Sesame Street censorship

[Splurge]

There was one short cartoon, if memory serves, with 2 cartoon cactuses singing "Here we are", and one of them replies, "To heck with there.."

I'm guessing it was cut out by now, but that wasn't too long ago.

That's difficult to say, considering the new format of the show doesn't really allow for too many cartoons or films unless they are about the letter/number of the day or somehow are related to the "street" storyline in the first part of the show. And of course, the seasons have now been reduced to having only 26 episodes.

I'm inclined to believe that hypothetically, if it weren't for those variables, "Here We Are" would be more likely to air, even with "to heck with there" intact. I do like that tune.

Hmmm... maybe we should send in scripts that have the entire storyline dealing with cacti.

 

[Censored]

Plus, it had Bert calling Ernie names like Meatball (a weight insult).

Actually, the term "meatball" is NOT a weight insult. It is a slang meaning a stupid, clumsy or dull person. I don't know the origin of the slang, but it was commonly used in the 70's. I never hear it used in today's language anymore.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm inclined to believe that hypothetically, if it weren't for those variables, "Here We Are" would be more likely to air, even with "to heck with there" intact. I do like that tune.

I'd see "to heck with there redubbed some how, since that's basically a pretty rude thing for kids to say. The didn't like the useage of Darn or heck any other way, I guess they don't even like using stupid, replacing it with Silly. I never did care for silly... I never liked the word, myself.

But using something like to heck with there would lead kids to saying, "To heck with you" or "to heck with (something)." That sounds like the thing they'd want to stamp out. I mean, redubbing the word Sissy (even though no one even uses thgat word anymore) galvenizes my opinion.

 

[Hays]

It is a parents job to let kids know what's appropriate and what's not. If we expect kid's TV to represent perfection, then we're going to wind up with something dull and unimaginative.

For instance, there's a cute Twix commercial where they take a CD and smear it with peanut butter and put it into the CD player - and it turns into a Twix bar. As a parent, I could campaign to Mars and my local TV station to have the commercial removed, or I could be reasonable and talk to my kid about how what he sees on TV is pretend and he'll break the CD player if he does that (and hide the peanut butter)

There is certain language that's inappropriate for children's TV, but extending this rule to all behaviors and language kids might imitate is crazy. I don't want my kid throwing his food around like Cookie Monster (a problem I admit we have, as it's his favorite character) but I'm absolutely not going to ban Cookie Monster from our TV.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm basing my earlier post on the fact that wanda the word fair couldn't say "darn it!" I heard that they had to edit an episode of Fractured Fairy tales because Aladdin said "Darn" and the ABC censors thought it would lead kids on the road to swearing.

Personally, I don't find fault with swearing personally. Except the big F....

 

[D'Snowth]

Y'know, this all reminds me of how a few years ago, I was playing with a neighborhood girl (don't worry, I was only 10 then), and I used the phrase "what the heck". And she flat out said "ooooooo, you said a bad word!" Actually, I wonder if some words like fart, or sucks isn't allowed on Sesame, I can't even say them at home either.

 

[Censored]

It would be strange if "darn" and "heck" were being censored because there was a time that these words were considered wholesome substitutes for the offensive ones. There was an old Edgar Bergin/Charlie McCarthy radio episode where Charlie dreams he dies and goes to "heck". He says, "Where the heck am I?" The devil says, "That's where you are. You're in HECK." Someone even made a joke that in the old days, people were so prudish, you had to say "hectacopters" instead of "helicopters". The word "darn" was used on numerous family shows of the 60's and 70's too. On an episode of "Happy Days", Al did a Clark Gable impression and said, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a darn." When did "heck" and "darn" become a problem for anyone?

 

[Drtooth]

You know what I hate about Heck? When people are actually talking about He** they have to use heck. They did get away with it on Hysteria (They also did D*** as in D*** the torpedoes. But those were historical quotes).

But when I think of Heck, I think of Phil, the prince of insufficient light from the Dilbert cartoons...

 

[MuppetDude]

Forgive me for sounding a bit dense, but what's so offensive about the "5-cent" thing? Does it mean something bad?

 

[rjschex]

Forgive me for sounding a bit dense, but what's so offensive about the "5-cent" thing? Does it mean something bad?

Not so much offensive, buy WAY out of date! Now, gumballs cost about 5 times as much!