Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

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Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby ... » 01 Jul 2017, 12:44

We've all seen TV edits of The Sopranos in which the word fucking is replaced by the word "Freakiing" recorded at an entirely different level, so what are your examples of appalling censorship by TV stations/airlines?

For me, it would be the film version of Ian McEwan's Atonement (which like the book hinges on the use of the word "cunt" in a letter). A couple of weeks later, it was on HBO and I thought I would watch it again to see how they had handled the "cunt" issue. They had totally cut the offending few seconds out rendering the whole film pointless as a result.

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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby Charlie O. » 02 Jul 2017, 05:28

In 1975 the BBC licensed the last six Monty Python TV shows (the Cleese-less ones) to the ABC network in the US, to air as two 90-minute specials. (The earlier episodes had been shown in America on PBS, with some success.) So badly did ABC mutilate the material that after the first special aired, Python sued to stop them from airing the second one.

... in addition to cuts made for time (to accommodate about 24 minutes of commercials for each special), the network's censors also slashed material for supposed "broadcast standards" – ludicrously eliminating words such as "damn," "hell" and "naughty bits"; jokes ("He used to go through four Jehovah's Witnesses a day"); and entire characters (one of the ordered cuts included "Entrance of man in wheelchair with sword in head, deleted to eliminate offensive references to handicapped individuals"). Punchlines were cut, making jokes incomprehensible. Python was surreal and stream-of-consciousness, but ABC's Python was head-shaking.*


While they failed to keep the second special from airing, the US courts basically sided with them that their material and therefore their reputation in America had been harmed by the cuts. But this case led to an even more interesting development: while Python's lawyers were preparing for it, they discovered that back in 1969 the group had had a clause inserted into their BBC contract stipulating that a) the group, and not the BBC, held the copyright on their scripts, and b) once each episode had been broadcast, the material could not subsequently be edited or re-compiled in any way by the BBC - or by anyone the BBC licensed it to - without the Pythons' express permission. So ABC's bowdlerization constituted a breach of contract - the practical upshot of which was that the Pythons ended up owning their shows outright. (And just in time, as the Beeb was reportedly preparing to wipe the tapes, as was their wont back then.)



* http://www.montypython.com/tvshow_Monty%20Python's%20Flying%20Circus,%20Series%204/17
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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby pcqgod » 03 Jul 2017, 01:46

Their was the "melonfarmer" treatment of "Repo Man." And then there was something nearly as ridiculous with "The Big Lebowski" in that scene where John Goodman's character smashes up the car. I forget the words used, but it was ridiculous. The worst example happened in the mid/late 80's when someone on one of the major US networks decided that Bugs Bunny cartoons were far too violent for kids, and then started bowdlerizing them but editing out the violent bits. This culminated when one Saturday morning they showed that "Duck Season/Wabbit Season" cartoon with the gunshots edited out. So one second Bugs and Daffy would be arguing and then Daffy would have his bill on the wrong side of his head for no apparent reason. I was watching literally incredulously. Shortly after that, sanity returned, and Wile E. and Roadrunner, in exile during this dark period, also returned.
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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby Charlie O. » 03 Jul 2017, 02:20

Blazing Saddles on TV was fun. During the "baked beans" bit, fart sounds were replaced with horse whinnies. The Waco Kid recalled how the "LITTLE PUNK SHOT ME IN THE you-know." And so on.
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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby Tactful Cactus » 03 Jul 2017, 11:26

Maybe it doesn't happen anymore, but I used to love the way they'd show risque films during the day in America but chop the hell out of them. I remember watching the Howard Stern movie and it was hilarious how much editing and censorship they slapped on it.

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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby bobzilla77 » 03 Jul 2017, 23:22

I think the most incredible example of this I ever witnessed was the made-for-TV cut of Cheech & Chong's Next Movie.

They tried to wipe out all of the dope references (in a movie where they entire plot basically centers around a big duffel bag fulla dope) along with the obscenity, which required the creation of a completely new story line. I had seen the original in theaters several times, but the TV version was incomprehensible and totally unfunny. To this day I have no idea if they shot new sequences to fill out the TV version or if those were unused outtakes from the original film.
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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby teenageriot-1 » 06 Jul 2017, 09:51

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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby Jimbly » 06 Jul 2017, 10:50

According to Ken Russell. The nude wrestling scene was cut from Woman in Love on South African tv. The film went from Bates and Reed entering a room, then cut to the two of them lying panting heavily on the floor, bare chested. Leaving the impression that the two macho men were gay lovers
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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby naughty boy » 06 Jul 2017, 11:00

pcqgod wrote:The worst example happened in the mid/late 80's when someone on one of the major US networks decided that Bugs Bunny cartoons were far too violent for kids, and then started bowdlerizing them but editing out the violent bits. This culminated when one Saturday morning they showed that "Duck Season/Wabbit Season" cartoon with the gunshots edited out. So one second Bugs and Daffy would be arguing and then Daffy would have his bill on the wrong side of his head for no apparent reason.


:lol:

Incredible. I can't even imagine the kind of discussions that took place before such a decision was made.
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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby driftin » 07 Jul 2017, 13:05

I remember watching “The Cartridge Family” episode of The Simpsons years ago on Channel 4, or maybe it was BBC2 which would be decades ago. The episode is about Homer buying a gun and joining the NRA before his irresponsibility with it causes issues. In the uncensored episode Homer throws the gun away but Marge decides to steal it right at the end. In this one the episode ended and cut to credits the second he threw it in the trash.

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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby Tactful Cactus » 08 Jul 2017, 12:08

driftin wrote:I remember watching “The Cartridge Family” episode of The Simpsons years ago on Channel 4, or maybe it was BBC2 which would be decades ago. The episode is about Homer buying a gun and joining the NRA before his irresponsibility with it causes issues. In the uncensored episode Homer throws the gun away but Marge decides to steal it right at the end. In this one the episode ended and cut to credits the second he threw it in the trash.


There's a few Simpsons ones depending on the channel. There's a Monty Burns line where he shouts "Damn you paparazzi" which was cut to "Damn you _____" around the time of the Diana death. That one seems a little oversensitive but there's another bit of a British pub being blown up to cheers by an unseen crowd (presumably of the IRA) which also got the chop by Sky.

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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby Dr Markus » 11 Jul 2017, 12:53

When Die hard was shown on ITV back in the day, instead of "yippie ky yay mutherfucker" it was "yippie ky yay (different voice) kemosabe".
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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby pcqgod » 12 Jul 2017, 21:38

This is that "Big Lebowski" thing I mentioned earlier in the thread:

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Re: Egregious examples of censorship by a TV station or airline

Postby Charlie O. » 13 Jul 2017, 06:33

pcqgod wrote:This is that "Big Lebowski" thing I mentioned earlier in the thread:


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That's seriously great.
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