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A&E: Censoring dialogue of....network tv reruns?

S

Studio20

So it's after midnight eastern and I'm flipping through channels. On comes "Criminal Minds" from the first season. Early scene is a murder where boyfriend comes home unexpectedly, sees his girlfriend lying on the couch and screams "OH MY (censored)!, OH MY (censored)!" which was clearly, "God"...

Next scene, the murder is reported to the local detective who proclaims that this case is going to be a "pain in the (censored)", which was clearly the three letter word for derriere. In both cases, the audio was clipped.

I'm neither a prude, nor particularly religious, but whats with cutting "God" and "---" when both words appeared unfettered the first ( and presumably second and third airings) on CBS?

Yes, I do need a life...
 
Studio20 said:
So it's after midnight eastern and I'm flipping through channels. On comes "Criminal Minds" from the first season. Early scene is a murder where boyfriend comes home unexpectedly, sees his girlfriend lying on the couch and screams "OH MY (censored)!, OH MY (censored)!" which was clearly, "God"...

Next scene, the murder is reported to the local detective who proclaims that this case is going to be a "pain in the (censored)", which was clearly the three letter word for derriere. In both cases, the audio was clipped.

I'm neither a prude, nor particularly religious, but whats with cutting "God" and "---" when both words appeared unfettered the first ( and presumably second and third airings) on CBS?

Yes, I do need a life...
Click to expand...

That is curious - usually basic cable has slightly looser standards than the broadcast networks - many allow the "S" word for instance, and it's all voluntary, since cable doesn't answer to the FCC. I've noticed lately that a lot of cable networks are cleverly bleeping just the middle of swear words, so in reality it amounts to almost no censoring at all. Two possibilities come to mind:

(1)Criminal Minds might use the same gimmick as Southland on NBC. That is, the actors use all the swear words we know and love, then they are bleeped out later. I've never seen Criminal Minds, so this is just speculation on my part.

(2) A&E isn't censoring, but the producers are, so the show won't be objectionable to any broadcast property (including local broadcast stations) that want to buy it. So everybody - broadcast or cable - may be getting the same version of the show.

Like I said, just speculating.
 
It doesn't really make sense to me though. Mainly because A&E does air Intervention and that hoarders show uncensored with all but the worst profanity aired without censoring. It has to be a producer's decision, but why would they censor a program that has cleared network S&P?
 
FX once did this with an episode or two of In Living Color, soon after that channel started up in the mid-1990s. It was a comment in one of the infamous "Men On Film" sketches with Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier. ;)
 
SYFY ran the Dead Like Me movie last week. All the words were censored out. From the not so bad words (the a-word) to the hardcore words (the f-word).

Also the b-word is censored on Hallmark Channel's run of The Golden Girls when I remember that particular episode aired on Lifetime.

Not word for word, but here is the gist of the conversation.

Rose: We'll play traditional St. Olaf party games at the party.
Blanche: As long as I live with much older looking woman I can continue to be young.
Dorothy: Tell me Rose, is Kill the b**** one of the party games?
 
MarcB said:
SYFY ran the Dead Like Me movie last week. All the words were censored out. From the not so bad words (the a-word) to the hardcore words (the f-word).

Also the b-word is censored on Hallmark Channel's run of The Golden Girls when I remember that particular episode aired on Lifetime.

Not word for word, but here is the gist of the conversation.

Rose: We'll play traditional St. Olaf party games at the party.
Blanche: As long as I live with much older looking woman I can continue to be young.
Dorothy: Tell me Rose, is Kill the b**** one of the party games?
Click to expand...

Well, Hallmark is the company that has brought us all those heartwarming Hall of Fame dramas over the years, not to mention family oriented greeting cards, so they do have a reputation to protect.

I have no idea if there are any consistent standards that producers use to edit shows when preparing them for syndicated re-runs. My guess is that there are none, so producers do what they think is best. Now that the Big 3 networks are taking chances with content (have you seen Two and a Half Men lately?)...the producers may actually be cleaning up their network shows for syndication.

The producers might decide that "ass" will be unacceptable to the local station in Provo Utah (or other conservative locales) and just take the easy way out, and bleep it. They may consider it too much trouble to bother with different versions. So a cable network like A&E may end up with the same version as the local station in Provo.

Remember also that public standards change over time. The "B" word never would have been broadcast on network or local TV until at least the 1980s. On the other hand, the word for "BJ" was OK for a number of years on TV and radio, but the Bush era FCC scared broadcasters...now they edit the first word and leave the "...job."

In the 60s, you couldn't show Barbara Eden's belly button, but late night comics made rape and child molestation jokes all the time - jokes that would get the host and the writers fired instantly these days.
 
Lkeller said:
Remember also that public standards change over time. The "B" word never would have been broadcast on network or local TV until at least the 1980s.
Click to expand...
Maude said it. Early 70s. I remember "son of a ...", but on the second airing the sound went out.

I also remember Harry Anderson, after V-chip rating sbegan, in a TV-G TV-movie, saying "son of a ..." uncensored, though it was a term of affection.
 
I can think of several good censoring examples:

In the first episode of "The Big Valley" Heath tells Nick that he's "Your Father's Bastard Son". Later Nick calls Heath a "Son of a Jackal"! Big words for ABC in 1965, yet CBN bleeped both "Bastard" and "Jackal"! Other stations probably did too.

"M*A*S*H": Hawkeye calls someone a Son-Of-A-B*tch on CBS, syndicated: Bleep!

The feature length TV movie of "Dragnet" (1969): A thug calls a detective the "N" word, which causes Sgt. Friday to rip the guy a new ass! NBC ran it, when WABC's Late Show aired it at 11:30 P.M. in 1984, The "N" word disappears, along with half of Friday's rant!

And the most extreme of all: When ABC's "The Rookies" was syndicated by Viacom, all the violence was edited out, along with threats, car crashes, degrading treatment of women, etc. But they left the "N" word in on several occasions!!

Speaking of Viacom, they also clipped a threat from Lou to Gordy on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". I can't remember the exact episode, but it was very sloppily edited so it was obvious!!

More later, if I can think of any
 
For a good laugh, watch a broadcast TV presentation of an R-rated movie for the hilarious hatchet jobs by the censors. Like "Goodfellas," for example, where Joe Pesci instructs someone, "Go feed your mother"!
 
DToTheJ said:
For a good laugh, watch a broadcast TV presentation of an R-rated movie for the hilarious hatchet jobs by the censors. Like "Goodfellas," for example, where Joe Pesci instructs someone, "Go feed your mother"!
Click to expand...

I think that ties the broadcast version of Die Hard 2: Die Harder for most hilarious hatchet job.

You haven't lived until you've heard someone attempting to overdub John McClane's famous line, in a voice that sounds nothing like Bruce Willis...

"Yipee ki yay, Mr. Falcon!"
 
KML-224 said:
FX once did this with an episode or two of In Living Color, soon after that channel started up in the mid-1990s. It was a comment in one of the infamous "Men On Film" sketches with Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier.
Click to expand...

Not only did FX do it to that show but they also did it to Married...With Children.

One example:
Bud (to Kelly): "She whose head can't be seen from a moving car."

:-D
 
In the movie Final Destination 2 there is a scene where Evan trips over some toys in the hallway of his apartment building. After tripping he says "Jesus Christ", but in the edited version they showed on The WB a few years back and subsiquent airings on SYFY/USA the "JC" curse is changed to "Judas Preist". (Not to mention all the other changes they had to make including editing out the part where the biker chick flashes her breasts at the boys in the back of Kimmie's SUV).
 
Several years ago TV Land censored an episode of "Mister Ed" over Ed's use of the term "bareback" to Wilbur Post.

Original unedited line: "Wilburrrr..ride me bareback !! It feels sooooo
good Wilbur..just you and me !!"

In the edited version: "Wilburrrrr..ride me !!! " end of line !!

Of course back in Mister Ed's time the term "bareback" meant riding a horse without a saddle. However by the late 80's and the "safe sex" era, the meaning of that word had changed to having unprotected sex without the use of condoms
 
LOL!!! I didn't know about the Mister Ed line. Oh, that's SO unintentionally hilarious!!

Actually, I came here to point out how the syndicated version of Family Guy (the ones shown by local affiliates) are frequently censored. Quite a few lines are cut from each episode and a number of racier scenes are also snipped. TBS and Adult Swim do not do this, nor does Fox (not usually, at least) when they rerun the episodes on the network.
 
mleach said:
Several years ago TV Land censored an episode of "Mister Ed" over Ed's use of the term "bareback" to Wilbur Post.

Original unedited line: "Wilburrrr..ride me bareback !! It feels sooooo
good Wilbur..just you and me !!"

In the edited version: "Wilburrrrr..ride me !!! " end of line !!

Of course back in Mister Ed's time the term "bareback" meant riding a horse without a saddle. However by the late 80's and the "safe sex" era, the meaning of that word had changed to having unprotected sex without the use of condoms
Click to expand...

You've got to be kidding! That's hysterical considering "bareback" didn't change meanings, it developed a second meaning. I'm sure equestrian types still refer to riding their steeds without a saddle as riding "bareback"...though they probably don't say they're "barebacking."

BRNout said:
...I came here to point out how the syndicated version of Family Guy (the ones shown by local affiliates) are frequently censored. Quite a few lines are cut from each episode and a number of racier scenes are also snipped. TBS and Adult Swim do not do this, nor does Fox (not usually, at least) when they rerun the episodes on the network.
Click to expand...

So Family Guy must be the show with more versions than any other. I haven't rented any of the uncensored DVD versions, but I hear they'll curl your hair with profanity and animated nudity.
 
mleach said:
Of course back in Mister Ed's time the term "bareback" meant riding a horse without a saddle.
Click to expand...

A similar joke was used a few times on "Burns and Allen"

Gracie) Go ahead George ride him?

George) You want me to ride him bareback?

Gracie) You can keep your shirt on if you want to
 
When they show Fast Times at Ridgemont High on TBS or AMC they cut out the fantasy scene with the girl on the diving board. They delete the best scene in the movie and the best music -Moving in Stereo, by the Cars.
 
therealjm12 said:
When they show Fast Times at Ridgemont High on TBS or AMC they cut out the fantasy scene with the girl on the diving board. They delete the best scene in the movie and the best music -Moving in Stereo, by the Cars.
Click to expand...

They also cut Damone's line "we gotta get an abortion", as well as the scene with Stacey at the "clinic".
 
cowboybud said:
therealjm12 said:
When they show Fast Times at Ridgemont High on TBS or AMC they cut out the fantasy scene with the girl on the diving board. They delete the best scene in the movie and the best music -Moving in Stereo, by the Cars.
Click to expand...

They also cut Damone's line "we gotta get an abortion", as well as the scene with Stacey at the "clinic".
Click to expand...

I had noticed that too.

Does anyone remember when that Angie Dickenson horror flick "Dressed To Kill" had aired on network TV? I myself never seen it there though I have seen it many of times on the pay channels but I have been told by MANY that at least 75% if not more of Angie's scenes were cut such as that opening shower scene ( yes I know that woman playing with the soap wasn't really Angie Dickenson ) plus that scene where Angie is making love to her husband in bed, most of that taxi cab make out and that scene where Angie discovers that the man she just had sex with has VD..all cut !!!

Well so much for Angie Dickenson for being in "Dressed to Kill"...at least on regular commerical TV was concerned. Wonder what her take on this was?
 
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