HBO has apologized for commentary on the “Game of Thrones” first-season DVD release, in which the executive producers note that one of several decapitated heads on sticks is that of ex-POTUS George W. Bush.

The premium cable network says it has halted future shipments of the DVDs, has removed them from its digital platforms and will edit the scene for future telecasts.

“The last head on the left is George Bush,” one of the show-runners for the popular, and sometimes gruesome, fantasy drama series is heard saying during the Episode 10 commentary — which is one of the extras offered in the first-season release. What appears to be Bush’s head is seen in profile, mostly masked by a long, scraggly brown wig.

“George Bush’s head appears in a couple beheading scenes,” the show-runner says. “It’s not a choice; it’s not a political statement. It’s just, we had to use what heads we had around.”

Given that the first season was shot in Ireland and Malta, according to HBO, it does leave you wondering — among many, many other things — why the producers just happened to have “had around” a head of Bush.

“We were deeply dismayed to see this, and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste,” HBO said Thursday in a statement after being alerted to the DVD commentary, which was first noticed by the Web site Reddit.

“We made this clear to the executive producers of the series, who apologized immediately for this careless mistake,” HBO continued. “We condemn it in the strongest possible terms and have halted all future shipments of the DVDs, removed it from our digital platforms and will edit the scene for all future airings on any distribution domestic or international.”

The two show-runners who provided the commentary, Americans David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, weighed in, too:

“What happened was this: We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush. In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former president and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise.”

‘House Hunters’-gate?

Some Reporters/Bloggers/­
Fans Who Cover Television are in an uproar over the revelation that people purported to be looking for a new home on HGTV’s “House Hunters” had already decided what house they were going to buy and that the other houses they looked at in the episode weren’t even on the market at the time.

One blogger declared the revelation to be of “Woodward/Bernstein-esque” proportions.

“We’re making a television show, so we manage certain production and time constraints, while honoring the homebuying process,” HGTV has said in a statement, after one of the “house hunters” in the episode outed the network.

“To maximize production time, we seek out families who are pretty far along in the process,” continued HGTV, adding: “Because the stakes in real estate are so high, these homeowners always find themselves RIGHT back in the moment, experiencing the same emotions and reactions to these properties” when they look at other homes, even though they’re no longer looking.