Comedy and stand up in general

[CFMM]

In the 1990s you could not get away with as much as you can on cable TV today. Stand-up comics with TV specials were forced to censor themselves. You probably saw an HBO special which is a premium station and doesn't have to follow the same broadcast restrictions as standard cable. Also, Jon Stewart in the 1990's was a "rising" comic but he was also pretty unknown; he was likely speaking as such to gain attention and hook that 90's grunge demographic. One of his largest roles of the 1990's, I believe, was a closing story arc to The Larry Sanders Show.

As basic cable opened up to less censorship, though, comedians like Dave Chappelle were free to use more profane language that you just couldn't say on cable. As recently as the early 00's you couldn't say "nuts" to refer to testicles. The FCC would require you to bleep that.