I don’t think my parents restricted any TV watching just because I may be watching too. If there was something a “little out there” in an episode of something we might normally see, my folks didn’t turn the TV off or even mention anything about it.
When we got out first color TV, I inherited the old portable B&W set, and had it in my room to watch my own shows. The only thing I recall is that my mother told me she didn’t want me watching Peyton Place when it was being aired, I suppose because it had a lot of adults fooling around on each other. I think I snuck a peek at it one night, just to see what the fuss was about, but found it boring and never watched it again.
Year before last, I binge watched Three’s Company on cable each afternoon during the summer. I think I saw every episode ever made, almost back-to-back. The show had its moments but, yeah, it was kinda dumb. It was also very predictable: No matter what their little crisis was that day, you knew how it was going to turn out by the second station break.
Compared to the raunch that’s on today, it was also very mild in terms of sexual innuendo. How times have changed!
Fifteen minutes to disrobe and put everything in the hamper, 28 minutes in the shower, and fifteen minutes to dry off and get dressed again. Covers the show from intro to outro!
28 minutes? :eek: I know they cut parts out of shows in syndication, but someone must have taken an axe to that one.
I got hooked on Star Trek because of my mom. She started watching it first and I eventually got interested enough to watch it with her. I was nine in 1966.
I wasn’t allowed to watch Twin Peaks, but I never asked why.
My brother wasn’t allowed to watch Beavis and Butthead in elementary school because my parents thought he’d try some of the stupid stuff they did. He probably would have.
Me too. I could watch whatever I wanted. I’m also an only child.
My parents divorced when I was 11 and my dad’s girlfriend when I was 12 apparently was appalled that he let me watch Benny Hill. She said Benny Hill was a “dirty old man.”
The only time my parents didn’t let me watch something on TV was the movie “The Day After”. There were all kinds of warnings about how it was unsuitable for children (too scary) so they simply wanted to watch it first before letting me watch it. I was 10.
My mom also banned us from watching The Three Stooges. She wasn’t as concerned about the slapstick violence. But she was convinced it was nothing but brain-rot (no redeeming value) - which it was.
So I’d go across the street and watch it at my best friend’s house !
My mother objected to some shows already mentioned (“Three’s Company”), mainly on the grounds of stupidity. But she had an especial objection to us watching “Maude.” If she ever caught even pausing on the show while flipping through channels, the TV went off. I wondered about that for years, and later realized it was because of the infamous abortion episodes (we were raised Roman Catholic).
My mother also made us change the channel during an early episode of “Cheers” that had Sam and Diane discussing plans to have sex.
And while she didn’t make us change the channel or anything, I always recall my mother snorting with a little disdain at the premise of “the Brady Bunch” - specifically she would comment on why that family needed a live-in maid to help with “just six kids.” (She had eight kids; a cleaning lady came once a week, but that’s about it.) Mom didn’t think much of Carol Brady hanging around the house, doing a whole lot of nothing and “needing a maid.” Lol.
The Video Jukebox Network channel showed mainly music videos, and trashy 976 phone line commercials. Early rap music videos, in particular, offended my mom. My brother and I were giggling at My Hooptie one day when my mom walked by and issued a blanket ban on the whole channel.
MTV, she didn’t have a problem with, but the rappers on Video Jukebox Network were just too much, apparently.
I can’t remember anything else on TV being banned. I do remember not being permitted to watch Gremlins in the movie theater at age 8 because she thought it was too violent, even if it did have a PG rating.
I have to pop back in here to join the folks who are surprised at some of the things that were banned. When we had one T.V., I was watching whatever dad was watching in the evening, that was almost universally KERA (PBS), and some of it was really pretty horrifying. World at War can bring me to tears now. As a kid I imagine I sat there not really comprehending the horror of it all, but still remember being mighty shocked. The Lathe of Heaven was just simply mind-bending. The only things I remember being watched from commercial T.V. in prime time during this period were Mork & Mindy, Monday Night Football, The Tonight Show and 60 Minutes. Everything else seemed to be either documentaries, news, or drama.
When we first got a second T.V., The Beverly Hillbillies and Star Trek reruns were a welcome break from WWII*, complete seriousness, and mind-altering sci-fi.
I dunno which type of parents tread the right path. I could have gone a few more years without knowing how horrible humanity (or animals - they’ll eat you as soon as look at you) could be to each other, and I still learned to laugh again (again, thanks to PBS). OTOH, Three’s Company wasn’t going to change anyone’s lifestyle, unless Don Knotts finally turned someone off of their pastel jumpsuit craze.
Crushing Horror vs. Dull Comedy? I probably should have just practiced the violin, instead.
*In all seriousness, if it involves WWII, and was broadcast on T.V. before 1979 - Thanks to my dad, I’ve seen it. It made me a weirdly serious, fixated kid.
A-Team (violence) was the biggie for me. All my friends at school watched it so I was left out discussing the latest episodes, and it was hard playing “A-Team” on the playground when I didn’t know the characters. Oh well. My parents didn’t have a problem with Knight Rider, which probably had a similar level of “no one actually gets hurt” violence in it, so it may have been more of a “scared of the black guy with the mohawk thing”. Miami Vice was also verboten until about season 3.
I don’t remember ever being forbidden to watch anything–I had a TV in my room from a young age, and I can’t recall my mom ever telling me I couldn’t watch anything (my dad never offered an opinion one way or the other).
My restrictions as a kid were bedtime-based. It didn’t matter what it was–if it was on after bedtime, I couldn’t watch it. And I knew better than to try to sneak-watch in my room, since my mom had ears like…a thing that hears really, really well.
The only time I really cared was when I had to miss Vega$ because it was on at 10:00 on a school night.
My parents never restricted which shows I watched, but my mother encouraged me not to watch spooky movies because I’d get scared to go to bed at night. I LOVED the campiness of the Saturday night creepy movie, but then had to sleep with the light on the next three nights. I didn’t watch the news much, but I did read their Time magazine. I was nearly 9 when Kent State happened and I remember reading that story backwards and forwards trying to make sense of it.
For a couple of conservative Baptists, they really let my brother and I make up our own minds more often than not. When Soap came out, people were livid and they never said a word about it.
I grew up in a TV repair shop, so I was constantly surrounded by everything that was on, such as it was. No shows were off-limits. I actually watched surprisingly little, given the circumstances. The fact that TVs were a constant background for me meant that I tuned out a lot of it. I mostly paid attention to cartoons, Star Trek, news, MASH*, and nature shows. Most sitcoms bored me, so I read or played while others watched, and only looked up if something sounded interesting.
I was born in 1961, and TV was fairly tame until I was an adult. I’m sure my parents WOULD have censored anything inappropriate, but they never really had to.
No, wait… for a little while, when we were little kids, we weren’t allowed to watch Soupy Sales, because there were all kinds of rumors about smutty things he was SUPPOSED to have said or done on the air.* But eventually, my parents watched the show with me, saw that Soupy’s jokes were ancient and corny rather than naughty, and relented.
Soupy talked to Snopes about some of the things he was accused of saying and doing, and laughed it all off. He said that censorship was absurdly strict back in the Sixties, and that he’d have been kicked off the air pronto if he’d ever dared do ANY of the things he was accused of doing.
Can you free-range kids please shut up? This is a place of bonding for kids whose parents had asinine TV rules. (Okay, fine, you can do whatever you want, but still.)
I was prohibited from watching
[ul]
[li]He-Man. Reason: Vague elements of dark magic, or whatever.[/li][li]Married with Children. Reason: Too racy.[/li][li]Three’s Company. Reason: Same.[/li][li]Dennis the Menace (both the original series and the 80s cartoon). Reason: He was disrespectful to his elders.[/li][/ul]
There are others that I can’t remember, but these spring to mind immediately, particularly He-Man and Dennis the Menace, because what? I also wasn’t allowed to watch much TV at all, but the little that I could was fraught with confusing and asinine restrictions.
I remember one Saturday when my brother was trying to watch “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini,” but he knew my father would lose his MIND at the title. I, as the little sister, became the lookout. I sat on the basement stairs. I don’t remember what I was supposed to do if Dad came down. Probably create a distraction by doing something stupid. My father wouldn’t suspect anything. I was always doing something stupid.
Which was misguided, because in the live-action series at least, Dennis was the complete opposite. He was a helpful, respectful young man who minded his elders, especially Mr. Wilson, whom he adored. Dennis could be mischievous, but he mostly got in trouble because of innocent childish misunderstandings.
