Having seen “When You Wish Upon a Weinstein” from the Family Guy box set a few weeks back and with its airing on Cartoon Network tonight, I gotta ask, what was so offensive about it that Fox refused to air it? I can’t think of anything I found offensive about it (with the possible exception of Peter’s line about killing Christ and, hey, Passion of the Christ anyone?). Did Fox ever give an official statement as to why they pulled it, beyond “it was offensive”?
Are you sure you have the right episode? I thought it was “We Have a Weiner” that wasn’t aired.
This site pretty much has every single detail on The Family guy, but even they don’t know.
“When You Wish Upon a Weinstein” (this one) was the banned episode. Why? I guess FOX was afraid they’d get the Anti-Defamation League on their asses.
Didn’t they also change one of the lines in the song?
From “Even though they killed my Lord” to something else?
Personally, I thought it just wasn’t as funny as the rest of season 3, and that’s why it was “banned”.
Yeah, in the ep as aired on Cartoon Network he says “I don’t think they killed my Lord.”
Isn’t being offensive part of the humor of family guy at times? Other then that, I didn’t see what was such a problem. It was yet another case of peter being a complete dumbass.
Though I never realized that Optimus Prime was Jewish.
This (like most of the other posts) is entirely logical. Proving that you don’t, and never will, run a television network. Now quit posting or you’ll never work in this town again! 
THAT was priceless.
Meanwhile, Cartman raises another pogrom and lives free.
Seriously, given how everythign else draws complaints, why isn’t there a MAJOR movement to get South Park to drop Cartman’s anti-semitism? I mean, I know it’s anti-everyone-elseism really, but I’d have thought it would have come in for some major attacks. Perhaps it has and I never heard about it over here.
‘Weinstein’ touches upon the forbidden subject of race, in a comedic mocking atmosphere. Whether or not real racism is demonstrated is beside the point; they knew people can and will accuse them of racism regardless, and my guess is they feared reprisals such advertiser boycotts. Whether they are justified or not is of course 100 percent beside the point.
Since Cartman is an unpleasant, ignorant character, the show is decidedly very anti-racist by associating racism with him.
The DVD preserves the original line.
The title of that episode is: ‘And the weiner is…’
Well, he said it wasn’t aired
Peter is likewise an unpleaseant, ignorant character (perhaps less unpleasant than Cartman, but far and away more ignorant). So why couldn’t Fox have gotten away with the same excuse?
I said it and I was wrong. Twice. The episode titled “And the Weiner Is” was broadcast on August 8, 2001.
Maybe they could have.
And maybe that’s why they got away with playing it on ‘Adult Swim’ without any outcry (that I heard of). Or maybe changing that one line was enough.
IANA Network Eexecutive, but I think it’s because Fox is on network television. Remember, cable can do almost anything they want, as long as the advertisers are up for it (remember the South Park episode where they said “shit” 162? times).
Just a WAG.
Cartman is a very LIKEable unpleasant, ignorant character. You know what I mean. He’s a total bastard but he’s the funniest one in the show. In a face-on-a-lunchbox sort of a way. Would it be too far for them if one of his phrases became a catchphrase? Like when he was shouting in German about “we must destroy the Jews”… once playgrounds full of kids are yelling that, is it still okay to say “aha, but you see, the racism is depicted as technically wrong…”
I suppose the answer is “don’t let your kids watch South Park”, or at least “explain it to them VERY well”. The latter, I guess. Has anyone ever actually got the wrong end of the stick and thought Matt’n’Trey to be promoting anti-semitism? Not even a racist group? Mind you, Cartman’s friends are sort of subtly made the ones we really identify with, I suppose. And on our behalf they hate him.
Peter Griffen is a weird sort of a character. Not as solid and iconic as Homer, or Cartman. But that actually gives him a certain real-life-humanness which is all the more repellent when he licks his nipples.
I recall a poster on this board saying he or she refused to watch the show because “it’s anti-semetic”. I didn’t ask for elaboration though, I just assumed it was because of Cartman.