When we were really young, it was simple: We were allowed to watch whatever we wanted, because we didn’t know of the existence of any channels other than PBS. Sesame Street, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, The Electric Company, it’s all good. We were bored by Masterpiece Theatre, but if we had wanted to watch it, that’d be fine.
As we got older, the only shows that were banned were for being too violent: Most of the 80s shows about private investigators, vigilantes, commandos, and so on. MacGyver was originally in this category, until she watched a few episodes and decided that it was intelligent enough to be OK.
Similarly, she also had a rule against toy guns. Originally, it was against all toy guns, but when it became clear that was unenforceable, she moderated it to no toy guns that look like real guns (so Super Soakers, for instance, were fine).
Same here, although sometimes I couldn’t watch something I wanted to see because my parents were watching another channel. I remember how I was dying to watch Genesis II (one of Gene Roddenberry’s post-Trek efforts), but my mom vetoed it because Sanford and Son was on.
Sometimes I wish my parents had forbidden me to watch things. Hell, I remember my dad insisting that I sit on the sofa with him and watch The Outer Limits. That show traumatized me for life. :eek:
Nothing was specifically forbidden as long as it wasn’t past my bedtime. My mom disliked my watching “Lost In Space” (already in reruns by then) because she thought it was irredeemably stupid.
The only show we weren’t allowed to watch was Three’s Company, because my mom simply couldn’t stand to listen to it, she thought it was annoying and dumb. One time when we thought we could get away with it because the channel was already on, and she was in another room, she yelled something like “turn that off before it sucks all the IQ points right out of your heads!” which then became our family way to describe doing something stupid.
We were not allowed to watch Dark Shadows, the late 60’s era vampiric soap opera. I think Mom’s objection was mainly that we didn’t need to be watching TV at 3 pm on school days.
I remember Mom walking in and snapping off the TV for 2 movies: Black Sabbath, and Georgy Girl. I’m sure she thought both were too adult for me at the time.
My German (and Nazi era) mother thought Hogan’s Heroes the absolute dumbest show on TV. Of course, we loved it, when we could sneak and watch it.
Like many others, we had one TV and 99% of the time the adults decided what was watched. Kids were always welcome to go to their room and read a book if they did not like what was on offer!
We would watch All In The Family together, at times. It was a comedy based in real situations. My mom and I sat and cried after Gloria had a miscarriage, and teared up when Archie was on the elevator with the pregnant woman who gave birth. That was something never addressed on tv. Otherwise, we laughed like mad at the funny bits.
We were not allowed to watch “Maude” in my house. My mother saw that we were watching a rerun of it once and she practically slammed the off button. She said it was a stupid program, which was odd reasoning to me as she didn’t object to us watching “Diff’rent Strokes”.
Years later, I realized it was because Maude had an abortion. My parents were pretty strict Catholics. Me and my sibs, not so much (all thanks to secular, God-hating liberal programs like “Maude”, I suppose.)
I’m another one who had no restrictions on what I could watch other than bedtime. I had fairly restrictive bedtimes, though, which was frustrating–even in high school I had to go to bed at 10pm on school nights. I negotiated that so I could watch “Vega$” (don’t judge - I liked that show), and sometimes Mom would let me stay up late to watch “Baretta” with her (she had a crush on Robert Blake. I didn’t, but I liked the show).
Neither a TV show nor absolutely forbidden but watching football matches (soccer) at home was very difficult.
You see, my father hates football. Irrationally. I mean, he can come up with good points (players are grossly overpaid, it’s a silly game, go play outside instead of watching tv…) but his disgust at that particular sport is so extreme that I can’t explain it (other sports are ok with him, although he doesn’t really care about them).
So, my brother and I could beg and cry, most of the time, the answer was a resounding : “No, you’re not going to watch tonight’s game”. We had to catch sneak glimpses when he wasn’t around and that was before we had remote, so we’d better had our ears open ! Heck, you’d have thought we were watching skin flicks, except that our mom was an accomplice.
And when he did allow us to watch a game, he’d always make sure to express his scorn for the whole thing.
No subject matter limits as far as I can remember (though, obviously, no 15+ stuff when I was 9, etc etc) but I had pretty strict time limits, which I could spend as I please.
While Doctor Who and The Tomorrow People existed, no way was my geeky self spending my points on anything else…
Baby #1: “Pick up that pacifier, boil it, and give it back to the baby”
Baby #2: “Pick up that pacifier, wipe it off, and give it back to the baby”
Baby #3: “Get that pacifier from the dog and give it back to the baby”
mmm
Watched MP with my foks - I think Mom was disturbed by the nudity, but let it go (we were all HS by then). I had a friend who also loved it, but every time he convinced his folks to watch it with him (after describing various hilarious sketches) it would be a nudity one, which didn’t fly with them.
The only show I remember not being allowed to watch was “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”. My dad loved it, but wouldn’t let us watch it. Looking at the dates it was on, I see I was 4 when it went off the air, so that could explain it. I wonder if he was watching it in reruns, because my memory of the house where I was outside peeking in the window to see it was one we moved to after I was 5 (but memory is fallible).
On edit, ‘The Alfred Hitchcock Hour’ was on until 1965, so that’s probably what I’m remembering not watching.
I don’t recall any show that my mom forbade us to watch (born in 1960). She wasn’t crazy about “All In The Family”, but would still watch it and comment on what a bigoted jerk that Archie was. And some of the horror movies would bother her a bit, as well, but she knew that I actually enjoyed getting a good scare, so they weren’t such a big deal.
“Charlie’s Angels” and “Wonder Woman” would occasionally elicit a comment like “Those gals should really wear more clothing”. But she would let me watch 'em, anyway, much to my delight.
