I had an oddball list of TV shows I wasn’t allowed to watch during my childhood a million years ago in the 1970s. It was my mom who made the rules. My dad didn’t care if I watched Benny Hill or Charlie’s Angels.
Starsky and Hutch - too violent, I guess. But other kids in my class had Starsky and Hutch T-shirts!
Hogan’s Heroes - they made fun of war. Grandpa was in World War II, you know. Never mind the fact he never went any farther than Biloxi.
Welcome Back Kotter - This was the worst. Kids disrespectful to authority. Up yo’ nose with a rubba hose!
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. This one drove me nuts because my parents were riveted to it, wouldn’t let me watch it, wouldn’t explain why, and what little of it I saw made no sense to me.
Now that I think of it, Dad didn’t like shows where the kids were disrespectful, either. He disliked Eight is Enough because one or another kid was always saying stuff like “It’s my decision, Dad! Stay out of my life” and crap like that.
Not very many, but the one I do remember was Three’s Company. Not so much because Dad thought it would corrupt my young mind, but he was rather uncomfortable watching it with his 11yo kid.
**Solid Gold **with Rick Dees. My mother was mortified by the writhing and grinding, while dressed in crotch cutting, barely-there outfits and insane come-fuck-me- pumps, of the ‘Solid Gold Dancers’ wore. She said she kept expecting Hell to open underneath them.
I was never prohibited from watching anything when I was a kid. And my brother and I both had a second set that we could watch while our parents watched something on the big TV in the living room. Of course, back then there were only three networks and about five channels in total that we could pick up.
My mom wouldn’t let me watch any soap operas. But if I was home with Dad he’d let me watch The Young and the Restless with him. “Just don’t tell your mother!”
I wasn’t allowed to watch Looney Tunes or Transformers because they were too violent. I wasn’t allowed to watch The Simpsons because, although my mother had never seen a single episode, she believed the hysteria of the day that Bart Simpson was a bad role model and would soon have all of us kids enjoining parents to eat our shorts. Many years later, when I was in junior high, my mother reluctantly allowed me to watch an episode. It was the Australia episode and at the end of it, I made my mother admit that this was a totally awesome show and she had been silly for banning it.
Of course, this is nothing compared to my best friend’s mother who wouldn’t let her watch He-Man (he of the catchphrase, “I have the power!”) because…wait for it…only GOD has the power!
I wasn’t allowed to watch “Soap” because it was condemned by the Catholic Church. Fortunately, my mom had a class on the night it came on. I was able to watch almost the whole show before running upstairs to my room when I heard her car.
Also, when I was 12 and my sister was 7, I got in big trouble for letting her watch a Buddy Hackett special while I was babysitting.
No censorship at all. And what kind of amazes me still is that my parents let one of us kids stay up as late as we wanted and watch whatever we wanted on friday nights on a rotating basis. I usually watched horror flicks but one night, when I was about 9, I watched “The L shaped room” because it starred Leslie Caron who was Gigi in that lovable “frolic”. Oh dear lord, that movie prayed on my mind for years.
My mother was/is kind of wacky. I was allowed to watch Soap, but not Three’s Company. I didn’t get it at the time, because Soap obviously had some adult themes. I figured out years later that it was because she thought Three’s Company was just stupid jiggle humor that had no redeeming value, but that Soap was a genuinely funny, good show. Not sure if that is good logic, but it’s the kind of logic mom tends to use.
The Logan’s Run TV series; my mother thought it was on too late for a school night and told me I could watch the reruns during the summer. Then they canceled it. She told me later she always felt a little guilty about that.
As an 8-10 year old in the late 50’s/early 60’s, I wasn’t allowed to watch Westerns. My father didn’t want me to see all that “blood and guts.” :rolleyes:
Alfred Hitchcock Presents. No idea why, but I remember Dad chasing us out of the TV room when it came on. A quick Google shows it went off the air when I would have been four - so I guess maybe he thought it would be too intense.
On the other hand, we weren’t living in the house that I remember from sneaking peeks at the TV, so maybe it was in reruns (since I think I was older than that, since I don’t have a lot of memories from that age).
It didn’t work that way in my pre-teen years. We had to be given permission to watch anything. We only had one B&W set, and not even that for a long time. And basically I had to watch what my parents, mostly dad, wanted to watch. I was allowed to see the Popeye cartoons on Captain Tug every evening, and Pick Temple in the morning.
I had to ask permission to turn the TV on - when we first got it, I wasn’t even allowed to do that.
I had a strict 8:30 bedtime and I don’t remember not being allowed to watch anything that was on before then. My mother used to watch Peyton Place and I’m pretty sure that, even if it had been on before 8:30, I wouldn’t have been allowed to watch it.
My wife as a kid didn’t watch Mr. Rogers for the same reason.
My dad wouldn’t let me watch Tom & Jerry (mind you, this was when I was in upper grade school).
My little brother was allowed to watch, over and over and over and over ad nauseum RoboCop. This was during the same time I was not allowed to watch T&J.
Tom & Jerry: too violent for a 12yo.
RoboCop: just fine for an 8yo.
:rolleyes:
Actually, this might explain a lot about my brothers’ current mental state.
