TV Land censors The Beverly Hillbillies (1 Viewer)

[BrianM]

I was shocked and dissappointed to see that TV Land censored one of my favorite lines from The Beverly Hillbillies during their fandemonium marathon last weekend. The line came after granny was being taken away by police officers because she was hanging out in Griffith Park with a bunch of hippies and said she was going to "smoke some crawdads". Granny says "I'm going to smoke some crawdads but first I need a little pot". TV Land had the audacity to bleep out the word pot. I thought TV was getting more permissive as time went by. Why would they feel it necessary to censor a family TV show from the sixties. What's next, censoring the episode of I Love Lucy where she gets drunk? Sorry for the rant but I really hope this trend does not continue.

 

[Graeme Clark]

To think I can watch old Episodes of "I've Got a Secret" on Gameshow Network where there are cigarette logos on the podium, the host smokes throughout, and they give away cartons as parting gifts, but Granny can't say "pot" anymore.
I thought maybe they had censored dagnabit.
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[Ike]

I noticed that they also censored an episode of All in the Family. In the episode where Gloria is having her baby in the restaurant, and Mike goes to the phone booth, it sticks, and he can't get it open. He says, "Open, god damn door" or something. He said God damn, but they bleeped God. So apparently, you could say it in the 70's, but not now? I remember them showing an episode where Archie says Goddamn, and Edith tells him not to. He explains to her, it's not bad, because God is not a bad word, and he damns stuff, so it's a beautiful word-Goddamn. Unbleeped.
But TV censors are patchy on what is offensive, and what's not. I'm a frequent Kids in the Hall watcher, and there are reoccurring characters called the Sizzler sisters (We are two sisters, and not two clearly insane people) who constantly call people pricks. Comedy Central can't decide whether or not to censor it. It get's so silly, that sometimes they'll bleep it during some of the sketch, and not others (I believe in the sketch where they go to the night club, and Bruce introduces them.)
The word "pussy" also throws the censors a curb ball. I was watching VH1, and they were talking about Prince's performance of Pussy Control. When they were talking about the song, in reference to the title, it's fine. But then, one of the interviewees said, "I didn't even know you could say p**** on TV." She got bleeped! So they can show it in print, they can say it fifteen times, as long as it referenced the title.
Censors are screwy, and for some reason, they've been cracking down on drug references. Weezer's video "Hash Pipe" was censored to "H*** Pipe" on it's title for MTV, and the word Hash removed. But, when they preformed the song live for the Video awards, they left it alone. I figured that was standard MTV practice. The first few showings of the awards go un-censored, sans the big 2 (Fuck and shit), and later showings go more heavily censored. But, just yesterday, they were airing live performances, and they showed Weezer's. The title of the video was shown as "H*** Pipe," but the lyrics were uncensored!
Just screwy, screwy, screwy....
[Edited last by Ike on October 23, 2001 at 05:05 AM]

 

[John Murphy]

Some of this is "Uncle FCC" and others are the stations prerogative. I worked as a DJ for a local station for 3 years many moons ago . The rules in the 70's were based on the profanity act of 1937. A bit out dated, but these are the guide lines we were licenced to follow. It was fun to figure out how to say the forbidden words and get away with it. F**k, S**t are still hard, but Hell and damn you can legaly. However some stations only want "wholesome" entertainment and will delete the words.