This is a highly condensed exchange from a panel between Michael Eisner, the longtime entertainment executive, and Beau Willimon, the screenwriter behind House of Cards. They discussed how writers and directors can get away with graphic content and villainous characters that would've been unimaginable a generation ago. They briefly reference Netflix's Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos. There is a spoiler that concerns the first episode of House of Cards Season 2.
MICHAEL EISNER: We did Happy Days, back in the 1820s. And in the pilot, The Fonz teaches Richard Cunningham – Ron Howard – how to take a bra off the back of a radiator. He undid the snap and it flew off. ABC, where I was programming head, told me I could never, ever, ever, air it. It took me four years to get the pilot on the air. So if I said to ABC then and probably now–and this is a spoiler alert, if you haven't seen House of Cards, too bad– that you have Francis, Claire, and their security guard all kissing together, I would have been fired.
BEAU WILLIMON: For our show, compared to the amount of sex and violence you see on The Sopranos or many other shows, I mean we're pretty tame actually, in terms of profanity, nudity or violence. Or you look at Mad Men, which is on basic cable, so there's no profanity or nudity, and yet there are incredibly sexy and suggestive and psychologically troubling moments in that. So in terms of the boundaries that are being pushed, different shows are appropriate on different networks...