First time you properly noticed censorship.

[FAST6191]

We have had the what is, what is justified, when it should happen, how it should happen, what should happen to those that transgress and so forth but the "first time you noticed it" one is something I have not seen. This would be that then.

Myself, I was watching a random western film with my grandma shortly after I started going to school and the bad gang were set to steamroll the plucky good village. However they appealed to the US army.... which sent a cannon with 3 balls and a bunch of uniforms. The leader of the bad gang saw through it but his henchmen promptly declared it unAmerican, pissed off and the day was saved.
Now I am not quite sure if that was deus ex machina, Hays code, my general lack of knowledge of American culture, straight up censorship or something else entirely. However I was most annoyed that I was deprived of a bloodbath.

UK cartoons were slightly odder than most of the US fare and decided less action heavy ( http://gbatemp.net/threads/what-were-they-smoking-cartoons.331874/ ). I did also wonder why nobody ever got shot in the A team.

Games.... this was 1991.

I am sure I could have had Nintendo's stuff explained to me at the time but it never occurred to me that it was.

Never read comics and if I ever saw them then they were usually Viz above, 2000 AD or whatever Judge Dredd was in.

A more amusing one might have been when random police types got to wander into schools and tell us of the dangers of power lines, train tracks and whatever else. The video they had opted for the "left to the imagination approach" which my 7 year old self promptly declared bullshit over as random medical shows that were on during primetime Saturday night would show full gore and everything. I was also a veteran of woundcare magazines (sadly image search is not even close to the fun of those) but that is a different discussion.



Still first time you noticed it in films/TV, cartoons, comics or otherwise?

 

[TheCasketMan]

I can see now where South Park stole the giant balls idea from...

 

[xist]

Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles....

And Michaelangelo being the only turtle who apparently didn't have a dedicated weapon because the censors were more afraid of two bits of wood with a chain between them than a sword, sai or a staff.

 

[FAST6191]

Afraid I was a ghostbusters and transformers kid but yeah looking back that would have been a big one.

 

[Harsky]

Family Guy. It used to air in the UK on Sky1 and I would watch it all the time. Fast forward to a few months later and I see gifs of Family Guy but there was a scene where Peter licks his own nipple which I never seen before. There was WAY too many cuts on Family Guy so I'm kinda glad to find DVD rips of it to see what I missed out.

 

[mechadylan]

My sisters were in love with the movie "Grease." So much, in fact, that they actually taped it (on Betamax, iirc) from television so as to watch it non-stop every chance they got. Eventually, we obtained a used VHS copy from a rental place that was going out of business and the first thing that we noticed was that it had an extra song; "Greased Lightning." We concluded that it was either omitted from television because it would be too long with it, or that it was some sort of "bonus" song and incentive to buying the movie rather than taping it off of television. I must've been about 8 or so at the time, and didn't really notice the lyrics until about the 2nd or 3rd watching. Suddenly, I understood why it was left off from the television broadcast. For shame, Mr. Travolta!

 

[Veho]

Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles....
And Michaelangelo being the only turtle who apparently didn't have a dedicated weapon because the censors were more afraid of two bits of wood with a chain between them than a sword, sai or a staff.

It's because two bits of wood with a length of chain/rope/twine between them are too easy to improvise, and too difficult to control, and the rash of homemade nunchuk related injuries (and property damage) in Bruce Lee's heyday made people wary of glamorizing them again.

 

[Harsky]

My sisters were in love with the movie "Grease." So much, in fact, that they actually taped it (on Betamax, iirc) from television so as to watch it non-stop every chance they got. Eventually, we obtained a used VHS copy from a rental place that was going out of business and the first thing that we noticed was that it had an extra song; "Greased Lightning." We concluded that it was either omitted from television because it would be too long with it, or that it was some sort of "bonus" song and incentive to buying the movie rather than taping it off of television. I must've been about 8 or so at the time, and didn't really notice the lyrics until about the 2nd or 3rd watching. Suddenly, I understood why it was left off from the television broadcast. For shame, Mr. Travolta!

Funny thing, YEARS ago, my highschool did a Grease musical and they did have to sing this song as part of their routine. I wish I could've stayed around to see if they went for the full uncensored version of if they had to tone down the lyrics.

 

[Gahars]

I always found it weird how superhero cartoons like Spider-Man were basically set in the modern day, with modern technology, except for all the cops and henchmen being equipped with wonky-looking laser guns.

The only exception that comes to mind is Batman The Animated Series. Actually, Batman TAS got away with a lot of stuff, now that I think about it.

 

[Veho]

The only exception that comes to mind is Batman The Animated Series. Actually, Batman TAS got away with a lot of stuff, now that I think about it.

They had realistic guns in Gargoyles too. But yes, cartoons tend to avoid realistic guns.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FamilyFriendlyFirearms

 

[J-Machine]

internet porn when I was 12. waiting 2 minutes for a picture with a 56k modem only to see stars over the nipples. I didn't really watch tv or listen to music till grade ten when I needed to be relevant for the improv team so that's the best I've got

 

[tbgtbg]

It's because two bits of wood with a length of chain/rope/twine between them are too easy to improvise, and too difficult to control, and the rash of homemade nunchuk related injuries (and property damage) in Bruce Lee's heyday made people wary of glamorizing them again.

You know what's even easier to improvise than numchucks? A friggin staff.

Hell, even swords aren't that hard to improvise, in their way. In school we always used to grab yardsticks to use as swords, though soon as a teacher came by that would be put to an end. Stoopid teachers.

 

[xist]

It's because two bits of wood with a length of chain/rope/twine between them are too easy to improvise, and too difficult to control, and the rash of homemade nunchuk related injuries (and property damage) in Bruce Lee's heyday made people wary of glamorizing them again.

Indirectly (through my brother) i was aware of a kid who ran around with two kitchen knives pretending he was Raphael. He also had a friend who erratically waved his grandfathers walking stick around menacingly. To be honest, if either of them had had the ingenuity to construct proper nunchaku i'd have been impressed. Of the weapons the turtles had i'd have assumed they were the most challenging for a kid to improvise...and if the censor was wary of flailing belts or the like, Indiana Jones would have been a far greater threat.

Although i'm sure you're right though...it just shows how insane censorship can get, turning Ninja's into Heroes and making Michaelangelo wield pizzas moreoften than not.

 

[emigre]

Rev up ya Harley

I swear that video must be responsible for the sexual awakenings of thousands upon thousands of ten year old boys.

 

[Skelletonike]

You know what's even easier to improvise than numchucks? A friggin staff.

Hell, even swords aren't that hard to improvise, in their way. In school we always used to grab yardsticks to use as swords, though soon as a teacher came by that would be put to an end. Stoopid teachers.

Bou staffs aren't normal wood sticks... A staff can be worse than a katana in the right hands... It's one of the weapons that can be used in karate, and one of the hardest ones to have a good control of.

 

[koimayeul]

I think it was in my youth with commodore 64 games, if memory serves it was Friday the 13th my friend had a version with churches and crosses, another version had something else to replace them.