Frank Zappa Debates Censorship on CNN’s Crossfire (1986)

Cross­fire aired on CNN from 1982 to 2005, famous­ly pit­ting lib­er­al pun­dits and spe­cial guests against their con­ser­v­a­tive coun­ter­parts. Per­haps you will remem­ber the most famous episode — the day in 2004 when Jon Stew­art paid a vis­it and demol­ished the whole premise of the show. It’s hard to top that moment. But, maybe com­ing in a close sec­ond was Frank Zap­pa’s mem­o­rable appear­ance in 1986.

On that March day, Zap­pa jumped into the fray and fought the cul­ture wars of the 1980s. His main oppo­nent was­n’t the often prick­ly con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Robert Novack. Instead, it was John Lofton, a right-wing colum­nist for The Wash­ing­ton Times, who argued that gov­ern­ment should cen­sor rock lyrics deemed unfriend­ly to fam­i­lies. Zap­pa, who con­sid­ered him­self a con­ser­v­a­tive too, took umbrage and you can watch the con­ver­sa­tion unfold … and at times dete­ri­o­rate. Also don’t miss Zap­pa’s tes­ti­mo­ny before Con­gress in 1985.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Young Frank Zap­pa Plays the Bicy­cle on The Steve Allen Show (1963)

Hear the Musi­cal Evo­lu­tion of Frank Zap­pa in 401 Songs

Watch Frank Zap­pa Play Michael Nesmith on The Monkees(1967)