shit, who the fuck was the dumb shit who thought this was a good idea, stupid fucking fuck. Someone take that fucking dumb fuck outta my face. Fuck you! You hear me? Fuck you. That stupid fuck is so far past fucked he's going to have to take a bus back to fucked.

[#33 posted by darkbeanie , February 9, 2009 10:19 AM]

I'm glad to have seen this. I feel like I understand the whole series now, without having to spend the time watching it.

On the downside, I think I now have both epilepsy and Tourette syndrome.

[#34 posted by matthb , February 9, 2009 10:33 AM]

Small doses.

I would have liked more "contexty" clips, and more comic relief a la: "I had her tested for aids" and "toodle-fucking-oo", but then it probably would have been a 2-hour vid.

[#35 posted by Merrybad , February 9, 2009 10:34 AM]

F-ing brilliant.
Glad he left in the silent final scene.

The final scene had all of us howling "F-!" as we thought our cable had gone out at the worst possible moment. "Don't Stop--"

[#36 posted by j5ive , February 9, 2009 10:52 AM]

Nice! Thanks for this Xeni.

For another take on the same idea check out the ever-entertaining-web-genius Evan Roth's awesome "Explicit Content Only". Where he gives NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" the same treatment.

http://evan-roth.com/nwa.php

[#37 posted by jahknow , February 9, 2009 10:54 AM]

See also Christian Bale


http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_audio/020209_christianbale.mp3

[#38 posted by gornzilla , February 9, 2009 11:19 AM]

If I wasn't so lazy, I'd like to put together a video of people riding explosions mixed with yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!". Oh, and the occasional "I can see my house from here". That's been on my back burner for nearly 20 years. Any day now....

[#39 posted by Bevin , February 9, 2009 11:28 AM]

Has anyone seen (or posted) this yet?

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1753293

Also: I'm happy to have the opportunity to swear in the comments. Fuckin-A.

[#40 posted by Marsha Keeffer , February 9, 2009 11:50 AM]

Whoa...mesmerizing indeed!

[#41 posted by Patrick Dodds , February 9, 2009 12:04 PM]

Only made it to 2 mins dead owing to a shortage of fuck-wads.

[#42 posted by gonzilla , February 9, 2009 12:23 PM]

Waiting for the BSG version for the use of FRAK.

[#43 posted by SteamKev , February 9, 2009 12:32 PM]

Friggin-A! -Those are some really unhappy people.
Talk about Drama Queens! Fuck!

[#44 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 12:52 PM]

I think they missed one.

[#45 posted by rakeshagrawal , February 9, 2009 1:01 PM]

YAVWLOSW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMR0CpLebWE

(YAVWLOSW = yet another video with lots of swear words)

[#46 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 1:08 PM]

I'd like to see a captioned/subtitled version of this.

[#47 posted by MarkM , February 9, 2009 1:18 PM]

OK, Ill say it:
I think someone has too much time on their hands.

[#48 posted by Evil Jim , February 9, 2009 1:32 PM]

I didn't need another reason not to watch this series but there it is. 27 minutes worth of it. Did they use any other words in the series?

[#49 posted by sirkowski , February 9, 2009 1:52 PM]

The Sopranos was aired on network TV, not cable, in Canada, unedited.

[#50 posted by DewiMorgan , February 9, 2009 2:08 PM]

Awesome. Hilarious in its unremitting repetitiveness, and well-punctuated by those occasional deviations. Great pacing.

But the best one of these I've seen is still the Dr Who one :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtG5dK_HaGg

[#51 posted by Nick CT , February 9, 2009 2:26 PM]

I think you'd all like Die Hardererer, an edit of the Die Hard movies I did:

http://vimeo.com/3147676

[#52 posted by ridl , February 9, 2009 2:27 PM]

This is a great outlet for my Valentine's Day rage. I think I'll just keep it on a loop until the 14th is over.

[#53 posted by jeffallen , February 9, 2009 3:43 PM]

This makes any playlist better. Seriously. Cue up any 10 songs, then hit play on both. Amazing.

[#54 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 5:12 PM]

This is an old meme. People have made 'curse only' edits of movies with lots of swearing (Goodfellas, Scarface, etc) years before this Sopranos version.

Even by 'remix culture' standards, there's really terribly creative about it; it's an old idea and there's really nothing this director did that puts his/her stamp on it, anyone else could replicate his process, and videos like these prove the overall concept is unoriginal:

"Scarface" Version
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyYZiUko3OI

[#55 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 6:29 PM]

the impoverishment of english cursing has never been more apparent

[#56 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2009 6:59 PM]

It's not about whether it's something "new" or not. Can't you just enjoy the melodic symphony? I'm going to use it every time I feel angry. I love the fact that some people just can't appreciate something for what it is and feel that they have to turn their noses up at it because it's been done before. Give me a break.

[#57 posted by Antinous / Moderator , February 9, 2009 7:47 PM]

May I offer my definitive version of Straight Outta Compton.

[#58 posted by Sorcerer Mickey , February 9, 2009 8:32 PM]

All it needs is a "You're watching HBO!" sting at the end.

[#59 posted by duncan , February 9, 2009 8:53 PM]

I was wondering who says the most curses? I am thinking it is the lead character...

[#60 posted by Strangepork , February 9, 2009 10:03 PM]

rhythmic. I can't imagine banging away at this for year. Congratulations!

[#61 posted by senorglory , February 9, 2009 11:13 PM]

This clip is one part Art, and one part Endurance Feat. I made it about eight minutes in. Now I have a headache, and could use a hug.

Good work, Mr. Solomon!

[#62 posted by littleblacksambo , February 10, 2009 4:07 PM]

Did no one else find this extremely annoying?

[#63 posted by Anonymous , February 11, 2009 3:25 AM]

What the frack? :)

[#64 posted by Anonymous , February 11, 2009 6:40 AM]

yesterday I saw the last episode from soprano.... an fucking, fucking, fucking exceptional movie

[#65 posted by Johnny Cat , February 12, 2009 9:55 PM]

First episode had me at hello with AJ saying, "What, no fucking ziti?" when told about Grandma's health preventing her from showing up with her ziti. I remember that clearly, but it's not here. The fest is amazing, though.

[#66 posted by Anonymous , February 13, 2009 2:18 PM]

Fuck. I just got through the entire thing. Fucking finally!

[#67 posted by Anonymous , February 16, 2009 8:11 AM]

Here is an aggregator for many condensed versions of movies:

http://www.fuckingshortversion.com/

[#68 posted by Anonymous , February 16, 2009 4:40 PM]

Foxtrot? not a swear! but still funny, im not saying where it is but its under 10min in! listen and you will hear it!

[#69 posted by Johnny Cat , February 16, 2009 8:40 PM]

Me too. And the first episode's AJ classic, "What, no fuckin' ziti?" and the bystander at Leotardo's death, "Oh Shit!" were freakishly left out. Good bookends, they.

[#70 posted by Anonymous , February 17, 2009 12:10 PM]

he should do DEADWOOD next

[#71 posted by Anonymous , February 21, 2009 12:42 AM]

fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking great