this was part and parcel of a lot of gags on Animaniacs.
“Okay Dot, check for prints!”
“Found him!” (camera shows Dot holding the singer Prince in her arms.)
“No, finger prints!”
(Dot gives camera a sly look) “I don’t think so.”
and that was actually a kid’s show.
went away after “The Side-Boob Hour.”
Beat me to it. Definitely should file this one under censors being clueless about pop culture.
Ah, not quite what I was expecting. Posted by Tom Shipley himself, I notice.
I just watched the FG episode “PTV”, part of the plot is about FCC censorship. It had all sorts of scandalous tidbits like:
Watching Conan is a trip in terms of weird censorship. Apparently, the main limit is that you can’t say a few words at all: the f-bomb, the c-bomb, etc.
But you can say s**t. But only for a certain number of times in one episode, 6? So you hear people saying it over and over then the bleeps start in. Okaaay. (And using it as an allegory rather than the actual act/item seems to be required.)
Also, as long as you don’t use the actual F-bomb, you can describe all the usual sex acts using every slang language all you want.
Every few days we hear something on TV and comment on how TV has changed.
There was a Sesame Street episode in which the characters were dressed for a costume party, getting onto a bus. Someone, I think it was “David,” was dressed as a Christmas tree and was having trouble fitting through the bus door, so someone gives him a push.
“Watch it! You’re breaking my balls!”
The children watching didn’t notice, but I nearly suffocated trying to stifle my laughter so I wouldn’t have to explain what I was laughing at.
Conan is not on network TV so no FCC. Any censorship is self imposed.
As has been explained, the FCC doesn’t regulate cable, only OTA broadcast television. Networks such as HBO and Showtime are subscription networks and operate on the principle that subscribers know what the content of the networks is and won’t be shocked by what they see and hear. Other networks have advertisers and may restrict themselves in the daytime, but allow harsher language in the evening.
Comedy Central often shows uncensored material after 1:00 a.m. They will show movies and stand-up comedy full of “shits” and “fucks” without bleeping them out. I once saw Clerks 2 on the network and it was intact except for the addition of commercials and they once ran a South Park episode that used the word “shit” about 168 times with a counter on the screen keeping track of how many times the word was used.
cochrane, Loach: Um, why do you mention something that we all know???
The famous Lebowski line “… friend in the Alps” is from cable TV, not OTA. And on and on.
This thread is full of censorship examples from cable TV.
And the FCC? The FCC had nothing to do with classic examples such as married people sleeping in twin beds, etc. The OTA network standards are not the same as FCC rules.
Each network sets it’s own rules. These rules are very peculiar in many cases and can lead to humorous results.
One of the weirdest bits of censorship I saw was on Dirty Jobs when Mike was at a dog groomer’s shop and she was giving a male dog a haircut. When the dog was belly-up, they pixellated his little doggy wee-wee! Seriously!!!
Oh, kids shows did worse back in the 1990s. Here’s one that actually stepped over the line a little bit, but was shown in an episode of Cow and Chicken:
And, yes, Cow and Chicken was on Cartoon Network, which was a cable/satellite channel. However, it was a children’s channel.
And then there was Rocko’s Modern Life, on Nickelodeon. Another cable/satellite channel, another children’s channel:
[ul]
[li]The title character ate fried chicken at the Chokey Chicken.[/li][li]The title character had a job as a phone sex operator. Not mentioned in so many words, but he said “Oh baby, oh baby” on-screen, and a sign on the wall behind him said “Be Hot, Be Naughty, Be Courteous”.[/li][li]His friend, a bull named Heifer (another little thing which might qualify for this list to some people), was brought to a fairly obvious orgasm by a completely idiotic farmer with a milking machine.[/li][li]Rocko once picked a berry that belonged to a bear. A bear’s berry. A testicle. He tweaked a berry and a bear came out from behind the bush clutching its crotch in pain.[/li][/ul]
You reading the same thread? This thread is about TV sensors. Almost all of the examples that were given before yours (Family Guy, Simpsons etc) are from network TV which do fall under the FCC.
Ha. Now that I’m looking at it I do think you are confusing two threads. The Big Lebowski line is from the funniest edited for tv lines thread not this one.
Unless you’re taking about RF receivers, the only censors TV shows have are network Standards and Practices people, which cable and satellite networks also have. The FCC doesn’t censor anything, it only hands out fines after the fact. The Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint, which is what FCC censorship would amount to, and people throughout the centuries didn’t die face-down in the muck so the Federal government could say what a TV station could or could not show prior to it going to air.
What sort of a show is Family Guy assumed or expected to be, for what sort of audience?
A double entendre like the OP’s example would be nothing unusual in no end of coarse comedy in the UK (and indeed Ireland, where exactly that joke appeared in a Father Ted episode*) - but it’s confined to “after the watershed” (9pm) when it’s assumed children won’t be watching.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Oc0ctpI94
And OP would probably need a lot of forewarning about this sort of gag:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et1y2XJzKjs
Prime-time cartoon for a general audience, because the kids are expected to still be up and awake. OTOH, it’s on FOX, which has pushed the envelope since the network as a whole launched in the 1980s.
Family Guy is pre-watershed.
OK, yeah, strictly speaking. But the FCC has guidelines that determine what they’ll fine a station for violating, and they don’t act on complaints about cable TV.
Are you sure they didn’t have a censored disc playing? Just technologically it would be a nightmare to create such a thing back in the days when people still used CD players. Hell, it would be tough now. There would have to be significant delay, and it would work very spotty at best.
I think it was one of the very recent seasons. I vaguely recall it. Glory hole is highly memorable, in the dolphin uprising segment in a treehouse episode when Homer lists off mankind’s accomplishments.
Family Guy in fact usually airs at 9pm, not that this “watershed” stuff is really a thing in the US where it first runs (especially not under that term, it’s literally unheard of unless someone from another country brings it up). Last time anything similar to that happened was some fines over something like saying “bullshit” or partial nudity (I forget the exact hubub) on an episode of NYPD Blue where a few stations in the central time zone got fined for airing it before 10pm. Note that FCC fines are on stations, not networks, not studios. Local stations.
Family Guy’s not intended for a general audience. It usually carries a TV 14 rating, the highest content rating you’re likely to see on a broadcast network. TV G, two levels lower, is for general audiences. TV MA, the only higher rating, is usually reserved for cable and premium. TV ratings are self applied by the channel or network so it goes directly to their intent as much as their content…
Nothing topped Lawrence Welk introducing his token Negro tap-dancer around the same time as “… a fine gentleman, and a credit to his race!”
(In other words, “He **knows **his place!”) :eek: