And in the “Saturday Night Live” skit with Richard Pryor: “Your mother sews socks that smell!”
“The Big Lebowski,” per IMDB. I’ve never seen this version, but a friend of mine reported the dub mentioned below. I chalk this up to the Coen’s sense of humor.
When WTBS used to broadcast* Live and Let Die*, they would edit out the racial comments “Spades…every single one of them…” but leave in everything else.
Same for Mel Brooks. Comedy Central will sometimes show History of the World Part I, and well over half the jokes are just snipped out, like one of Mel’s jokes during his stand-up routine.
Unedited scene (from memory, so it may be off):
Mel: We Romans are rich, we got a lot of gods, we got a god for everything. Only thing we don’t have a god for is premature ejaculation. But I hear that that’s coming quickly!
rimshot laughter from the audience
Edited scene:
Mel: We Romans are rich, we got a lot of gods, we got a god for everything.
rimshot laughter from the audience
:dubious: The only reason I can even watch it is I’ve seen the unedited version so often that I can fill in the blanks myself, but it just baffles me that they even bother.
Now, Dogma’s edited form doesn’t suffer a whole lot, IIRC. There’s a couple of dubbed words and at least one deleted scene, but on the whole it’s pretty tame for a Kevin Smith flick.
Has anyone seen Harry Enfields “Badfellas” sketch?
You can find it (about one minute twenty seconds) by searching on “enfield badfellas” on Youtube.
"And now on BBC2 Martin Scorcese’s highly aclaimed film Badfellas. Viewers might like to know that this film has been specially ruined for television".
Snort.
Worst if Comedy Central and it’s butchery of Blazing Saddles. The Fart Noises are replaced by IIRC- crickets. Note that Fart noises will make it into PG films.
Blazing Saddles on Family Channel:
I changed the channel after that.
Fart noises are even in kids’ cartoons now.
Expressed homophobia (even from a bigoted character) is a newer censorship taboo. CBS showed Blazing Saddles in the early 80’s with the “Kansas City faggots” line intact.
As for bad bowdlerization, when **LA Confidential ** was on CBS a few years ago, it was painfully obvious they didn’t get Russell Crowe to redub his lines for the fit-for-American-network-TV version.
The dubbed version I heard was “Yeah, but my science teacher says I’m the best”
Some directors intentionally refilm scenes for TV/airline edits, including Repo Man (“melonfarmer,” among others) and Sideways (in which all instances of “asshole” are replaced with “Ashcroft.”)
That may be the worst pun I’ve ever seen. It was so bad in fact that I may have been the only person to see it. If I had popcorn I’d be pelting you with it.
I was beginning to wonder if anyone would notice. But they really did cut the amputee penetration scene and considering that it’s a premium subscription channel it really pisses me off. Not that I ever really need to see the scene again (seared into my brain forever, thanks) but censorship sucks.
But is that bowdlerization or political commentary?
It wasn’t Comedy Central’s doing, do you really think they would shy away from that? That cut of the film is older than the CC station itself, they just likely didn’t want to invest in making their own edit.
When TBS showed High Planes Drifter years ago, they did an edit that was good in theory, but bad in execution. In the original line, a townsman rips on the sheriff by saying “…and seeing as how our Sheriff’s about as much use as tits on a boar…” The TBS version said “…and seeing as how our Sheriff’s about as much use as boots on a boar…” Unfortunately, the voice actor who said “boots” sounded absolutely nothing like the original actor. It also sounded like he was using an exaggerated Texas accent.
Easily the worst carving up I’ve seen of a movie was the hatchet job and re-arrangement of scenes when CBS first ran John Carpenter’s The Thing. They cut out almost every single scene where the Thing appears!! (even though it certainly wasn’t sexual. Or, in most cases, technically violent. Just gross.) Then they took scenese of the burning Norwegian camp and of the husky running (from the beginning) and stuck the at the end to suggest that The Thing got away in the form of a dog – something that didn’t happen in the movie. (Judging from some recent entries, this ending at least has shown up elsewhere. It ain’t part of Carpenter’s film.) Later re-edits didn’t do as much violence to the film, but did add unnecessary voiceover narration)
Someone has done a recut, though. I’ve seen on TV it almost completely intact within the past couple of years but can’t remember where.
Ferris Bueller’s Day off was a good example.
“If you put a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond”
becomes
“If you put a lump of coal in his hand, in two weeks…”
Then there’s Smokey and the Bandit…WTF is a crumb bum?
While we’re on the subject of Bowdlerization - I don’t have HBO and as such never got to see the Sopranos. Is it worth watching the A&E repeats that just started? If they’re hacked up beyond recognition I won’t bother and just get the DVDs on Netflix eventually.
California rock sucker? 