Stuff on Old TV That Would Not Be Allowed Today

[Desert Man]

600th registered post, 100th post on this thread.

I seriously doubt America will go back to the 1950s puritan, prudish or "proper" TV  standards, because if we did that, shows won't allow female characters to say they're "pregnant" if they really are (written into the show script) or couples will sleep in separate beds.  I'm convinced All in the Family of the 1970s became banned TV network material by the 1990s, so don't expect a reboot of the Bunkers. In the 2000s, the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake Super Bowl 38 scandal on global live TV made the FCC crack-down on any indecent material not seen since the 1960s. Ironically in the 1980s, there were subjects children didn't know about like pregnancy (I was age 9 when I found out where babies came from...technically not completely, just saw a teacher pregnant on campus).

[formulanone]

You can't put much of anything on the narrow widths of a modern TV today: cable boxes, remotes, TV Guides, an antenna, a vase...

For all the "they couldn't get away with that today" talk, things like bloodshed, farting, explicit language, and penis-size innuendos wouldn't have been allowed on network TV 25-30 years ago.

Funny how it all balances out.

[US71]

You can't put much of anything on the narrow widths of a modern TV today: cable boxes, remotes, TV Guides, an antenna, a vase...

For all the "they couldn't get away with that today" talk, things like bloodshed, farting, explicit language, and penis-size innuendos wouldn't have been allowed on network TV 25-30 years ago.

Funny how it all balances out.

"Network" TV, not much.  Cable/Satellite push the envelope much further.

[formulanone]

You can't put much of anything on the narrow widths of a modern TV today: cable boxes, remotes, TV Guides, an antenna, a vase...

For all the "they couldn't get away with that today" talk, things like bloodshed, farting, explicit language, and penis-size innuendos wouldn't have been allowed on network TV 25-30 years ago.

Funny how it all balances out.

"Network" TV, not much.  Cable/Satellite push the envelope much further.

I saw enough as a nine-year-old on HBO (and sometimes on the scrambled channels) to be sure to say "network."

[CapeCodder]

I remember when MTV and VH-1 used to edit Tom Petty's You Don't Know How it Feels video and the line "Let's roll another joint" to make joint sound like "tnioj".

I remember that. I would ask my mom what a tnioj was. She'd get all flustered. Granted I was 5 at the time. My mom let me watch MTV by then (yeah, she wasn't exactly the most thoughtful mother.)

[vdeane]

You can't put much of anything on the narrow widths of a modern TV today: cable boxes, remotes, TV Guides, an antenna, a vase...

What about a penguin?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyFxXdqtGNk

[davewiecking]

What's that penguin doing there?

[US71]

[mgk920]

You can't put much of anything on the narrow widths of a modern TV today: cable boxes, remotes, TV Guides, an antenna, a vase...

What about a penguin?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyFxXdqtGNk

Also cats.

Mike

[thenetwork]

You can't put much of anything on the narrow widths of a modern TV today: cable boxes, remotes, TV Guides, an antenna, a vase...

For all the "they couldn't get away with that today" talk, things like bloodshed, farting, explicit language, and penis-size innuendos wouldn't have been allowed on network TV 25-30 years ago.

Funny how it all balances out.

"Network" TV, not much.  Cable/Satellite push the envelope much further.

Obviously, you haven't seen Family Feud over the last 5 years.  Pretty much every other survey has "penis" as an answer, or some sort of crude humor answer.  Sad part of it all is this is why you can find episodes and reruns of Steve Harvey hosted episodes for no less than 8 hours a day across local TV and cable channels.

[US71]

You can't put much of anything on the narrow widths of a modern TV today: cable boxes, remotes, TV Guides, an antenna, a vase...

For all the "they couldn't get away with that today" talk, things like bloodshed, farting, explicit language, and penis-size innuendos wouldn't have been allowed on network TV 25-30 years ago.

Funny how it all balances out.

"Network" TV, not much.  Cable/Satellite push the envelope much further.

Obviously, you haven't seen Family Feud over the last 5 years.  Pretty much every other survey has "penis" as an answer, or some sort of crude humor answer.  Sad part of it all is this is why you can find episodes and reruns of Steve Harvey hosted episodes for no less than 8 hours a day across local TV and cable channels.

IMO, they killed Feud.

[Desert Man]

TV shows or cartoons will not mock or make fun of people with disabilities, like Mr Magoo (blind) or Porky Pig (stuttering). Now we have sitcoms and dramas feature people with disabilities like Speechless - named for a character, a teenager in a wheelchair unable to speak, and the Good Doctor (coming this fall) - the main character has autism. At least they don't degrade or insult, they feature the disabled as everyday, ordinary people.

[thenetwork]

TV shows or cartoons will not mock or make fun of people with disabilities, like Mr Magoo (blind) or Porky Pig (stuttering).

Barry Kripke says, "Hewwo"

[Stephane Dumas]

  I'm convinced All in the Family of the 1970s became banned TV network material by the 1990s, so don't expect a reboot of the Bunkers.

It reminds me of a MAD-tv skit aired in 2001 just before Carroll O'Connor passed away about what if "All in the Family" was revived in the 2000s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZsHHwBgPlI

[english si]

In 2017, American TV tolerates two animated sitcoms (FOX's Family Guy and Comedy Central's South Park) are full of racist, anti-semitic, sexist and homophobic jokes, references to welfare poor people and "cripples" (the physically disabled), and crude, juvenile, toilet and shock humor.

South Park doesn't treat the racism, etc as laudable - unlike the Family Guy manatees they call out Cartman (and others - basically everyone, but it's normally Cartman) on their awfulness rather than basically shout "isn't racism funny" as those manatees do when they put the jokes into Family Guy. Family Guy is garbage and Seth McFarland hates it and wants to end it and it seems crossing the line into unfunny toxicity has done nothing to tank the show in the network's eyes.

South Park hates political correctness (and really hates censorship), but sees people being dicks as not noble either. Family Guy just wants to be awful.

Imagine as recently as 20-25 years ago, the FCC wouldn't allow MTV's Beavis and Butthead known for the character's criminality, and FOX's the Simpsons which has dark, negative and pessimistic satire, to get away with much gross or un-PC material on the air or advertisers dare to sponsor these comedies.

But Comedy Central could get away with South Park being far more immature 20 years ago - it derived its humor from crude and vulgar things, rather than making fun of such things as it does now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGEjBMd9Zk

OK, do British people really call cigarettes "bundles of sticks" or is that just something they tell Americans because we don't know they're taking the piss?

No - 'bundles of sticks' are daggots, cigarettes are 'dags'. Oh, my dinger has slipped, but you know what I mean.

[OracleUsr]

I remember a Tex Avery cartoon (I think it was Tex Avery) where you had George and Junior (first strike, throwback to Of Mice and Men) out hunting and everytime Junior screwed up he had to bend over (!!!!) to be kicked in the rear.  Well, one time, George was setting up a dynamite trap (!!!!) which Junior accidentally set off in his face.  When the smoke cleared George was in blackface and he looks up at Junior and in a good imitation of Rochester from the Jack Benny Show, "OKAY JUNIOR BEND OVER"

[cjk374]

I remember a Tex Avery cartoon (I think it was Tex Avery) where you had George and Junior (first strike, throwback to Of Mice and Men) out hunting and everytime Junior screwed up he had to bend over (!!!!) to be kicked in the rear.  Well, one time, George was setting up a dynamite trap (!!!!) which Junior accidentally set off in his face.  When the smoke cleared George was in blackface and he looks up at Junior and in a good imitation of Rochester from the Jack Benny Show, "OKAY JUNIOR BEND OVER"

Half the time anything blew up on "Tom &Jerry" someone was going to come out of it in black face, maybe even with a bone in either their nose or hair. Also on "Tom & Jerry": Tom's owner (in the older episodes) spoke fluent black dialect. Those same episodes, when they air on TV now, now have another woman's voice that is free of dialect.

[1995hoo]

TV shows or cartoons will not mock or make fun of people with disabilities, like Mr Magoo (blind) or Porky Pig (stuttering). Now we have sitcoms and dramas feature people with disabilities like Speechless - named for a character, a teenager in a wheelchair unable to speak, and the Good Doctor (coming this fall) - the main character has autism. At least they don't degrade or insult, they feature the disabled as everyday, ordinary people.

When we visited relatives in Florida last month, one of their kids had on some sort of kids' channel (I have no idea what one) and we were struck by the artificial efforts to work so-called "diversity" (as in racial) into the shows wherever possible.

[roadman65]

I remember a Tex Avery cartoon (I think it was Tex Avery) where you had George and Junior (first strike, throwback to Of Mice and Men) out hunting and everytime Junior screwed up he had to bend over (!!!!) to be kicked in the rear.  Well, one time, George was setting up a dynamite trap (!!!!) which Junior accidentally set off in his face.  When the smoke cleared George was in blackface and he looks up at Junior and in a good imitation of Rochester from the Jack Benny Show, "OKAY JUNIOR BEND OVER"

Half the time anything blew up on "Tom &Jerry" someone was going to come out of it in black face, maybe even with a bone in either their nose or hair. Also on "Tom & Jerry": Tom's owner (in the older episodes) spoke fluent black dialect. Those same episodes, when they air on TV now, now have another woman's voice that is free of dialect.

The Roadrunner is more of a classic example as all the traps set for the Roadrunner always ended up being used on Wile E. Coyote and thus never dying from that same device that was to kill the roadrunner.

Yet in one episode Wile E. Coyote did die from a rocket that went into space only to be seen again in the next cartoon anyway.  Although each individual cartoon is to be self contained anyway, but that is the fiction of TV.

As far as All In The Family goes despite all of its humor not being friendly for today's TV, it was the one that busted through the censorship barrier as before that show politics and even the infamous toilet flush were not allowed on TV before that as even the Brady Bunch had a toilet less bathroom in the show. 

[noelbotevera]

If anybody has seen the 1990-1991 series of Twin Peaks, there's a lot of stuff that'd never be allowed today on that show.

[tchafe1978]

I don't get where people say there is all this stuff that would never be allowed on TV today. Must be people thinking we've gone too politically correct or something. Because have you ever seen The Walking Dead? All sorts of blood, guts, gore and swearing on that show. Granted it's on cable and not "network TV", but it's not on HBO either.

[roadman65]

It all is about political stuff not the gore.   For example watch the Honeymooners, an old sitcom starring Jackie Gleason aired in the mid 50's, and you will see the humor on that show featured Ralph Kramden who was a hot head and loved to threaten his wife by sending her to the moon.   Although we as the viewers always knew he would never physically hurt her as he loved her deeply, it was funny to see him raise his fist to her face and even sometimes use the catchphrase " Bang Zoom" and then use his hands to show the audience that he was sending her flying through the air (presumably to the moon).  Now of course that would be not allowed as that would be considered offensive to many and considered as promoting violence.

All In The Family would not be allowed today as the remarks on the show made by key character Archie Bunker would be considered advocating racism despite at the time of its viewing it was considered by many blacks and other minorities to be a milestone as it brought out subjects that the original TV networks would never allow to be used as topics for any TV show.  Many praised creator Norman Lear, even Star Trek's LeVar Burton, for bringing sex and racism controversy out into the open and ending the rural purge that CBS once had only promoting old fashioned conservative ideals.

[jeffandnicole]

I don't get where people say there is all this stuff that would never be allowed on TV today. Must be people thinking we've gone too politically correct or something. Because have you ever seen The Walking Dead? All sorts of blood, guts, gore and swearing on that show. Granted it's on cable and not "network TV", but it's not on HBO either.

Cable is not regulated like over-the-air channels such as ABC/NBC.  They fall into a grey area where they could do more than over-the-air channels, but less than pay-tv channels.  Those rules have seemingly been relaxed.

[mgk920]

I remember a few years ago when a cable TV network (I forget offhand which one) was planning a Charlie Chan movie festival.  Fantastic series of mystery movies from the earliest days of TV and before.

Yep, the PC Police shot it down.



Mike

[bandit957]

People blowing a bubble on TV usually isn't allowed these days, for fear it might promote tooth decay.