My parents were never to keen on me watching Ricky Lake (though they couldn’t stop me, I had my own TV by then). Actually, a lot of talk shows they didn’t like, especially Jerry Springer. South Park was banned when I was younger. We’re talking young teens for both shows. I don’t recall having anything specifically banned in my house besides that. Though my parents did avoid watching anything they wouldn’t want me seeing when I was around and awake.
There is a story behind why my mother stopped watching soap operas though. She used to all the time when I was really young (Too young to remember this). Then one day I asked why the man on the TV was kissing a woman who wasn’t his wife. She decided I was picking up too much and found something else to do on weekday mornings.
I didn’t have a television growing up either. My Mom thought TV was insufferably stupid and/or vile. In particular she hated TV news. This was durring the late sixties and early seventies and she found the coverage of the Viet Nam war extreamly upsetting - not that we or anyone we knew was directly affected by it. Not having TV, I read a lot. And I do mean A LOT. I have been on a first name basis with Librarians since I was 5. The only restriction on my reading was - Don’t check out more books than you can haul home.
I did, of course watch at my friend’s house’s. Mom was right - most of it was stupid - but it sure was fun! Don’t believe I missed a single episode of Star Trek or Kung Fu or Starsky and Hutch. What is really funny to me now is that so much of 70’s TV is out, or comming out, on DVD and my kids (Teenagers) love it. They have actually paid money for 2 seasons of Starsky and Hutch. Go figure.
When I was pre-kindergarten, my mother would not let me watch The Munsters because she thought the monster make up would scare me. (That was first run, BTW).
Later, when I was elementary and junior High age, she tried to enforce a ban on the Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy shorts, but it never worked. Her rationale was the violence… but I could watch the Roadrunner with impunity. Go figure.
Before she died, she tried to explain all this to my then 12 y.o. son, and he got her to admit that it was all a fool’s errand. Good kid.
Saturday Night Live (unless I was at my Nana’s house. She let me do anything I wanted )
Three’s Company which I wanted to see until I managed to sneak watching a few episodes and realized that it seemed to be the same plot week after week, and lost interest anyway.
and Bosom Buddies of all things :rolleyes: (I watched it most of the time anyway - gotta love when your parents work overtime ).
I had no restrictions other than not being able to watch what I wanted if it came on opposite what my parents were watching.
A great example was sometime in 1974. I wanted to watch The Smothers Brothers (why? well, Olivia Newton-John was on!) and my parents had to watch Gunsmoke.
I got a 12" b&w TV in 1975 and could watch anything I wanted.
Now my juices are flowing. “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” was right out. “Three’s Company” and “One Day At A Time” were looked upon very unfavorably, although I don’t think there was an actual ban. I was a big “Jeffersons” fan when I was about 10, but my dad always used to ask me rhetorically, “Why do you watch that stupid show?” I was allowed to watch “All In The Family”. My mom cringed at the swearing and controversy, but it was felt to be morally acceptable, i.e. portrayed conservatives as morons. It’s still one of my favorites, even though I am something of a stick-in-the-mud myself these days.
From my childhood, The A-Team and V were the two biggies that I was not allowed to watch that “everyone else was.” Thus I was left out of the lunch table conversation, or playground re-enactments.
I remember watching A-Team many years later and being stunned that the show’s violence was just like cartoon violence that I was allowed to watch (G.I. Joe/Transformers/Voltron): No One Ever Got Really Hurt. It really wasn’t any worse than Knight Rider and the other computerized vehicle shows that my parents didn’t mind me watching. Oh well.
As I’ve said elswhere, my mom wouldn’t let me watch the first season of that show for pretty much the same reason. It took one of my sisters to point out that the cops were the bad guys for her to relent.
Three of mine will probably make some sense: Three’s Company (because they were living together, even if they weren’t living together), Love Boat (because, um, I dunno), and Fantasy Island (because it had fantasy in the title, I think).
But one is inexplicable. We were forbidden to watch Newhart. Perhaps my father was offended by all those guys named Darrell (Daryl? Darryl?). The world will never know.
Reading this makes me remember my dad’s stories about sneaking down to the bottom few steps to peek into the living room where his parents were watching The Flintstones. I don’t remember exactly why my grandparents wouldn’t let him watch it.
I myself was banned from watching MTV…I’m sure there were specific shows on other channels I wasn’t allowed to watch, but I don’t remember what they were. These restrictions came from my mom. She gave up on keeping my dad from showing me R-rated movies around the time I turned 8 or 9, though, so I’m not sure exactly what she thought she was protecting me from.
The only specific show I was ever banned from watching was The Simpsons. I think it had more to do with the fact that it was animated, and therefore in the eyes of my dad lowbrow stupid humor, than because it was innapropriate.
When I was a kid back in the 60s’ the only show my siblings and I were forbidden to watch were “The Three Stooges.” Looking back, I guess my mom didn’t want us slapping each other upside the head while saying “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.” We had to pick that up on the streets.
Hmmm, well when I was little, I watched soap operas with my mom all the time, so by the time I was three, I could tell you every plot and subplot of Guiding Light.
When I was eleven, though, I couldn’t watch Married…With Children or In Living Color because my mother thought they were crass and degrading. (Mostly in their attitudes towards women). After about a year, though, she gave up, realizing I was old enough to know it was just a tv show. Well, that and I’d be upstairs, watching it anyways without her knowing.
When I was in high school, the folks tried to not let me watch Beavis and Butthead, but since I was a little too old for a ban, they just convinced me not to watch it while my little sister was around.
What was Mary Hartman?
There was a very short-lived show in 1980 called United States that I was not allowed to watch. It was billed as “An adult comedy”, and that was all my mom needed to hear.
Fact is, “adult” didn’t mean full-frontal nudity. What it meant was, the problems the family faced weren’t “Mom wrecked the car” or “Susie needs braces”, and there were no pat resolutions. I’m not sure it was in the best taste when all was said and done (it must have been on at 10 pm for a reason), but the irony is, my mom also ragged on shows like Eight is Enough because they had pat resolutions. Whatever.
And I remember the big, big, BIG deal about Soap. Billy Crystal’s character was gay. Yes, Virginia, that was a big deal in 1978. Well, hey, some show had to have such a character sooner or later, and I think Crystal managed to salvage his career somehow.
I can say that Mrs. Fritz and I wouldn’t let our girls watch any scary or violent stuff.
Curiously, Mrs. Fritz wouldn’t let the girls watch the Simpsons at all - she barely tolerates me watching the show, and leaves the room if I do. Strange prejudice that I can’t figure out. And forget South Park and Family Guy…
This is so funny, I remember my mom complaining about many of the shows mentioned in this thread. The banning that was the most memorable was Three’s Company, Mom complained it was too racy for children, but later she confessed that the real reason for the ban was that she was convinced our IQ points were dropping before her eyes as we watched it.
The other show that was often in contention was Fantasy Island. I would watch it, have terrible nightmares, it would be off-limits the next week, and I would then pitch fits until I was allowed to watch it again. Lather, rinse, repeat. I was horrified later in life to see it in repeats and realize it’s the dumbest show ever, and not at all scary. Well, not scary in the nightmare way, although perhaps scary in terms of popular culture.
When I was a kid, my father would not let me watch Gunsmoke, because one time he saw the hero stab a bad guy in the back. My father said that good guys, don’t stab people in the back.
Other than that no restrictions.
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