What are some of the craziest censorship instances on TV shows you have seen?

submitted by

lemmy.ml/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Ff…

What are some of the craziest censorship instances on TV shows you have seen?

I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.

689

Log in to comment

309 Comments

South Park Season 1 Episode 7 (the episode where Cartman wears a Adolf Hitler costume for Halloween) was partially censored in Germany. Cartmans "Sieg Heil" was changed to "Wie Geil" (means "how cool"). I think the censoring there was actually funnier than the original.

I always thought the "wie geil" was international for the joke to work. So that others think it's harmless... but I haven't seen it since years.

When Sailor Moon was airing on American TV back in the late 90's, they completely censored out every aspect of romantic relationship between Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus. Turned them into cousins.

It was a shock to me when I bought the subtitled version and they were suddenly lesbians.

lol yeah. They didn't edit out all the flirting though or all the embarassed or indignant reactions by the characters around them, which presents those "cousins" in a really interesting light ;)

The US version of Sailor Moon was also censored and edited in different other ways. IIRC: - All Tokyo references were changed to New York. So they've changed where the whole thing took place. - They changed all Japanese writings (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji) - Multiple characters had their gender or sex changed as to avoid homosexual relations. - The music was completely changed for some reason - They took out many scenes or even whole episodes if they thought, they might vaguely get into conflict with the FCC. - They scrapped a whole season, because the Sailor Starlights (I think that was their name?) changed gender in their magical transformation.

I believe there was also a scene in Sailor Moon where a character was in the bath. In order to make the water opaque the censors decided that red would be the best colour to use, so it looks like she's bathing in blood.

That honestly sounds absurd to me and makes me want to see sailor moon or (but the uncensored version).

That's so disappointing. To me, Sailor Moon is the OG all inclusive series. (It was my very favorite show ever as a kid and probably still is.) I kinda love how they didn't make a big deal out of it. The star sailors change sex when they transform and it's not even talked about. It just is how it is and nobody wonders about it. Neptune and Uranus having the hots for each other is portrayed as any other romance is and iirc no character ever addresses the "taboo" of it. Even the alien incest is somehow fine (I mean they are aliens and extinct so they do them).

I understand the LGBTQ+'s struggle for representation and acceptance, so probably they do need somewhat of an over accentuated representation on screen to eventually reach full acceptance. But Sailor Moon seems to be what comes "after" this, just normalization without it ever being a question. All the while sparking an interest in astronomy in kids who then know all the names of the dwarf planets in our solar system before they know the multiplication table.

Man I can't wait till my kid reaches Sailor Moon watching age.

I hope your kids like it.

It has always seemed to me that my kids have gone out of their way to avoid liking anything I like. That’s fine, but I never could relate to them.

I adopted my son so it was different with him. We did everything together and he was happy to look into my interests sometimes. He and I played world of Warcraft together for a decade and I’d cut off a couple toes to go back and have that with him again.

Thanks, I hope so too. For now she's very much into girls as main characters so maybe I'll get lucky with the series.

I once heard that a teenager will act very similarly to how they acted at 3 years old. Extrapolating from that (my child is 3.5) it's very likely that she will also not like anything I like or listen to anything I say. When she has the choice between A and B she suggests C. Her answer to the Sally-Anne test is *wild*. I'm pretty sure she'll keep destroying metaphorical boxes or playing Schrödinger's cat instead of just thinking inside or outside the box.

I also always dreamt of having music playing in the background and dancing to it. She hates recorded music. She likes singing and me/others singing (sometimes) but God beware I turn on a CD.

Also, time to call your son and invite him over for a WoW weekend I guess.

When I was a teenager, I bought a DVD that had a few Sailor Moon episodes that I had never seen before (being from the U.S.) In these episodes, Makoto (or "Lita" AKA Sailor Jupiter) develops a crush on Haruka (or "Amara" AKA Sailor Uranus) and has to cope with her being unattainable. The DVD included both an English dub and the original Japanese with English subtitles.

In the original Japanese version, the crush is treated as romantic in nature, with Makoto's friends telling her that Haruka already has "a girlfriend" (Michiru AKA "Michelle" AKA Sailor Neptune.) In the English dub, Makoto wants Haruka to be her "best friend," with the rest of the Sailor Scouts telling her that Haruka already has "a best friend."

The visuals all stay the same, complete with roses and Makoto's starry love-eyes. The romantic implications are so obvious it's painful.

Out of curiosity, (if you'd like to share), how old were you when you found out and how did you take it? Were you on board with it or did it feel weird?

::: I spoiler tagged this long ass post in order to hide it from folks who don't care.

I'm not that person but I had the exact same thing happen to me! And let me tell you, when I was first watching it as a middle schooler, *I knew they were in love!* I didn't know that women-who-like-women had a word (lesbian), so I thought, "Well, if you're in love with someone, they're probably your friend. Probably your best friend, so that makes sense. But you can't just call them your girlfriend, because-"

I grew up in rural Oklahoma (and now live in Tennessee). A woman, who has a friend, and that friend is a woman, makes her a girlfriend. I still call women who are my friends, 'girlfriends,' even though it obviously could mean something romantic. So Uranus and Neptune probably couldn't just say 'girlfriend,' because *all* the girls who were their friends were their girlfriends, so 'best' friend is probably a friend who is *such* a good friend, that you're also in love with them. (This was the logic of a sixth grader.)

It's one of the reasons that Sailor Moon fans have always been so inclusive, have always stood up for other presentations or orientations. Why on *earth* would we support people trying to hide this stuff from children, when a not-so-small number of us knew what we were looking at when *we* were children?

To add to that, I might have had a *very* unique interpretation of the situation, because I would later learn that I was a demi bisexual (we didn't even have the word 'demisexual' when I was a girl) and what that means is... For me, I usually only want a relationship with the person who is such my best friend, that I also am in love with them!

:::

Why on *earth* would we support people trying to hide this stuff from children, when a not-so-small number of us knew what we were looking at when *we* were children?

I watched Sailor Moon on German TV in the 90s (RTL 2 gang unite!). And whenever this topic of changes in the dubs comes up I struggle to remember how they put it in the German translation *exactly because of what you said*. It doesn't matter how they translated it. It was so obvious. I haven't known anyone who didn't know exactly what was going on (but to be fair, it was common knowledge what lesbians were).

(Also 90s German dubs in general sometimes turned out weird - looking at you, first three seasons of *FRIENDS* - so I kinda didn't over interpret the exact wording because I was so used to strange ways of putting things.)

Now you must tell me about the first three seasons of FRIENDS. (Please?)

Oh they just didn't translate idiomatically. Alot of times they translated it literally and very badly. So a lot of puns just don't work at all. Not the worst example but one that I remember out of my head is when Rachel and Ross have their fight in the cafe right before their first kiss. I think they say that the shop has long sailed (which is a saying and works with relation*ship*) but they also talk about ships in German. Which isn't too bad but it's not a saying in German, you would say the train has left. The German word for relationship also has no "ship" so them talking about ships was really random. You can take it as a metaphor still, so it was ok-ish, but why would two New Yorkers use ships as a metaphor out of the blue.

A lot of sexual innuendo that is more or less obvious in English just absolutely doesn't work in German. Like the dude with the watch who claims he has a dry spell (Monica's date) - when he starts talking about having no ink in his pen it just sounds super off. Not like in a well designed metaphor but just like "???" you get it but it's just not something that works.

There is also a scene that is so random that I can't even pinpoint it down right now. Monica asks Joey (or Chandler?) whether he will be good to some specific girl and he doesn't get the question. In English (and with context) it makes sense and it's funny why he doesn't get it, in German it is so random, you absolutely are on Joey's side because you do not understand wtf is going on and what he is supposed to answer and why Monica would ask that. As I said, I've watched the show *a lot* and I can't even tell you the context because it is so unfitting in the moment. I've watched the whole show like 15 times in German and about 5 times in English and I only got it when I watched it in English. If I remember what episode that was I'll let you know.

I wish I could provide you with more and better examples but it's been at least 6 years since my last rerun :(

As a side note, the Russian dub is so much worse quality wise, but they end up just summarizing more or less idiomatically what happens. Jokes are lost this way, but at least there is no confusion about what is happening.

And now we are friends!

That's the other cool thing about the Sailor Moon fandom. I've never once met a Sailor Moon fan who was a racist, or a bigot, or... anything. It comes with the 'love and justice' thing.

I was a freshman in high school when I found out, and I was dumbfounded. I'd always chalked the wonky scenes up to being a culturally Japanese thing. And anime in itself was more "effeminate" overall than anything we had in America.

I was shocked, but it all suddenly made sense. I was fine with it. Early 2000s where I lived at the time was pretty accepting. I had friends in high school who were openly gay, and no one bothered them about it.

I think now it's pretty wild that sailor moon was even on the air back then, though. There were definitely series they could have played that wouldn't have to edit out huge chunks just to keep in line with broadcast regulations. The fact it got airtime at all is astounding. I mean, I'm happy it did, because SM is awesome, but still.

In France, advertising alcohool brands on TV is heavily restricted. It wasn't a problem in the Simpsons since Duff was not a real brand of beer.

When Duff became a real brand, French TV had to blur every Duff logo and beep out every "Duff" pronounced on screen. Some episodes became unwatchable, Duffman became *beep*man, every beer became blurry...

Duffman became *beep*man, every beer became blurry…

Considering Duffman's signature hip movements and the funky *Ohhh yeaaah~* music that always plays whenever he arrives, someone who doesn't know Duff is supposed to be a beer might get a *very* wrong idea about his job.

It's like the censored Sesame Street clip of the Count

Wait, what?

Iirc they bleep out every time he says "count"

"I love to %@#$! 1...2...3"

Edit: lol https://youtu.be/6AXPnH0C9UA

You've made my day, thanks

Clearly needs more state regulations. People can't be trusted to know what they want to watch and see with their eyes

Idk man France seems to be doing better than us these days I wouldn't knock em too hard

Yes, alcoholism isn't real and if it were we shouldn't make it easier for people who try to quit.

Nobody said that. Also shouldn't it be up to the recovering alcoholic to not watch tv shows that often depict heavy drinking if that bothers them? Nobody is forcing alcoholics to watch The Simpsons.

As I understand it the ban in France seems to specifically target real brands. So you can still show people drinking but you're not allowed to show the logo of e.g. Heineken.

Is this a good regulation? I don't know, but it might not be as arbitrary as the other comment suggested.

Nobody forced anyone to make a real beer brand called Duff. Liberal BS takes like yours are just so shortsighted. Might as well let kids buy cigs, their choice after all, isn't?

The Welsh rugby team were at one point sponsored by a Cardiff brewery called “Brains” and when they played over in Paris the sponsors name was rendered as “Brawn”.

Also the cigarette brand “Benson and Hedges” were branded “Buzzing Hornets” when their F1 team were racing in countries that had already banned tobacco sponsorship.

The Invincible TV series is quite gory. Blood gets censored to be white in China which makes for some interesting scenes of hands dripping with white stuff. Or this:

c u m

Furry cum. Bravo China, you've fixed it!

it's ok, because now *everyone* is having a good time!

Jesus they have their work cut out for them with that show lol. After a while, what’s the point. Also, isn’t anime just as bad or worse…

Anime as the west knows it primarily comes from Japan, not China.

*there are animated shows that come from China, but if there's a popular anime with blood its probably Japan.

Koreans also make some amazing stuff. Lots of Asian countries have their own variation. But all of them are pretty adult content.

Oh god!!!! That’s way worse!!!!

Cat Bukake!

What does the original look like?

Instead of being white it's red

I can imagine, but do you have a video?

Not on my phone. I still haven't even watched beyond season 1, I was just making a glib comment

I am very surprised they didn't ban it instead, the blood isn't the worst part, especially if you have a very creative mind.

Why do I now want to make an AMV with THAT trilogy of songs and this censored cut.

Die Hard 2.

Original line: "Yippee ki-yay, mother fucker."

Censorship line: "Yippee ki-yay, Mr. Falcon."

There is no one named Mr. Falcon in the movie.

They chose something that was plausible with how his mouth moved to say mother fucker?

I think i remember a movie with that weird martial arts guy who lives in Russia now where they changed mother fucker to mother flipper lol

Yeah, they were trying to match the syntax, but mother flipper at least sorta makes sense. Mr. Falcon just made me think I had the bad guy's name wrong the whole time.

Mr falcon is a way cooler replacement than mother flipper imo lol

For sure, 100%, but it's more confusing as well. I remember the first time I heard it thinking, "Wait, why did they change it to Mr. Falcon? Is the general named Falcon? I thought he was Esperanza. Is his nickname Falcon? Did he make reference to falcons? Who is Mr. Falcon?"

I feel like even though there were probably instances of it before this, the "Yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon" is kind of the OG, because it's the first one I remember to become well-known on this new thing called "the internet".

Yeah, i was either going to do Mr. Falcon or, "find a stranger in the Alps," and someone beat me to the Alps. I think Falcon was first though.

I don't remember if it was that movie or another Bruce Willis action movie, but there was a particular nonsensical line that sticks with me decades later. "I don't care about any of this sweet tooth boot wash!" Like, wut?

What was the swear? I'm guessing bullshit for the last bit, but what's sweet tooth?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Ah, the Norwegian subtitle crew had creative freedom when translating that line. The official translation was "hipp hurra kølletryne" which would translate back to english as "hip hooray club face" ("club" as in golf club or hockey stick - which of course also is a goofy euphemism for penis).

There’s also the sign changing from “I Hate N-words” to “I Hate Everyone”

It’s in the first film but yeah walking through glass barefoot, shooting people and throwing someone screaming from a ledge is all cool for the kids to watch.

The version of From Dusk Till Dawn that aired on German TV with age 16+ rating was half an hour shorter and was cut so badly, it hardly even made sense anymore. It's basically just a couple of dude(tte)s going to a gas station, then walking into a bar and starting to shoot at nothing for no reason.

That's not a movie that you can make TV appropriate.

I could look this up but what is with germany and blood censorship?

It's just different values. I could ask the same about the US and nudity. In German media, blood and violence is fine, but it's considered a topic that you need to be able to handle, so you need to have a certain age, depending on how gruesome that is.

Tbh, I'm European and therefore biased, but the way the united states have no problem with people harming other in media but being offended by something like "bodies" or "sex" does seem a little weird. Like, if my kids normalised harming others I'd be much more concerned than if they normalised making love.

Watching TV:

Here in the EU it is offensive/inappropriate to kill people.

There in the US it is offensive/inappropriate to make people.

So the difference is whether to make love or to make war. Personally I'd rather be a bononbo than a chimpanzee.

Bonobo Love Island:Chimpanzee Gladiators.

Little story to that point: In 2000 I flew NWA from Europe to the states. That time they still showed the movie on a big screen in the front of the cabin. The movie that day was Gladiator.

The airline did not censor gore and violence even though children were also flying.

But of course there was no nudity to speak of in that movie at all.

There is nudity in the original, when emperor rapes his sister(?) and I believe there's other scenes as well. They usually showed the made for TV edit so that's probably why you didn't see.

Their solution for kids was to not give us headphones lol.

Some of us here think it's backwards as well. The thing is that it's a hard cycle to break. Because nudity is so taboo here and pretty universally related to sex rather than art or nature it ends up with any place it show up being taken as scandalous 'uh oh, they showed the naughty bits'.

Nudes in art are viewed as high-brow, guns and violent sport as more low-brow, but we"re also a place who make icons of the blue collar 'Joe Sixpack' sort and for a large part treat intellectualism is snobby elitist shit.

Maybe one day we'll unga bunga our way out of the caves, but nobody knows when.

What is it with USA and boob censorship?

Ugh, that version is so bad. You see a character build this awesome vampire killing machine in a montage. And a minute later you see them throw it away without ever having used it.

Also for some inane reason the only way to get an uncensored Planet Terror with the helicopter chopping up zombies is by renting it. Good luck finding a video rental place nowadays.

Omg! Is THAT what they did? I remember when that movie came on tv and Ioved the road trip bit in the beginning and then it suddenly all stopped making sense all at once. I never watched it again because I didn’t realize that wasn’t just what the movie is. Mind blown. Thank you.

Yes. They cut out a lot of dialog, and most of the transition to vampires and the final fight.

The most infamous would be South Park episodes S14E05 and S14E06 named "200" and "201". The central theme of the episodes: Censorship. Something South Park had been subjected to ever since its inception. And this time, they centered around the limits of what is allowed around depictions of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. For context: These episodes aired after controversies around such depictions in media around the world had people killed.

So in an attempt to protect themselves, the network engaged in censorship of the episodes and it is sometimes unclear, what was intentionally in there as a plot point from the creators and what was added by the network. Although some egregious examples are clear, such as the complete bleeping of Kyle's "I've learned something today" monologue at the end. While Stone and Parker inserted clear plot points like characters like Moses of all people asking, whether something was OK to show or say. I'm still uncertain whether the huge censorship bar over the Prophet is a plot point, or censorship or both.

The kicker: Prophet Muhammad had been shown in earlier episodes already, without sparking controversy and in "200" and "201" they even reference those episodes. As expected, they received death threats after the airing of the episodes and later pulled all five episodes with Muhammad depictions from their streaming sites (Super-Best Friends, Cartoon Wars 1+2, 200, 201).

After this they actually pulled super best friends from syndication as well.

It's a movie, but when Sigourney Weaver's character says "Well, fuck that." and it's edited to say "Well, screw that." without changing how her mouth moves at all is about the funniest one I can think of.

(Galaxy Quest is the movie)

Yippee ki-yay, Mr. Falcon!

Supposedly that was one of a couple leftovers from a more R rated first cut.

Some of those cut scenes are present on the DVD release. There's one where Weaver's character does a bit of a strip tease to disteact some aliens (the modification to her outfit is still in the movie, it just changes randomly between scenes) and another where Shalhoub's character is explicitely confirmed to be high off his ass the entire movie.

She has one job on that ship. It’s stupid but she’s gonna do it!

That's a gif I always want to send co-workers 😁

I never saw the movie and don't know the context, but I wanted to see the gif so I looked it up. Is this the one?

This gif just reminded me how awesome that movie is

Does the fediverse have a place for watch parties? Because a bunch of us are *for sure* watching Galaxy Quest today.

[email protected] has links to #Monsterdon, a weekly watch party over on Mastodon. Galaxy Quest might be a bit too well made for their usual brand of movie, though.

Oh, thanks very much for the link! Always looking for cool new places on the fediverse!

Also, nice to finally meet you, Odo. You were an excellent part of my favorite Star Trek.

It is indeed. The audio is smooth in the movie so you don't notice unless you're watching her mouth.

I remember when Young Guns aired on a cable channel in the 90s there's a scene at the climax when Billy the Kid actually says "Murphy, you son of a bitch..." and shoots the baddie in the head.

So this cable channel edited it for him to say "Murphy, you sorry old buzzard...". But the headshot was still intact because this is America.

John McClain kills every member of a heist crew then throws the boss off a skyscraper to his doom and the only concession made for tv is “Yippee ki yay Mr Falcon.” America.

I thought he said melon farmer

The VH1 edit of showgirls. Movie was cut shorter... Meaning what actual plot there was was even more chopped up .

And when they couldn't edit out the nudity, they "Ms painted" bikini tops on the actresses.

It's absolutely hilarious to see https://www.reddit.com/r/Corridor/comments/1bs47qn/showgirls_movie_edited_for_tv_vh1_no_joke/

Here is a reddit link

Here's an example

Qatar Airlines does something similar with their movies - took me a bit to realize I was being “protected” on that tiny screen 😆

4Kids dubs of anime removing guns and all mentions of death. I recently watched the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters and there's a scene where I'm pretty sure Bandit Keith was originally threatening Pegasus with a gun. Without the gun, it just looks so ridiculous. And what did 4Kids have against rice balls? Arceus forbid American kids should learn anything about foreign culture, we must pretend these are donuts.

The original U.S. dub of Pokemon was the same re: riceballs. It didn't make sense in the 90s, and it doesn't make sense today. The worst thing that can happen is a kid asks their parents if they can try onigiri.

Oh no! Now we either have to tell our kids "no," or we have to do the research to find somewhere that makes/sells it, or attempt to follow a new recipe ourselves. How will U.S. culture, composed of nationalities from across the globe, ever survive this tremendous upheaval!?

In all seriousness, onigiri is delicious and *I wish* there were greater demand for it across the U.S. Even in my ethnically-diverse blue state, I only know of one place that makes onigiri, but it's far and a pain in the ass to travel to.

Weren't they dubbed as 'donuts' or am I having a Berenstain Bears moment?

"Jelly filled donuts are my favorite!"

  • Brock

That they were. I was so confused as a kid, because I was a big fan of donuts but had never seen one with a rectangular hole coming out the side (how would that even work?)

Onigiri is really easy to make yourself if you can get the ingredients. Tuna mayo onigiri is the bomb when you wake up with a hangover.

It's more about nobody ( that wasn't already into Asian food) knowing what it was. Even parents. And it not really being easy to look it up in the late 90s

It might have been easier to learn about if shows didn't censor it out from the start. How are people supposed to talk about something if it's deliberately removed? It's like people went, "Americans don't already know about this food, so let's make sure they don't learn about its existence."

I remember 1997 on The Simpsons, when Marge wanted to open a franchise. One of the options (which her rivals took) sold pita. I was a kid, and this was the first time I had ever heard of pita and tahini. They were simply described as "pocket bread" and "flavor sauce." The introduction of new foreign food items didn't upset or confuse the audience.

It's simply bizarre that riceballs are treated like some particularly incomprehensible thing.

Also, research may have taken longer (and involved trips to the library), but anyone who wanted to learn about something in the 90s still could've done it. It wasn't pre-literate, just pre-internet.

I had the same experience when I watched the Pretzels episode with Fat Tony from the mafia as a kid, but in Spanish. They called them pretzels.

But Pokemon was a show about a fantasy world of made up animals with magic powers. 4Kids felt kids would be able to grasp that, but not *rice balls*.

Kids could accept a weird yellow mouse that could shoot lightning bolts, they would have accepted some weird food they hadn't heard of either.

Kids probably would have just assumed it was part of the fantasy setting

It was kind of a missed opportunity to sell onigiri in the west

In the Mexican Spanish dub the Onigiris became sandwiches lmao.

This is my favorite example. They replaced all guns with finger guns, so they were all just pointing at each other *menacingly*

I'm currently watching the second season of Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters. There's an episode where Yugi and Kaiba are in a double duel and the threat is if they lose they'll fall through a glass floor to the shadow realm. Somehow I strongly suspect the threat in the Japanese version was they'll fall to their deaths. The ludicrously replace all threats of death with the shadow realm.

Let's not forget the time Yugi and a magician were chained to the floor with buzzsaws inching closer each time they lost life points that would "send them to the shadow realm"

Yup, watched that one recently too

4kids one piece broke me lol

In my neck of the woods onigiris were redubbed as "popcorn balls".

That actually makes more sense than donuts or sandwiches. They look like popcorn balls

Disney consored Gravity Falls a lot before the episodes even aired. Alex Hirsch (the creator) had constant trouble for even some minor things.

The funniest bit was, when they had a flyer that literally said "not S&P approved", because S&P (standards and practices) wouldn't approve the flyer saying "bottles will be spun".

they had a flyer that literally said “not S&P approved”

Also a recurring problem in ReBoot. The original network wouldn't let them do a ton of stuff for often vague reasons or ones that implied something was deeply wrong with the person monitoring the show. There's an article about all the absurdity.

That's quite a list. A bonkers read!

Reboot did similar things in the 90s with direct mentions of "BS&P" (broadcast standards and practices) in multiple episodes.

That show was pretty tame if I remember correctly, just supernatural stuff, animated version of x files.

Mostly yes, except when Bill Cipher was around. He skinned a screaming head once or stole the teeth of a deer.

and rearranged every orifice on the rich guys face

All those Monday to Friday snakes on this Monday to Friday plane.

That quote has stuck with me forever lol, also:

Matrix TV edit.

When agents take Neo away in the beginning and bug his belly. Then later when they do a little surgery in the back of the sedan, Neo says "jeepers creepers, that things real?!"

Reminds me of watching the TV version of The Thing. They change "bullshit" to "bull stuff" but all the gore is left uncensored

The US are sometimes very puzzling to us on the rest of the planet.

I'm old, and I saw the Breakfast Club back in the 80's on like, channel 11. For years I couldn't figure out why Principal Vernon and Carl the Janitor went from hating each other to being friends.

Years later I saw it unedited and realized they cut out the whole scene with the two of them bonding and smoking weed. So much made sense at that point.

Oh my gosh. I think Ive only ever watched this movie on TV. Going to have to change that now after reading this comment!

TV censored version of Kill Bill hands down.

His name is buck, and he's here to party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePB8ZOv--bE

How the hell did they tv sensor kill Bill? Jesus. That's the point of the movie!

It's genre pastiche to begin with so it can stand up to quite a lot additional weirdness

It was legendarily bad. I remember watching it on TV laughing the entire time.

Pretty sure that was the point. It was basically Pulp Fiction 2.0, Martial Arts Edition.

His name is bart-y and he's here to part-y

There is a famous US tv edit of Snakes On A Plane where Samuel L Jackson shouts at a pivitol moment, "I've had it with these monkey eating snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!"

Monkey *fighting* snakes, if my memory serves correctly.

The best version of that movie is the censored version lol

on this Monday to Friday plane!

If I were stuck on a plane (let alone one with monkey-eating snakes) for 5 days straight, I'd reach a breaking point, too.

Dragon Ball, second episode. They removed the part when Goku removes Bulma's panties, affecting the events of the third episode.

In this case the uncensored version is much crazier.

Dragon Ball has so many censored scenes. I love it

Dragon ball did not age well. It's a classic nonetheless, but it's kind of awkward to watch at some points.

"Conveniently placed shrub" became a running gag in my 4th grade friend group because of this.

they censored blood so theres no blood when a characther recieves severe or fatal injuries. even inuyasha had blood and some gore.

I didn't know the blood got censored out too... Wow that's gotta be a lot. I knew of plenty of the sexual / dirty scenes with Bulma and Roshi, I knew of Mr Popo being turned blue in some places, but I didn't know the blood too

instead of blood its spit? im guessing DBZ trying to attract a younger audience than before?

It did however at least lead to the pun in the Funimation dub about a "fishfull of dollars,", since they baited Oolong with a wad of cash on a fishhook rather than Bulma's panties.

I remember the censorship for hiding his genitalia at one point was a really badly drawn flower overlaying the area that didn't match the existing art in the slightest

I have HAD it with these monkey-fightin' snakes, on this Monday-Friday plane!

This city is a big chicken, just waiting for me to pluck it.

This is what happen when you find a stranger in the Alps!

?

The TV edit of The Big Lebowski is hilarious.

TV edit of Big Lebowski to be shown on US daytime.

That's the one! Do you see what happens Larry?!

And when you feed a stoner scrambled eggs!

I read some years ago that in the Arabian version of Simpsons, Homer drinks lemonade instead of beer.

Moe is such a talented lemonade merchant he has to stay open till the early hours to sate the townsfolk's addiction to his citrus crack.

That's kinda sweet but also completely steam rolls a very big part of Homer's character.

Dragon Ball has a scene in one of the earlier episodes where Goku gets desperate and confused when he finds out Bulma doesn't have balls. In Brazil, the panty removing scene was cut, but him screaming and waking up Bulma was kept, with the chatter being fully nonsensical "I was hungry and looking for food!"

I also remember seeing that a country, I think Thailand?, censors even male pectorals, so a lot of DBZ fights had big blurs over the characters.

I like DB/DBZ and some anime, but holy shit is anime fucking cringe. Even modern anime. It always throws off the mood. Like you'll have some serious anime with real serious themes, and all of a sudden the main character will like grab some girl's boobs and make a goofy sound (or some other variation of cringe fan service) and you're just like "wut?"

Edit: why downvotes? You guys like cringe fanservice? Why? I would love an explanation for why you like this. Because I really don't get it.

Edit2: To be clear not every anime has this but most do.

Plenty of anime exist without perverse humor.

Attack on Titan, Death Note, Jujutsu Kaisen and Psychopass to name a few.

Name an anime without a shower/bath scene. It’s a lot harder than you’d think.

You just named 4 anime which aren't only relatively devoid of perverse *humor,* they're also not meant to be humorous.

I don't know of anybody picking up Attack on Titan, excited to *laugh.*

I never said every anime has it. But the vast majority do.

Friend, you gotta not care about downvotes. If you bring attention to it, you'll get folks downvoting you just for that. And if you *comment a second time,* like you did here, you're going to get downvoted all to hell in the second one. Since it's obvious that you care, and folks on the internet *love* to irritate each other over nothing.

Future reference- just don't look at your comments again after you make them, unless you've come back because someone replied to you. No need to obsess over things you've said anyway. The internet will hate some, love some, and it won't always make a lick of sense. Put it behind you and don't concern yourself with it.

Thanks for mansplaining how to use Lemmy. Seriously though, it's not that i care about downvotes, but rather I would prefer someone offer an actual counter-point vs simply downvoting. If something I say is wrong or bad then i want to know why. If what the other people say are reasonable then i may adjust my viewpoint.

Also sometimes I want to edit my comment to clarify something. If i feel that i misrepresented what I was trying to say (i.e. that most anime, not ALL anime have fanservice) then why wouldn't I want to edit the post? Otherwise I'm purposely letting people misunderstanding one of the things I said. That doesn't make much sense to do.

'Mansplaining' requires the explaining person to be a man.

You're entitled to having an opinion. You're allowed to share that opinion. You aren't entitled to people stopping to tell you why they think you're wrong. Nobody owes you the time to stop and explain things to you.

And receiving downvotes doesn't necessarily mean someone thinks you're wrong. It could just be that you're being needlessly antagonistic. An example of this, is how I'm removing my sympathy upvotes to your previous comments. You obviously didn't need my sympathy.

why downvotes? You guys like cringe fanservice?

You think something you dislike makes it cringe. Perhaps other people do not think that way, and just believe that some people like stuff, and other people like other stuff, without feeling attacked in their feelings.

I think blatently oversexualizing women and young girls nonstop in some anime is cringe, yes.

Then you missed the point that what you think does not have to be universal when it comes to reading material or movies.

This and the Bulma flashing Roshi scene is partially censored in almost every recut afaik. even on some DVD sets.

One of my all time favourite movie watching experiences was me and my brother watching Robocop (the original) which we taped off ITV, must have been 9 or 10.

All the gratuitous violence was still entirely in place, but all the swear words were dubbed into more palatable versions. Strangest was that we specifically recorded it when it aired at about midnight anyway so way past the time the swearing was usually considered OK.

Me and my brother still call each other "buddy funkster" all the time.

"Once I even called him [AIRHEAD] "

My name is Buck... And I'm here to- PARTY!

also the most famous one:

This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps

I don't get the latter.

Also where is it from?

I don't know where the line is from, but gonna guess from context it's "fuck a stranger in the ass".

From The Big Lebowski. Youre correct in your translation :)

lol John Goodman is on the hood of a car smashing the windshield with a golf club or a baseball bat. Completely destroying the fuck out of this car. And he’s yelling “this is what happens when you find a stranger in the alps!”

I'm glad someone else remembers the hilarious travesty of TV censored kill bill

In the 1900s I worked at a physical media store. Someone complained about the Titanic playing overhead having boobies visible in it, and I was tasked with using a VHS splicer to remove the boobies.

You are getting old, when you start specifying a whole century when talking about past experiences XD

In the 1900s I was on the Titanic, and I remember that someone complained "at least there ought to be some boobies".

That should have been foreseen. Why didn't they just put something on with a G rating?

They were trying to sell Titanic

What is playing overhead? Searching gave me nothing of use

There were multiple TVs throughout the store hanging from the ceiling.

Just a public tv playing on the wall

I was traveling to the middle east for work, and was in a country where even alcohol is illegal for visitors.

In my hotel room, I watched super troopers.

It was only an hour long, and it made absolutely zero sense. It was oddly hilarious.

I bet the weird censorship cut would've been a huge smash hit with the fans. (I'm one of them!)

*Warriors of the Wind* (edited *Nausicaä from the Valley of the Wind*), can't have ecological and pacifist messages, must replace it with dumb *good against bad*. This was one of the major *mask down* moments of the US for me.

Edit: my bad, tv show, not film.

Wait - I had this on DVD and loved it as a kid. I watched the English dub of course because my 10yo brain didn’t have the patience for reading subs.

I remember a strong ecological and pacifistic message. What was changed?

Machine translated from german wikipedia (english one is less comprehensive on that but has other details):

New World Pictures acquired the US rights to Nausicaä in 1985. For a children's film release under the title Warriors of the Wind, they shortened the anime by more than 23 minutes, or about a fifth of its total length. The ecological and pacifist message was removed and replaced with a battle of good against evil.[11] The names were also changed, with "Princess Sandra" now fighting against evil "Gorgon monsters." This US version also made its way to Europe, where it was released in France by Aprovision as La Princesse des Etoiles and in German by UFA in 1986 as Sternenkrieger, both on VHS.

English Wikipedia;

The Manson cut was derided by Miyazaki, and led to Ghibli's "no cuts" rule for future international releases. It was eventually replaced in circulation by an uncut, redubbed version produced by Walt Disney Pictures in 2005.

It was eventually replaced in circulation by an uncut, redubbed version produced by Walt Disney Pictures in 2005.

Okay thank the gods, I must have had this one. That would place me about 10yo, and I definitely don't remember any "gorgon monsters". Thanks for the context! I'm relieved now haha

“No cuts” come from someone at Ghibli being so pissed about the butchering that they gave Weinstein a fake katana to let them know not to fuck with Mononoke.

Suzuki knew of a small, hard-to-find store in Tokyo hidden away underneath the train tracks between Shinbashi and Yurakucho. It was where Japanese film studios bought the realistic-looking weapons used in Japanese samurai movies. Suzuki picked out a sword there and brought it with him to New York for our meeting with Harvey. It was a very convincing replica of a Japanese samurai sword. It was realistic in every detail except that the blade was not sharp, which you could not tell unless you got a good, close look at it.

These were still the days when you could bring a samurai sword with you in your carry-on luggage on a commercial flight from Tokyo to New York. Suzuki presented the sword to Harvey in a conference room full of horrified Miramax employees. One of them later approached me and said, “You gave Harvey a SWORD? Are you CRAZY?”

When Suzuki presented Harvey with the sword, Suzuki shouted in English and in a loud voice, “Mononoke Hime, NO CUT!”

Something very similar happened to *Angel’s Egg/Tenshi no Tomago*. This slow, meandering, beautiful existential art film about how hopeless it is to be alive. (Like, the only real talking in the story is a telling of the Noah’s Ark story where God leaves and the bird doesn’t come back)

It’s probably one of the best films ever made - as profound as anything by Tarkovsky.

So of course an American director cut it with random bits of live action, dubbed some dialogue in, and made it a shitty post apocalyptic movie.

"Moloko" on the wine carton.

Viddy well my droogs. Viddy well.

I am afraid to ask, but... wine carton?

in OP, alwo cheap wine is sold in cartons in France or Italy

America does have boxed wine (just a bag of shitty wine in a cardboard box). But yeah, it's probably a wine bottle.

You mean a shitty bag of wine? You can get good wines in carton, and it's more environmentally friendly.

I have a brand I like which comes in both carton and glass. Glass tastes a bit better, but not by much, and since the carton is ~30% cheaper by volume, and can be open for 4 weeks, I'll easily get the shitty bag of wine 🤓

shitty wine

I don't know if this is the case in the US but at least in Finland they do that to just normal wines too. Lasts longer and it is a handy container.

Maybe there's better out there. I'm not generally a wine fan to start and boxed wine in college was a cheap not beer or vodka option.

Cheap boxed wine is definitely common and cheapest per liter ones often come in a box. So the perception might come from that. And it's not as fancy when it's not in a bottle.

I was worried that nobody had made the joke yet

4kids animes replacing rice balls with donuts, sandwiches or cookies.

Can't have kids learning anything about foreign culture

And then replacing it with the sugary crap.

In Pokemon they didn't even bother replacing the rice cakes, they just called them donuts and confused an entire generation of English speaking kids.

One piece. Zoro tied up and starving. Little girl tries to feed him rice balls, a common item for lunch that's easy on the stomach.

Edited to cookies

I think that was Funimation though.

Attack on Titan, in the anime they decided that having a mother tattoo her kid was too much (in a show where giants casually eat people alive) so they made her do an embroidery with the same symbol instead.

During season 4 where the tattoo was relevant for the first time (and they included it in the show), it was fun watching anime-only watchers complain it was a total ass-pull with no prior setup.

"Göre? Yeah whatever, submit the full folder by 8 pm."

"What... She's wearing a bra! Censor that! And... And what's this... Why are we hinting that he is gay!? Remove this dialog right now!"

Wait, they were hinting someone is gay? Outside Ymir/Historia that is, that was kinda obvious.

There's are two (that I'm aware of) versions of Deadpool that are shown on US TV. One is pretty normal, cut up mostly for time but with all the curseing and violence you'd expect, the other though has hilarious dubs over a good bit of the swearing (which is in theory easier when the main character is in a full face mask I guess?). The one that sticks out in memory is Deadpool's line "Suck a cock" is dubbed as "ha ha ha".

Removing the hard R rating from the character deadpool makes you realize what an irritating and childish character he is. I remember seeing him pop up in a G rated spider man show and it’s cringier than a deadpool cosplayer

Isn't the point of Deadpool that he's childish and irritating tbh? That's like his whole gag

When it’s PG he’s even more annoying, it’s unbeaeable

Yeah aside from Blade it was the first R rated superhero film, someone with powers saying “fuck” and making legging jokes was edgier than anything else in the genre at the time

I'm not sure if this is what you're referring to, but Once Upon a Deadpool is Deadpool 1 but he's telling it as a bedtime story, so it's a bit cut up and removes all the swearing.

I haven't watched it all the way through, but it is still funny at the start at least

I could've sworn it was Deadpool 2, but I don't really feel like googling it

No, it's just normal DP but edited for content in addition to time.

They couldn't even bother to orient the milk carton correctly...

I know a protest when I see one.. I am guessing they are forced to so they go out of their way to make it as obvious as possible to the viewer

This has to be the laziest censorship job i've ever seen, dear god..

They're drinking strawberry milk from their strawberry milk glasses, what, have you never been an adult?

Fun Industry Fact: There's a certain percentage of pus and blood allowed for batches of milk from the factory farms.

They choose the batches of milk with the most blood in them for use in flavored milks.

A lot of this kind of thing happens. There's limits on bunch of food contaminants that are higher than zero because zero is unrealistic (for example on the amount of rat feces in grain). Generally, the ones closest to the limits will be the ones chosen to be processed further into something where them being second-rate is less obvious. The pretty produce gets sold raw, somewhat uglier produce goes into shredded or finely chopped goods where you can't see the difference. The flour that's closer to the limit for rat shit content get processed into factory baked goods where it won't be as noticeable, etc.

That fact was not very fun.

Because it isn't actually true.

There is an acceptable number of bug parts in chocolate as well.

That's not actually true, though.

Sure bro, enjoy your completely contaminant free milk, dairy cows have a great time in factory farms.

Please, share a source, then.

https://www.fda.gov/food/guidance-documents-regulatory-information-topic-food-and-dietary-supplements/milk-guidance-documents-regulatory-information

Bro, there's regulatory guidelines on how much hepatitis can be in plasma before they have to throw it out. Don't have opinions on things you don't know anything about, there's blood, bugs, and shit in your food and everything is not based on the question "is there any" but "is there an unsafe amount?"

Quite literally the only reference I'm seeing to hepatitis in any of those links is what to do if someone (not a cow) is diagnosed with it, and it's basically "Keep them away from the cows until they don't have hepatitis anymore." Feel free to quote the actual section that you're referring to.

I like to imagine that's part of the joke.

The 20th Anniversary Edition of E.T. not only had superflous CGI E.T. scenes (no doubt inspired by Lucas), but also all guns of the federal agents were changed to walkie talkies.

Spielberg later apologized for the changes and rolled them back.

Damn I just thought it was a random south park episode

I've not been privy to much censorship in my life (that I noticed) but I distinctly remember in Giants: Citizen Kabuto, there was a quest to slay some sheep and bring back their meat for food and the meat was green. As a 10 year old, I thought it was part of the lore. Since you were on another planet, it made sense to me... maybe these are alien sheep! I only realized it years later when I had forgotten the game's title and asked about it, describing the green sheep meat, on a forum. I was told it was censorship and which game it was. Replayed it in its pure form and the meat was red.

There’s multiple versions of *Brazil* - the American version is just a little bit shorter. Those changes aren’t a big deal though. Howeverr, theres a made for TV version referred to as the “Love Wins Out” ending.

The movie is a parody of 1984 (absolutely hilarious and worth watching as are most things involving Terry Gilliam. I’ll spoil it a wee bit but the point isn’t these plot details.)

Basically, instead of Winston and Julia being lovers standing up to Big Brother, you have a delusional idiot who fucks up his pretty easy job in the evil totalitarian government by obsessing over and stalking a woman who has *zero* interest in him. His grip on reality is tenuous at best.

At the end, he fucks up and gets the Room 101 treatment. We’re treated to a fantastical scene as La Resistance comes in to save him, exciting bombings and car chases and reality bending visuals that are too ridiculous to be real. Him and the woman ride off into the sunset as badass rebels escaping the evil government.

That’s where the “Love Wins Out” movie stops. It’s clearly a hallucinatory dream sequence, and the actual ending reveals our “hero” has been tortured into insanity.

Like, the whole point of the movie is that she doesn’t like him, doesn’t know him, doesn’t want to know him. We don’t even know that she’s in La Resistance - it’s a great “unreliable narrator” film. But this TV version gives a character who exists to be an unlikeable moron the girl and a happy ending.

To be fair. That does sound like 1984 described by someone who has never read 1984 but keeps bringing it up like they have.

It really is made better by having actually read 1984. (Like, it’s not that difficult a novel? Medium sized, was comprehensible to me when I was in middle school. I can get pretending to have read/understood like Derrida or something - I do that all of the time - but seriously, it’s a *novel* that we ask high schoolers to tackle.)

On the tv airing of "How to Lose Your Guy in 10 Days," they have a scene where they are playing a bluffing card game call "Bullshit" where you can call bullshit on people who you think are bluffing. They replaced the word "shit" with "spit" so everyone is shouting "bull spit" at each other. I found this to be so ridiculously lame that it made it kind of funny.

That's definitely one I remember.

Imagine being triggered by the word shit

"Yippie kay yay, *MR FALCON*." from Die Hard is pretty infamous.

Monkeyfighting snakes on this Monday thru Friday plane is worse.

Don't remember the movie or show but on aired in Korea I saw they would blur out parts such as cigarettes as well as arm pits (male actor) and a chef's knife (prop was being held with the actors intention to defend herself).

I think I heard about that last one or a similar one where the censore spoiled the upcoming scene as has there been no violence the knife wouldn't have been blured.

ISAIP episodes, those episodes pre-2010, with blackface jokes, basically it was showing how ridiculous blackface is to racists, the "execs decided it would be obliterated from most media besides clips on youtube. they are doing it "im a white person offended for black people "type of virtue signalling, not even poc is offended by this.

you know BSG wanted to say fuck instead frack.

also castlevania nocture, when they turned the captain lady intoa frozen shade, you can clearly see they dint want the frozens shades boobs to show in anyway, so its constantly always covered up.

It's Sunny Always In Philadelphia?

Yep.

They did the Lethal Weapon 5 thing which was hilarious.

"frack me harder Mr. Peanutbutter!"

The Malaysian version of Matrix cut out the kissing scene at the end.

MASH on Channel 10 (Australia) used to be so heavily censored they would splice two episodes into one.

Selma can really pack away them hot dogs.

?

Russian channel 2x2 censors cigars / pipes and replaces them with hotdogs. (Insane for an adult channel tbh)

Apparently this is a thing for Russian TV in general, can't have characters smoking or drinking, otherwise it's rated 18+ and can be only shown at night, which they don't want to bother with shows like Spongebob

1000020600

I remember watching the TV-edited version of "The Faculty" and there was a particular scene that stuck with me where the main guy runs outside in frustration and screams "PHOOEY!" instead of "FUUUCK!"

It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, much less the censored version of it, so that memory feels like a fever dream to me.

Simpsons itself has had multiple scenes cut out of episodes that are now really hard to find, in the worst cases it can be the entire end of an episode. The one that really sticks out is a scene where a celebrity ges jumped by cletus and a bunch of other rednecks and brutally shot to death with a lot of gore, the episode later got censored to end when cletus points a shotgun at him and eventually cut out the scene entierly making the episode rather abrupt.

In Germany for some inane reason the only way to get an uncensored Planet Terror with the helicopter chopping up zombies (and several other scenes, like Tarantino's balls rotting off) is by renting it. Good luck finding a video rental place nowadays.

You don't get it by buying the "uncensored" version. I was lucky that my first time watching the movie was as a rental.

This is in China, not so long ago 2019 or so... You can scan your TV and pay like 3 dollars a month or something usd for full access ... Anyway, watching gladiator. The opening scene with the battle. For some reason it was cut (loads of films are cut to shit there) like in between the opening battle scene. Like man on horse calling for war... Cut to.... dead people after battle... Might not have been that exactly, but there were a good few minutes cut at least and i never understood why, cos that the rest of the film was intact more or less and that scene alone didn't have much bearing. In that regard, censorship doesn't do much because you can't just redact random little bits out of context

I like to think there was some guy in China working in the Censorship Bureau who was like "damn this is a kick ass movie but I gotta prove to my bosses I'm hard at work" so they chopped out a little inconsequential bit in the beginning and let it ride

WTF, that's not the area I'd expect to "clutch pearls" over wine. (It's labeled in Russian, or another language with the same word for milk)

The censorship on the movie The Big Sleep, based on a book about a pornography ring run by organized crime, was released at a time when they censored everything to the point of making the movie into a kind of nonsense with Bogart talking fast and Bacall singing a song about DV.

That reminds me of when IDGAF topped the charts, but since the word "fuck" is censored the question becomes why even bother airing it.

You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!

I like in Repo Man how every "fuck you!" becomes "flip you!"

Moloko plus velocet. My fave.

In the *Teen Titans Go!* episode "*Uncle Jokes*", Robin says "Ground cow" in Asian airings instead of "Ground beef" during the cow with no legs joke, thus making it unfunny.

I watched From Dusk Till dawn on TV prime time in germany. The version was more than twenty minutes shorter, and context was lost so bad, that it even confused me after having watched the original 8 times.

The weirdest thing, characters were voiced over by different people than the rental version I knew.

Dubbing is a crime

I prefer dubbing most of the times. German films dubbed in english and english films dubbed in german.

Since they don't use boom mics anymore but go for surround Sound, it's just mumbling that's hard to understand.

Germany dubbs every movie, so the quality is usually pretty good, since it's a business, and not a neccessity like in russia or turkey where you get one bored speaker for all characters. Bonus points if he dubs both male and female.

How can any reasonable person see some cowboy or a NY gangster's lips move and then hear some German or French words spoken. It's completely ridiculous. Not to mention the many things that are lost in translation and don't work in that language. Even the titles of the films are changed. Now and then they show some of that on TV as a joke here in Belgium or NL. It never stops being funny and you wonder how long these people will continue with this silly practice. It's also one of the reasons these countries speak poor Enlish in comparison. You learn a lot from hours of hearing the actual language.
Now there's less of a difference with the web, but still.

That's not an issue, they can imitate cowboys pretty well in german.

It only becomes ridiculous when they have to translate a german person in an american movie.

You get used to it pretty quick. Watch three dubbed movies and the original will sound weird. I started Doctor who in english and cant stomach the german version now. Series that I started in german are the same, I cant switch to the english format easily.

The only argument that I see is that it helps with english.

Funny enough, almost all the content I consume outside of movies is in english. I hate german youtubers and streamers. None of them talks or sounds naturally.

Doctor

There you go. There isn't even a series called 'doctor' except probably in German. And I imagine you're used to it since you don't know better and have no reference. There is no substitute for the original.

Are you trolling? I really hope you're trolling since the alternative is this is who you actually are.

The TV edit of Smokey and the Bandit is notoriously bad. You scum bum! https://youtu.be/ypLsFLB5WhM skip to 7:00 to get to the good stuff

Is Simpsons on the Disney Channel now?

The Pokito (anime tv programming in Germany) had an awefull verstion of Naruro. Were they would sensor out the weapons.