Janet Jackson Super Bowl Flash Fine Tossed

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More than four years after a wardrobe malfunction allowed a Super Bowl audience of 90 million people to see Janet Jackson's breast, the $550,000 indecency fine levied against CBS for the incident has been thrown out, a court ruled today. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the FCC "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" when issuing the fine on CBS for what was an accidental, split-second flash of nudity. The "malfunction" was almost perfectly synchronized with Justin Timberlake singing the line "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song" ("this song" being "Rock Your Body") performed during the Super Bowl intermission. The incident led to an almost-censorship of live events, with tape delays becoming the norm to avoid future unscripted situations.

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Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

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