You can't do that on television... Even though they once did

Cafe Society
1

Surfing the internet I came across a reference to Maude’s Dilemma, the 1972 double-episode where the main character, Maude (played by Bea Arthur) makes the choice to have an abortion.

It’s over four decades later and the prospect of a main character in a network television show getting an abortion seems very unlikely.

I also look at old reruns of All In The Family and there are a lot of things that I don’t think could ever be written into a show today. The one that stands out isn’t Edith’s attempted rape but the episode called Archie Is Branded where they get a swastika mistakenly pained on their front door and the episode ends with Paul, a guy from a JDL-type organization, getting blown up in his car.

What other things aired on network television decades ago that simply couldn’t get the same treatment now?

2

I’d like to think that cooler heads would prevail before this happened.

3

I would think the Richard Pryor - Chevy Chase SNL skit “Word Association” would have zero chance of airing today.

In fact, it’s not workplace-safe, so use the below double links:

https://screen.yahoo.com/word-association-000000441.html

4

A lot of those early Disney cartoons will never be rebroadcast.

5

True. Family Guy had an episode in 2010 where Lois had an abortion. It was broadcast in the UK and released on DVD but never broadcast in the United States.

6

Were the early Disney cartoons every broadcast on television, or simply shown in theaters?

And what about the old racist WB cartoons? Were those on TV?

7

Some. And it depends what you mean by ‘racist’.

8

Yeah, when I think of modern television the first word that comes to mind is restraint.

9

Amos and Andy

10

You make the call: All this and Rabbit Stew

11

At the time my wife, then a small child, thought folks were laughing at them because they were retarded, not because they were black.

There was more nudity on American TV in the 80s - 00s, including daytime soaps.

12

I doubt a game show host today could get away with cracking up for two minutes on end.

13

Smoking. Smoking all the time. Smoking everywhere. Handing out cigarettes to the audience, because, hey, who doesn’t need cigarettes?

14

I don’t know.

15

Television is more permissive, in places, of elbow you in the ribs titillation but actually challenging and upsetting viewers is verboten.

It is a mix of the corporate take over of Media and the outrage culture we live in.

16

I remember an episode of The Jeffersons where George clashed with an asshole racist who lived in his building and who was raising his teenaged son to be an asshole racist, too. The guy has a heart attack and George performs CPR on him (including mouth-to-mouth). The son witnesses this and, humbled and grateful, sees George in a whole new light. When his dad regains consciousness as the paramedics are taking him away (George is still standing right there, sweaty and shaken), the son says to him, “Dad, he saved your life!” and the guy sneers at George, “You should have let me die.” Pretty powerful. Not sure it would fly today.

17

Making fun of Nazis like Hogan’s Heros. I think these days you have to show them as evil , not in a comedy.

18

Now you’ve got to be a CNN anchor. (Anderson Cooper getting giggles about Gerard Depardoodoo)

19

There was a time when women couldn’t admit to being sexually active and not be sluts… the classic “Neither, actually” line from Uhura in the late 60’s, and an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore show, where her parents were visiting and her mom said (to her dad) “Don’t forget to take your little pill,” and Mary & her dad both say “Okay…” Shocking, it was.

20

I haven’t seen TV depicted blatant and rampant drug use so bad that cocaine was being used as a foot powder in quit a while…