< Bowdlerise

Bowdlerise/Film

Animated Films

1980s

  • Fuse TV's edit of Pink Floyd – The Wall went with the brilliant decision to reverse most curse words ("You little TIHS, you're in it!""), as well as do obvious and awkward zooms to the side of the screen when Pink's wife shows up in "The Trial" (odd, since they just did plain old Pixellation for other instances of nudity) and the scene of the Schoolmaster beating Pink while being beaten by a fat, nude version of his wife only showed a close-up of the Schoolmaster and Pink.
    • Some versions of this movie aired on TV don't even show Pink's wife at all.

2000s

  • The French children's production Arthur and the Invisibles contains some typical French risqué moments: for instance, Arthur, the main character, used the cord that laces the female lead's corset as a climbing rope, causing much complaining and one-handed climbing from her because she needed her other hand to hold the corset shut. This scene survived unscathed in the German version, but it got cut from at least one English variation.
    • That is somewhat understandable, but another scene that got cut was a simple kiss between the two leads. Given the magical power of this kiss (the first kiss transferred some powers, meaning that the villain could no longer rob the female lead of her powers by kissing her), as well as its social implications (it's as good as a marriage), this makes the plot from this moment on rather confusing. Note that in both cases the uncensored film is perfectly legal: while the actor playing real-life Arthur is about 12, the scenes in question play in the world of the Invisibles (Minimoys in the adaptation) and are fully computer-generated.
    • In the director's cut, Arthur's parents are total Jerkasses who don't care about their son and only care about the treasure.
      • They're also shown to be racist.
  • A TV edit of The Incredibles censored all mentions of Mr. Incredible cheating on his wife. Granted, Mr. Incredible did not actually cheat on his wife; he was merely suspected of doing so because of all the clues Mrs. Incredible found (which were actually from his moonlighting as a superhero). Still, it might've made certain scenes less comprehensible.
  • When Cars aired on Disney Cinemagic in the UK, Mater's line "He did what in this cup?!" when Lightning McQueen mentions the Piston Cup is cut.
    • On ABC Family, Lightning McQueen's line about being in "hillbilly Hell" is edited.

Live-Action Films

1930s

  • All known prints of the Marx Brothers film Animal Crackers (1930) have one line of the song "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" obviously edited out. (The line was Groucho singing, "I think I'll try and make her.")
  • Another Marx film, Room Service (1938), was based on a stage play that wasn't specifically written for the Marxes. It is about people trying to put on a stage play called Godspeed. In the film, this was changed to Hail and Farewell. The hotel troubleshooter's catch phrase "Jumping butterballs!" was originally just "God damn it", a rare case of a clean replacement being a lot more witty and innovative than just some boring obscenity. He also says the commonly used "By Godfrey" instead of "By God".
  • An entire adaptation was this. The Children's Hour is a play about two female teachers accused by an Enfante Terrible student of being in a lesbian relationship. When it was adapted to a movie in the 1930s, the lesbian relationship was changed to the two women dating and fighting over the same man. The 1961 adaptation called The Childrens Hour is truer to the original, though some editing needed to be done to appease the censors (as homosexuality still wasn't accepted in the 1960s).
  • Thanks to the Hays Code, several lyrics from the songs in Anything Goes were changed for the MGM movie. (This was also true for many Road Show performances. Cole Porter seemed to enjoy writing plays and lyrics that would throw censorship boards into a tizzy.) Notable examples:
    • In the title song, these lines:

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking.
But now God knows!
Anything goes!
Good authors, too, who once knew better words,
Now only use four-letter words writing prose!
Anything goes!

      • "God knows" is often changed to "heaven knows" (This edit is also used in some versions today).
      • In the movie, the phrase "four-letter words" was changed to "three-letter words" because you couldn't even imply swearing in the movies back then.[1]
    • In the song "I Get a Kick Out of You": The lyric "I get no kick from champagne" was changed to "Some like the perfume in Spain" because the mention of alcohol was also an absolute taboo back in the days of the Hays Code-style censorship.

1940s

  • The MGM film version of On the Town altered "New York, New York, a helluva town" to "New York, New York, a wonderful town." A few years later, the Bowdlerised refrain gave a title to the Broadway musical Wonderful Town.
  • The 1947 film version of Life With Father toned down the unbaptized father's frequent swearing. His bellows of "Oh, God!" were changed to "Oh, gad!" and most instances of "damn" were simply deleted.
  • The Postman Always Rings Twice was notorious even in the 1940s for toning down the source material. The sadomasochistic relationship between Nick and Cora was watered down completely, and the Auto Erotica was also cut.
  • In the 1948 film version of The Time of Your Life, much of the dialogue concerning Kitty is rewritten to turn her from a streetwalker into a "B-girl".

1960s

  • The Parent Trap (1961). Whenever they show it on Disney Channel, they cut out the part where Hailey pierces Annie's ears with a nail. They show Annie holding her ears, trying to make the decision. Then they cut to commercial, and when they get back, Annie's ears are pierced.
    • They also have started completely cutting the scene where Hailey asks her mother for a sip of wine, which she then comments on with all the knowledge you would expect of a winemaker's daughter. In the uncut vs., this is a major reason that the grandfather suspects something is up and follows Hailey to the park. But the modern MPAA has declared that films with people drinking anything declared to be wine cannot go lower than PG-13—that is, if you drink wine, then it's not a family film. The Disney Channel must have taken its cue from there.
      • The wine and ear-piercing parts were also cut when the movie was released in the UK (both parts were cut because the censors don't like showing dangerous or illegal actions that can easily be imitated in real life [i.e., combat moves, easy ways to break into someone's house or car without creating evidence (so a crook breaking a window to a house to get in would be uncut, but not a crook using a credit card to jimmy a locked door), drug abuse, methods of suicide, mishandling weapons or chemicals, etc.], especially in children's movies and family films). It can now be found uncut on DVD.
  • In the 1961 film version of West Side Story, the lyrics to the "Tonight Quintet" are changed. Instead of "He comes home hot and tired, so what / No matter if he's tired, as long as he's hot," Rita Moreno is forced to sing, "He comes home hot and tired, oh dear / No matter if he's tired, as long as he's here".
    • And in "Officer Krupke", the original lyric "My father is a bastard / My ma's an SOB / My grandpa's always plastered / My grandma pushes tea" becomes "My daddy beats my mommy / My mommy clobbers me / My grandpa is a commie / My grandma pushes tea". Yes, by the Hays Code, cussing is out, but Domestic Abuse and having elderly grandmothers be marijuana dealers are both acceptable. And being a Communist is just as bad as beating children or selling marijuana, though it's apparently more acceptable than being an alcoholic (although it's probably more about keeping the rhyming scheme than any actual problems with alcoholism).
    • Even better example in the same song, the movie makes "Dear kindly social worker / They say go earn a buck / Like be a soda jerker / Which means like be a schmuck." into "Dear kindly social worker / They say go make some dough / Like be a soda jerker / Which means like be a schmo." Cussing isn't even allowed in Yiddish! By the time it made to the movie version, it had mutated into "Dear kindly social worker / They tell me get a job / Like be a soda jerker / Which means I'd be a slob."
    • The Bowdlerization of "Gee, Officer Krupke" started even earlier. Sondheim wanted the last line to be "Gee, Officer Krupke / Fuck you!" thus pulling a complete 180 on the boy's exaggerated politeness and showing that they were really troubled. The producers made him change it to "Krup you," which—while very funny in a Narmy way—lacks the emotional impact he wanted.
    • The "Jets Song" has some fairly ridiculous Bowdlerized words too- "the best barking gang on the whole bugging street" and "the whole, ever, mother-loving street!"

1970s

  • At least one TV version of Blazing Saddles has all of the profanity and racial slurs blanked out. No, seriously: all of them. Since this makes up much of the movie, the result is either extremely obnoxious or unintentionally hilarious, depending on one's point of view. Most baffling is the lengthy sequence in which a bunch of cowboys sit around a campfire eating baked beans and farting; the sequence is retained, but with all of the farts muted out. Mel Brooks himself stated that because of the heavy edits, Blazing Saddles absolutely sucks when shown on TV.
  • When AMC shows Spaceballs, the edits are quite noticeable. The worst case was changing Barf's flipping the bird at the guards to a balled fist at them. It's as though if someone from 4Kids was responsible for that.
  • There are several examples in the TV version of Animal House. The scene where Bluto looks in the sorority house window is highly edited, of course, and the pot party scene is cut out completely. The most absurd bit of censorship, though, is changing the line, "Gregg doesn't believe in premarital intercourse" to "...premarital activity."
    • Along with both scenes of Greg getting handjobs in his convertible and the scene with Pinto's good and bad angels arguing over whether or not he should have sex with the drunk girl lying before him.
  • A clever bit of bowdlerization occurred in the TV version of Slap Shot. The scene where Paul Newman's wife relates her lesbian experience to him was heavily edited, but could not be cut out completely because it's too relevant to the plot. Further complicating matters is that she's topless in the scene, so her breasts were airbrushed out.
  • The usual TV-edit of Smokey and the Bandit movies has Buford T. Justice's frequent use of 'sonnovabitch' with they arguably worse 'scum-bum'. A later scene is completely ruined: Justice's car is stopped in traffic, and a police officer curses up a storm (but changed in the TV-edit to very mild words) to tell Justice to move it. After the police officer continues "cursing" at the car, Justice finally snaps and tells him to "Stop using that kind of language in front of my son!", which completely confuses anybody who hasn't seen the original movie.
  • In the TV version of ...And Justice for All," Al Pacino's summation to the jury climaxes with the line "straight to filthy jail!" instead of "...fucking jail!"
  • Watching Paper Moon on television, Tatum O'Neal's line "I gotta go to the shithouse" was censored. The last word was re-dubbed by a voice that was very obviously not O'Neal's. "I gotta go to the" was left intact, but suddenly a deep, male voice finished the line by saying "outhouse."
  • Free-TV The Jerk ruins the joke with the dog's name (can't call him "Shithead" now...)
    • Also, Iron Balls McGinty became Iron Bill McGinty.
  • A broadcast version of Hot Shots! cut almost the entirety of the 9 1/2 Weeks-inspired foreplay scene, eliminating one of the funniest parts of the entire movie.
  • A very British TV edit of The Exorcist changed one immortal line to:

Your mother KNITS SOCKS in Hell!

    • In the U.S., it's "STILL ROTS in hell!"
  • An edit of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes shown in the UK changed Milo's line "Lousy human bastards" to "Lousy human backstabbers." It might not be a bad substitution in of itself, but it didn't make much sense in the context of the movie, as the humans are pretty open about their contempt for apekind. To make matters worse, the edited version only used a single sample of the word "backstabbers," which reduced the following scenes to hilarity as various characters discuss exactly who said "Lousy human bastards backstabbers," with absolutely none of the dubs sounding convincing.
  • Many TV editions of Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory (particularly the one shown on the former FOX Family Channel) have the Nightmare Fuel-tastic Psychedelic Boat Tunnel sequence removed.
  • This trailer for a Grease re-release with sing-along subtitles for the musical numbers digitally removes a cigarette from John Travolta's mouth, and now, instead of "cream", "the chicks'll scream".
    • The added sing-along subtitles say scream, but you can still hear 'cream'.
      • "The chicks'll scream" is usually the preferred substitute for "chicks'll cream" whenever a high school play performs Grease in Real Life. Saturday Night Live parodied this on the season 33 episode hosted by Christopher Walken, in which 90% of the words had to be changed because the drama teacher (Walken) found them offensive. Here's the sketch's transcript.
  • In the TV edit of Carrie (1976), there's a scene where the teacher Ms. Collins is chewing out the girls who tormented Carrie by pelting her with pads and tampons after Carrie freaks out over having her period (and not knowing what it was). Instead of saying what a "shitty" thing they did to Carrie, she tells them it was a "nasty" thing they did. However, since the "nasty" they spliced in was from the same chewing out scene, it actually worked.
    • The TV edit also throws in a ton of CGI steam to hide the gratuitous nudity in the girls' locker room,[2] removes the scene where Chris gives Billy a blowjob, and removes the scene with Carrie in the bathtub.
  • Because of the success of the R-rated Saturday Night Fever, and wanting to expand their audience, an alternate PG version was released to theaters back in the 70's. The swearing was kept in, but the scene with the stripper was deleted, and Annette's rape scene was softened.

1980s

  • In the 1980s Get Smart movie The Nude Bomb, Max puts his gun in his pants. It goes off, he turns around, you hear the sound of him pulling his zipper down and up again, and he then turns around again with his Catch Phrase "Missed it by that much". NBC dubbed in "Missed the bone by that much," which oddly sounds dirtier than the original!
  • Possibly one of the most egregious example of this trope ever: in See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Gene Wilder's character tells Richard Pryor's character to "tell me the first thing that pops into your head," and predictably, he replies "Pussy!", which was dubbed over on TV with... "pasta."
  • For a particularly poorly done example, watch The Breakfast Club on TV sometime. "Eat my socks," was badly overdubbed to replace "Eat my shorts" (which was used well before Bart Simpson used it, and yet, it's never been the object of censorship). No wonder drug and alcohol use among the youth kept spiking.
  • In the TV version of The Blues Brothers, Jake tells the nun that she's up "the creek" instead of "shit creek," which makes it look strange that she finds the phrase so offensive. Also, they replace Elwood's repeated use of "bullshitting" with "bamboozling".
    • The nun also seems to find "Ow, my arm!" to be offensive.
  • They edit the language in the TV cut of Ferris Bueller's Day Off to take out any swearing. The cuts are rather obvious to some viewers.
    • "Pardon my French, but you're an *splice* -IDIOT!
    • "What a little motorhead!"
    • (Yelling) "I'm not just gonna sit on my..." (Whiny voice) "Hind."
    • "If you stuck a lump of coal of his HAND, in two weeks you'd have a diamond."
    • At one point, a woman in a naughty nurse outfit shows up to give Ferris a singing telegram:

"I heard that you were feeling ill,
Headache, fever, had a chill.
I came to help restore your pluck,
'cuz I'm the nurse that likes to-

...which is cut short by Ferris's sister Jeannie slamming the door in her face. In the TV edit, she slams the door after the first two lines. Also, at one point a deliveryman drops off a package, which is received by Mr. Rooney. Upon leaving, he honks out the tune, "Shave and a haircut", with Rooney flipping him off twice in "two bits" rapid succession. In the TV version, he simply looks annoyed and does nothing.
  • In the twentieth anniversary edition version of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, policemen's pistols shotguns were replaced with walkie-talkies, completely negating the suspense of the moment.
    • It makes the staggered zoom to Elliot's horrified face before showing the shotguns, which is kept in the new version, look so out of place.
    • But this product of said dubbing was, nevertheless, awesome! As well as funny...
    • Mercilessly lampooned in the South Park parody episode "Free Hat." Incidentally, while said episode portrays Steven Spielberg as the diabolical mastermind behind editing Raiders of the Lost Ark, with George Lucas only reluctantly following, in Real Life Spielberg himself later stated that editing the movie was a mistake.
  • In the TV version of Born on the Fourth of July, the anti-war chant at the end of the film was changed from "One, two, three, four/We don't want your fuckin' war" to "...stinkin' war."
  • In the TV version of Arthur (1981), John Gielgud asks Dudley Moore, "Shall I wash your neck for you?" instead of "Shall I wash your dick for you?"
    • Die Hard on TNT: not only is the language muted, but all the violence is edited out.
  • The TV version of Scarface is something that needs to be seen to be believed. "How'd you get that scar, tough guy? Eating pineapple?"
    • Another funny edit is when Tony is describing the town he says in the original "This town is one big pussy just begging to be fucked" in the tv airing he says " This town is one big chicken just begging to be plucked".
  • The TV version of RoboCop: "You freakin' airhead!" And the sequels, for that matter. Just ask Frank Miller.
    • The line: "Dick Jones is an impostor". Imagine his surprise when he gets the DVDs later in life and finds out it's actually "...is wanted for murder". Talk about interesting censorship...
    • Another funny attempt at bowdlerization in RoboCop had to be somebody calling Robocop a "BLEEP fucker".
    • Another funny one: The line "Once I even called him" (dramatic pause) "...'asshole'" turned into "Once I even called him" (dramatic pause) ".... a lot worse."
    • Another is "You're gonna be one bad mother crusher”.
    • One of the craziest of the television edits is when one of Clarence Boddicker's henchmen gets covered in toxic waste and becomes a scary mutated mess. In the original version, Boddicker is driving away from RoboCop and sees the mutated minion in the road. Boddicker screams and hits the guy, gibbing him and causing him to explode into bloody, syrupy chunks that coat the car Boddicker is driving. In the television version, Boddicker screams when he sees the guy and swerves out of the way, missing him entirely.
  • The Arnold Schwarzenegger line of "BULLSHIT!" was censored to "BALONEY!" in the TV version of Predator.
  • Ghostbusters (1984) is fairly well-known for its odd (lame) TV version, in which the language is toned down, not by audio dubbing, but by using actual alternate takes that were deliberately filmed before the producers had settled on what rating they were aiming for.
    • The theatrical version's "We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!" after the lead trio's first capture of a ghost was replaced by "What a knockabout of pure fun that was."
    • Later, Dr. Venkmann telling Walter Peck "You go get a court order, and I'll sue your ass for wrongful prosecution!" was substituted with "You go get the court order, and I'll sue your funny face for wrongful prosecution."
    • Dana Barrett says "Oh no" instead of "Oh shit" when her kitchen ghosts return.
    • The most infamous one, this scene in the mayor's office. Film version first, and then the TV version:

Ray Stantz: Your honor, our system was working just fine until the power grid was turned off by Dickless here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Venkmann: Yes it's true, this man has no dick.
Ray Stantz: Your honor, our system was working just fine until the power grid was turned off by Wally Wick here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Venkmann: It's true, your honor, the man is some kind of rodent, I don't know which.

    • As per a letter to the British film magazine Empire, the version shown on ITV had a different change to this scene (as well as none of the more gruesome... er... ghosts):

Ray Stantz: Your honor, our system was working just fine until the power grid was turned off.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Venkmann: Yes it's true, this man has no twinkie.

    • Finally, Winston Zeddemore III later in the same scene as the above, "I have seen shit that will turn you white!" became "I have seen stuff that will turn you white!" with the emphasis moved to the final word.
  • Broadcast version of Dirty Dancing (1987): people would tell each other to "Flake off!"
  • Most basic cable airings of Gremlins cut out the deaths of the first four gremlins which are ripped apart in a blender, stabbed repeatedly, blown up in a microwave, and decapitated with a sword—only the beginnings of these are shown in those airings.
  • The Goonies has a lot of this too. Most of Mouth's dialogue to Rosita is cut out (i.e. warning her of "sexual torture devices.")
    • In some airings the "hanging" scene is cut down even though it's a faked suicide.
  • In the AMC version of Friday the 13th (1980), all of the murders were heavily edited particularly Annie's, Jack's, Marcie's, and Steve's and in the climax Mrs. Voorhees' death scene is cut out just showing Alice swing the machete and the last few seconds of her headless corpse falling to the ground.
    • However in their airing of Part III the scenes of Andy getting cut in half, Rick's eyeball being squeezed out, and Ali's arm getting chopped off were left intact.
      • During a marathon of the films on TNT's old "Monstervision" block, Joe Bob Briggs once said that you could tell how improved the effects were in each successive film by noting how much of the film had to be cut to make it to air.
  • The Naked Gun TV edit changes this scene. To:

Nice ONE.
Thanks, I just had it stuffed.

  • Real Genius has, among other changes, "Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your pinky?"
  • In the German dubs of the (classic) Star Trek movies, they toned down occurrences of "son of a bitch" by translating to the literal equivalent "son of a dog"—which sound similar in the German language (stronger "Hurensohn" 'whore's son' vs. weaker "Hundesohn" 'dog's son'). Considering a bitch is a female dog, maybe this was more of a translation issue and not a censorship one.
  • The TV cut of Trading Places heavily edits the profanity—removing all usage of the word "fuck" [3] as well as several other words, though not totally consistently.[4] It's all mostly seamless except for one instance where Clarence Beeks is supposed to say "Fuck off", but instead says "Get lost" in a completely different voice.
  • The scene where Raymond spazzes out in the airport was cut from most airline versions of Rain Man, even though it made nonsense out of the plot (why were they driving cross-country?). After all, a recitation of plane crash statistics would be bad for business. The one airline that kept the scene in was Qantas—because "Qantas never crashed."
  • Major League<nowiki>'<nowiki>s TV version was highly edited. Most memorable instance: "Strike this guy out!" is in the place of "Strike this mother fucker out!" Not only can you still clearly lipread what the character is saying, but "guy" is said with a different actor's voice, rendering it even more awkward.
  • In the TV version of Caddyshack, Rodney Dangerfield's last line changes from "Hey everybody! Let's all get laid!' to "Hey everybody! Let's all take a shower!', which (a) is Out of Character for Rodney Dangerfield's character, and (b) sounds worse than the original line.
  • In Risky Business, Tom Cruise's friend advises him to "Just say 'fuck'. If you can't say it, you can't do it." (A reference to the character's virginity.) On network TV, that line was changed to "Just say 'hell'. If you can't say it, you can't do it." [5]
  • The Cartoon Network airing of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? muted out "lust" and "dinky" in Baby Herman's infamous line, "I got a 50-year-old lust in a three-year-old's dinky!",[6] cut out Baby Herman's line "How many times do we have to do this damn scene!", also cut out Benny's "what the hell happened here?", and cut the "Booby Trap" part [7] keep that part in, but replace Eddie's line of "Nice booby trap!" [8]] to "Nice one, Jess!"]).
    • Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is also censored on video and DVD releases. In the original movie, when Jessica Rabbit is flung out of Bennie the Cab, her skirt flies up, and for a few frames, it's apparent that Jessica doesn't wear underpants. The laserdisc and VHS video version of this altered the scene by digitally putting a pair of white panties underneath her dress. The newer DVD version opted instead to reanimate the scene so that way Jessica has on a Magic Skirt.
    • Also on the TV version, when Eddie Valiant approached the gorilla bouncer at the Ink and Paint Club, he quips, "Nice monkey suit," with the gorilla grumbling, "Wiseass!" The edited version replaces "Wiseass!" with "Wise guy!"; the Cartoon Network version, on the other hand, just had the gorilla looking pissed before the scene cut away.

1990s

  • From the AMC version of Se7en: "You're nothing but a BAD MOVIE! You're a T-SHIRT at best!"
  • Mallrats. Seriously, why would you even show Mallrats on broadcast television?
    • Especially silly because whenever Jay's lines were dubbed over (which was of course a lot), he was inexplicably given something of a stereotypical surfer accent. And of course who could forget "when do I get to see the gosh darn sailboat"?
    • Brodie's reaction to Trish: "Holy shit, you slept with that asshole?" was changed for the FX version to "Holy snot, you spoke with that airhead?"
  • Averted with the Fuel TV version of Clerks, which while still censored, was admittedly done pretty well for a Kevin Smith movie.
  • Chasing Amy on Oxygen. Life ain't nothin' but bettys and money, indeed.
  • In the United States, they've broadcast The Big Lebowski on Comedy Central. By the time they were finished cutting it, the movie was practically incomprehensible.
    • You say that as if it was comprehensible in the first place...
    • On the plus side, the edited line "This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!" has become Memetic Mutation and is seen as an intentional parody of censorship.
  • When Dumb and Dumber aired on Cartoon Network a couple years ago (seriously, why?), it was bowdlerized to hell and back.
    • Lloyd's line, "That John Denver's full of shit" was changed to "That John Denver's really full of it."
    • The scene of Harry rushing to the bathroom after drinking the laxative-laced tea used pan-and-zoom to cover up Harry pulling his pants down just as he sits on the toilet and faded out just as Harry is defecating.
    • The censors also ruined the punchline of combining a bulldog with a shih-tzu ("We call it a bull-sniki!"). They could have just removed the punchline altogether and make it a Stealth Pun.
      • A different edit of the film does do this, in fact: Harry sets up the joke, Mary responds "Really? That's weird" and instead of the punchline, it just cuts to Harry laughing uproariously.
    • The scene of Harry, Lloyd and Mary on the bed at gunpoint and Harry fighting with Lloyd, Harry asks Lloyd where he should sign. Lloyd's original line was, "Right on my ass, after you kiss it!" On Cartoon Network (and other televised versions), the line was changed to, "Right on my sandwich, after you kiss it!"
    • Lloyd's fantasy sequence on the TV version doesn't have a Shower Scene and the part where Lloyd pulls out the chef's heart from his chest.
  • In the TV version of Die Hard With a Vengeance, when McClane hands Zeus a gun, after Zeus says he doesn't know how to use one, Zeus says "Hey, all brothers don't know how to use guns, you racist melon farmer."
    • The billboard McClane wears at the beginning of the film, which originally said "I hate niggers", was changed to "I hate everybody" in the TV edit. Ironically, when the scene was originally filmed, the sign Bruce Willis wore actually did say "I hate everybody" in order to avoid any problems with the local residents (they filmed that particular scene in Harlem); the sign's content was changed during post-production.
    • In the TV edit of Die Hard 2: Die Harder, McClane's signature "Yippie-ki-yay-motherfucker!" is changed to "Mr. Falcon," despite the fact that there's nobody in the movie named Mr. Falcon. Or rather, there hadn't been; one character's last name was changed to Falcon in this edit.
    • In the German dub, it's "Yippie-yie-yay, Schweinebacke" (pig face). German dubs have a tendency to—if they only have those two options—make something sound cool and legendary rather than profane. Also due to German often lacking proper workable equivalents to the relevant English profanity.
  • The television version of Showgirls features digitally-added bras and panties on all scenes of nudity. It was required to have a broadcast-friendly version in which the plot makes any sense at all (there are plot-relevant scenes that take place while the main character, Nomi, is topless or in the nude).
  • The TV version of There's Something About Mary. In the scene where Ben Stiller's character is taken away on the ambulance after the police officer gets him "unzipped", Mary's brother, instead of yelling "He was masturbating, he was masturbating," yells "Franks and Beans, Franks and Beans".
  • The TV edit of Forrest Gump removes the gag involving the "Shit Happens" bumper stickers by replacing them with "Stuff Happens" or "It Happens" (including digitially editing the bumper sticker shown later), forcing the joke to lose all meaning: "Oh man, you just stepped through a big dog pile!" "It happens." "What? It?"
    • Also the scene of Forrest as a child sitting outside while the viewer hears his mother moaning orgasmically from having sex had the moaning either muted out completely or re-dubbed so it doesn't sound as sexual (Don't even ask me how the latter is possible).
  • The first Austin Powers film's TV edit renames the character Alotta Fagina to Alotta Clevage and also changes "I never forget a pussy... cat" to "I never forget a kitty...cat."
    • In some versions, the Fagina part is omitted all together, with her name just being Alotta.
    • "One Swedish made...enlarger!"
  • The TV version of the second film had Austin spitting out Fat Bastard's stool sample instead of saying, "it's a bit nutty"
    • In some versions, he says "It tastes like poo" instead of "It tastes like shit" and still remarks that "it's a bit nutty".
  • Happy Gilmore gets a couple of good bowdlerizations on the broadcast version. 1) In the clubhouse, when Happy and Shooter are arguing at the bar. Happy's original line is "I used to be on this tour for one reason: money. Now I'm on it for a new reason: Kicking your ass." The broadcast version dubs "ass" to "head", with hilarious results. 2) At the house auction. In the original scene, Shooter "eats pieces of shit for breakfast". In the edit, he eats "pieces of scum". The dub doesn't quite cover 'shit', however, and it comes out sounding like 'shcum'.
  • Every swear word from the Comedy Central version of Dogma is removed, making Rufus's line to Jay at the end of the movie ("And if you watch your mouth, I'll get you into heaven too!) fall flat.
  • The TV version of The Matrix had some pretty creative editing, including the notable substitute of "melonfarmers."
    • Another line from a broadcast version of The Matrix becomes fairly funny when Cipher suggests that "If Morpheus had told us the truth, we would have told him to shove that red pill right up his ear!", with "ear" replacing "ass."
  • In Liar Liar, when Jim Carrey's character pummels himself in the bathroom (which is one of the movie's funniest scenes), someone walks in and asks, "What the hell are you doing!?" Carey responds with, "I'm kicking my ass! Do you mind!?" In the edited version, he says, rather loudly, "I'M KICKING MY BUTT!" It's particularly obvious because if you read his lips, he's still saying "ass". In fact, lots of things were censored in this movie. Yet somehow, certain scenes (such as the "moaning" on a tape recorder, or Carrey's "encounter" before he is unable to lie) sneak by...
    • In the same movie, when Jim's character is describing his client's boyfriend what they were doing on the recorder all of the sexual wordplay Jim uses is edited out and replaced with incoherent gibberish even when his mouth is obviously forming words. WHAT.
    • Another ridiculous example is when Jim Carrey's character originally said, "Take it up the tailpipe!" which was changed to "Take it like a grown man!".
  • The version of Pulp Fiction shown on Bravo must be at least a good thirty minutes short. The best part is watching Samuel L. Jackson's mouth move with nothing coming out of it.
    • One version that aired on The WB went further in cuts. The film lost an entire hour and some death scenes were cut completely.
    • Many TV versions of Pulp Fiction completely omit the character of The Gimp, to the point where all shots with him in them have to be pan-and-scanned or cropped to get him out of frame.
    • There exists a TV edit of Pulp Fiction that contains the hilarious line "English, mothersucker, do you speak it?". There are also enormous gaps in Honeybunny's dialogue in the opening.

"Any of you... (uh...) pigs move, and I'll execute every last... (err...) one of you!"

    • Some TV edits of Pulp Fiction are fun to watch just to hear how the "MF"-bombs are dealt with. One version has Jules saying "motherhubber" at one point, while Honeybunny addresses the diner occupants as "my friends".
    • At the beginning, "Pumpkin" rants about those "fucking Jews". In the German dub, the adjective he uses rather means "crazy" with a hint of "awesome", since using a more offensive word would've reignited all sorts of Unfortunate Implications about Germans hating Jews.
    • The "dead nigger storage" scene was changed hilariously into this.
  • Any good mob movie will actually make it through uncut... but only on a "cinema classics" type setup viewing time. Any other programming slot and, well, Get Shorty looks passable. Especially awesome are Casino and Goodfellas.
    • Although USA showed Casino and, among other edits, changed "you Jew motherfucker, you!" to "you Jew money-lover, you!" which is, unfortunately, not better.
  • The broadcast version of 10 Things I Hate About You had a stellar examples of when Bowdlerization doesn't help in toning down content. When Patrick asks of Bianca, "What is it with this chick? She have beer-flavored nipples?" the TV version changes it to "beer-flavored boobs." Seriously, what the hell?
    • On the USA channel's airing of Clueless, Dionne's line about the politically correct term for a virgin is someone who is "hymenally-challenged" is changed to "hermetically-sealed." There are two things wrong with this cut: 1) Apparently the censors of USA think "hymen" is a dirty word (it refers to something racy, sure, but how often is "hymen" used in casual sex talk? and 2) (the most obvious of all): It's not an improvement over the original line, since the hymen is technically considered a type of seal.
  • The TV version of Jackie Brown has some rather clever edits of the many, many instances of "motherfucker" uttered by Samuel L. Jackson.
  • In the movie Billy Madison, after listening to a story in the first grade in the original version he says, "that dog is your responsibility you just don't go looking for an hour and call it quits, you get your ass out there and find that fucking dog!", while in the American TV version he says "you get your butt out there and find that stupid dog". The Australian airing edited the entire line on network TV, but not on cable or on the DVD. Other cuts to this movie include:
    • The scene of the clown falling and bleeding from his head is replaced with a scene where the clown doesn't bleed and is shows some signs of life.
    • The scene of the Alex Trebek reading the "burning dog poo and the human response" clue on Jeopardy has been removed (though the clue can still be seen on the board in distant shots).
    • Dan McGraff's list doesn't have "People to Kill" on it, which ruins the joke about Dan McGraff's previous encounter with Billy Madison.
    • The scene of Eric being set on fire was cut from the British theatrical version (along with the "find that fucking dog" line and the clown falling down and splitting his skull).
    • The bus driver calling Veronica Vaughn a "hot piece of ass" was changed to "hot tamale."
  • TV edits of Office Space have "pound-you-into-ash federal prison". Ooh, so close!
  • The airplane version of The Sixth Sense keeps the now-confusing dialog: "You said the s-word!" "Yeah, I did." No, he didn't. It does censor the horrific bullet wounds that are meant to constitute The Reveal that several characters are ghosts, but audiences probably understand from the context.
  • Anyone remember the early 90's Made-For-TV movie To Grandmother's House We Go, starring the Olsen Twins? It originally aired on ABC. When The Family Channel re-ran it a few years later (back when it was still owned by Pat Robertson), the word "hell" was bleeped.
  • The Boondock Saints was shown on cable for St. Patrick's Day. The replacing of the numerous curse words was simply funny. They also removed a scene where the brothers get "baptized" and decide on their mission which drives the rest of the movie. So anyone who wasn't already familiar with the film would have no idea how these two guys suddenly became vigilante badasses.
  • The TV version of Mrs. Doubtfire has "Oh, shit!" changed to "Oh, shoot!". They still kept the line "What the hell is going on?"
  • A rare aversion comes in the films Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan in the US. Airings of these films are almost never cut, even when it's on broadcast television. The latter because it is shown on Veteran's Day, and the former just because of the subject matter. Notably, a conservative politician who objected to the uncut showing of the former was quickly condemned—even by fellow conservatives.
    • In the case of the former, Steven Spielberg made it a requirement for its sale to broadcast television that it can't be cut or interrupted with commercials, hence the film always being screened in its entirety (including the end credits).
  • Tomorrow Never Dies re-aired on a German channel at an afternoon without showing the explosion of a stealth ship in the climax, despite the scene being featured in every ad for the film and there being no visible corpses to justify it.
  • In Escape From L.A., coarse language is one of the many things banned by the fascist American government (breaking any of their laws, of course, results in deportation to L.A. Island). When AMC airs this movie, any and all instances of coarse language are completely edited out. The irony is astounding...
  • When Friday (1995) aired on USA, every single instance of profanity is muted. Seeing that Friday has a lot of profanity, the movie becomes incomprehensible.
  • In Desperado, quite a bit of the violence was censored in most TV airings and Cheech Marin's death scene is completely removed, making it look like he escaped the shootout (and was never seen or heard from again), and the language is also censored ("What the fuck?!" is changed to "What the frijoles?")
  • In the TV airing of Tales from the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood a couple of things are altered Caleb's line "Come back you motherfucker" is changed to "motherlover", most of the naked female vampires are fully clothed, and a scene where Lilith twists a minion's head off is removed.
  • A TV version of Tremors that's been in use since 1994 has ample amounts of unnecessary censoring.
    • It's odd enough they replace mundane words like "ass" and "bastard", but "damn monsters" was the bowdlerised version of... "motherhumpers".
    • What's worse (and funny) is that the redubbed lines never match with the character's voices in any way. The best example is "Melvin, some day someone's gonna kick your ass!", which became "Melvin, some day someone's gonna kick your butt", with "butt" said in a deep voice that sounds both completely uninterested and like the dubber burped while saying it.
    • Don't forget replacing instances of "God damn(ed)" with the cringe-inducing bowdlerization of "Gohl durn(ed)".
  • The TV airing of Waiting to Exhale cuts out the scene of Gloria's son being angry that his father is a closet homosexual.
  • In the TV airings of American Pie the language is heavily censored for instance "Fuck you" is changed to a rather badly dubbed "forget you", and when Stifler's brother jumps on the bed while yelling "fuckers, fuckers, fuckers" one particular network edits it with a poorly dubbed "freaks, freaks, freaks".
    • Also, the infamous "One time at band camp..." scene either cuts off before Michelle says that she stuck the flute up her pussy or it replaces "up my pussy" with "in my mouth."
  • Peachtree TV recently ran Batman and Robin with all the ass and crotch shots removed from the suiting-up sequences. Hmm, maybe censorship isn't all that bad...
    • But they took out the best parts of the movie!
  • Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls has the "rhino birth" scene altered in the TV version. Originally has Ace visibly fully exiting the back of the mechanical rhino naked. The TV version replaces it with reaction shots of people staring, then cuts to Ace standing up and commenting on how he got lost in the rhino.
  • The ending of the Mr. Bean film Bean includes a scene with Bean mistaking a biker flipping him off for a greeting. A TV edit cut the scene of the biker flipping Mr. Bean off, but not Mr. Bean doing the same.
  • The TV edit of Bulletproof has old, seasoned police officers calling each other "silly beast" in anger.
  • In the TV edit of The Usual Suspects, the phrase they have to say in the line-up is changed to "Hand me the keys you fairy godmother!"
  • A television edit of Fargo replaced all uses of "fuck" with "frozen".
  • In Never Been Kissed, one character refers to grabbing a "bull by his balls," which is changed to grabbing a "bull by his buttons."
  • In the scene where Bridget Jones quits her job in the first Bridget Jones Diary, she tells her boss that she'd rather have a job "wiping Saddam Hussein's arse" than working for him. The TV-friendly version? "Washing Saddam Hussein's car."
  • When The Mask is shown on TBS, Cameron Diaz calling the bad guys bastards before tying her to the pole is replaced with her screaming, "Let me go!"
    • The Mask is also edited for TV to remove/alter the following:
      • The part where Kellaway and Doyle search The Mask in the park and Kellaway finds a framed photo of his wife in lingerie with the words, "Call me, lover!" written in cursive: In the original version, Kellaway yelled, "Margaret! You son of a bitch!" Most TV versions replace "bitch" with "witch" while others cut off after he yells, "Margaret!", and there's at least one version that replaces "bitch" with "pig."
      • The part after The Mask gets his revenge on the car repairmen who screwed him (when he was Stanley Ipkiss) over: Originally, there was a long sequence where The Mask is confronted by gun-toting muggers, then transforms into a carnival barker and makes a Tommy gun out of balloons (after nearly using condoms as the balloons). The edited version either cuts to commercial or goes into the next scene, where it's morning and Stanley wakes up.
  • The AMC airing of The Silence of the Lambs replaced Migg's line "I can smell your cunt" with "I can smell your scent," which made it odd when Lecter says that he himself can not, then starts talking about what Clarice smells like.
  • The Problem Child films suffered some legendary bowdlerization. The usual dub-overs of swearing and removal of gross-out humor are just the beginning; in the first film, two very important lines of dialogue are completely changed out of fear that someone would find the parents' callous take on adoption as offensive (which is the reason why You Can't Do That on Television had its episode about adoption banned after two airings on American TV). In the process, they actually destroy very important nuances of the film's plot and characterization:
    • "I don't wear second-hand clothes, and I won't have a second-hand kid!" is changed to: "I don't wear second-hand clothes, and I wanna have my own kid!"
    • "He's not even a real kid! He's adopted!" is changed to: "He's not even a fun kid! He's a devil!"
    • Other specific examples include editing out a nun saying "crap", pretty much all of Junior's profanity use, Big Ben saying "Japs", every incident involving Junior pissing on something, Junior's massive fart in Peabody's office, the tilt-a-whirl vomit scene, and the massive piles of dog shit Nippy unloads in the second movie.
  • Good Will Hunting has a lot of the offensive language either dubbed over or cut entirely. One scene that deserves special mention: at the end when Matt Damon hugs Robin Williams and asks "Does this violate the doctor-patient agreement?" to which Williams responds jokingly "Only if you grab my ass." The Bravo channel's edit changes "ass" to "butt" which still gets the idea across. The ABC Family edit of this scene, however, changes the line to "Only if I turn around," the implications of which are arguably more sexual than the original version and the Bravo edit (but, hey, that's Robin Williams for ya).
  • The Cartoon Network airing of Space Jam oddly mutes out Elmer Fudd's line "Come back here, you scwewy wodent!" and, to add insult to injury, edited Daffy's memorable line "We gotta get new agents! We're gettin' screwed!" by shortening the line to "We gotta get new agents!".
  • New Jack City is another mess to watch on VH-1. Not only is the language and sexual content dubbed over and removed, but all of the gun violence is trimmed as well. The most noticeable edit: Allen Payne's shot to the head is cut short even though he doesn't bleed. The version shown on BET (Black Entertainment Television) has a better edited version in which only the offensive language is muted and the sex scenes and/or nudity is blurred out or removed entirely while the violence remains. The only annoying edits on the BET version are all of the instances of Ice-T's character saying, "bitch."
  • Any and every edit of the film Boogie Nights on TV is horrible to watch. Language is regularly muted and sex scenes are edited out entirely (though the violence remains). The biggest and most glaring edit occurs at the end of the movie in which Dirk Diggler unzips his pants to remove his large penis. The TV edit ends on Dirk just staring into the mirror.
  • The movie The Wood has the word "nigga" bleeped out, which gets awkward because it is said quite frequently. Also, most of the teen sex scenes are cut out (one scene has Mike obviously fingering a girl).
  • Thunderheart is another to have some scenes filmed twice with toned-down language for television. Crow Horse's "God damn drilling for uranium" toward the end is "gosh darn". David Crosby as the bartender says "God damn prairie niggers!" when his establishment gets blown up by a Molotov cocktail. On television, he doesn't say anything, just glares.
  • Fight Club: In the book, Marla's line, "I want to have your abortion" was asked to be toned down. For the film, it was changed to "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school" - presumably not exactly what they were looking for...

2000s

  • When Snakes on a Plane made it on to cable, the movie's big line was...changed slightly:-

"I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!"

    • And in Asia, Cinemax just cuts out the line entirely: "Enough is enough! Everyone strap in, I'm going to open some windows."
  • Whenever they show Bring It On on ABC Family, they take out all the swear words. One particularly bad example is when Torrance is yelling at Misty, saying something to the effect of "I'm gonna kick your ass." On TV, she yells the "I'm gonna kick your" part, and then she says "butt" in a normal voice. However, they don't do this for any of the other Bring It On movies. (Or maybe they do: on some TV screenings of Bring It On: All Or Nothing the shot of Britney mouthing "Asshole" after her ex-boyfriend leaves is cut.)
    • Likewise with the intro song...very poorly.
    • "Missy is an uber-dyke" becomes "uber-dork."
  • Kate and Leopold: During one of the opening scenes, Stuart is listening to the architect of the Brooklyn Bridge giving a speech in which he talks of the bridge as his "erection" (as in "my erection, the biggest on the planet, will stand forever"). The German dub replaced all "erections" with "buildings", leaving Stuart to stand there snickering for absolutely no reason. Although that might be less censoring and more being unable to find an equivalent workable German pun.
  • The TV version of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back that was shown on AMC at one point. Let's just say Jay had a lot less dialogue. And of course, all mothers paying for being lickers.
  • The makers of Hot Fuzz were contractually obliged to make a version suitable for daytime TV; the edited portions can be viewed on the two-disc version. The results are hilarious. "Jesus Christ" was changed to "peas and rice," for instance.
  • Shaun of the Dead has a Bowdlerised version on the DVD version. The original film has a scene where Pete, one of the roommates, uses different variations of the word "fuck" during a rant; hearing every instance changed to "funk" is highly amusing.
  • 500 Days of Summer has a Bowdlerized version played on Delta Airlines flights. In it, when Tom and Summer are playing the penis game the word "penis" is replaced with "panda". This leads to some odd reactions from people towards someone screaming "panda!"
    • Also, the bowdlerization cuts out the shower sex scene and Tom's "roses are red, violets are blue, fuck you whore" card . And the poo sculpture at the exhibition Tom and Summer visit. There's also "She took a giant spit on my face".
  • As a joke, Tom Green edited a new version of Freddy Got Fingered so that it would receive a PG rating and included it as a special feature on the DVD. The PG-rated cut is 3 minutes long.
  • Much discussion was raised on Live Free or Die Hard, which reduces the bloodshed and curse words (McClane's catchphrase is cut by a gunshot) to lower the rating, making it accessible to more audiences. In a separate scene from the same film, "Yippie-ki-yay-motherfucker!" has become "Yippie-ki-yay my friend!"
    • All the cursing and violence is restored in the unrated DVD version, making the gunshot-cut catchphrase into a totally badass literal Precision F-Strike, the rest of the film having already used the non-killing-people f-word a bunch of times.
  • One TV version of Blade Trinity had it so that Hannibal said things like "Shuck me sideways" and "Shuck you"... which resulted in some unintentionally hilarious moments.

Hannibal: "That tickle that you're feeling in the back of your throat right now? It's atomized colloidal silver. It's being pumped through the building's air-conditioning systems, you crock-juggling chunderbump!"

      • Actually, that's not the worst edit for matchup, since the original insult was cock-juggling thundercunt!". It could have been a lot worse considering how many edits go.
    • The single worst Bowdlerization? Hannibal's "I farted". I'm serious - TNT's edit of the film replaces "farted" with "pooted".
  • The TV version of Kill Bill had a minor character saying, "My name is BUCK, and I like to PARTY." Suffice to say that the original rhymed a whole lot better. They changed the name of his truck also, to PARTY Wagon. The original word also started with a P and ended with a Y, though the license plate (PSYWGN) wasn't digitally altered at all. Although without the original name of the vehicle given, you might guess from the license plate that the "P-S-Y" stood for "Psychology" or "Psycho".
    • Also, Thurman calls her killers "sluts" instead of "dicks". Carradine who apparently did dub his dialogue changes it from "assholes" to "jerks".
  • The third Austin Powers movie had a pretty bad case of this at times. Two notable scenes were Danny Devito's cameo as Mini-Me in the opening, where the line "Hey assholes!" ends up as "He----------!", as well as the Fun with Subtitles scene, where "shitake mushrooms" becomes "dungenese crab", but the following "Your assignment is an unhappy one." is unaltered. "Ass" has been downgraded from the top tier of curse words in recent years; "shit" is still up there.
  • Idiocracy on Comedy Central has two obvious edit examples (among others):
    • Carl's Jr. machine: "Carl's Jr. Fuck you, I'm eating."
    • Joe: "I could really go for a Starbucks right now."
Frito: "I don't think we have time for a handjob."
  • Freddy vs. Jason got bowdlerized when NBC Universal started airing it on USA and SyFy: while some particularly gruesome deaths are left intact (chiefly because they don't contain a lot of blood), several scenes were edited to remove the violence/blood. The most notable example is a scene at the beginning of the film—it has a teen sitting next to his father after waking up from a dream (where he encountered a still-powerless Freddy); he thinks his father's alive...until his head falls off his neck and right into the teen's lap. The teen then looks up and sees Jason, who promptly kills the teen (the killing blow is off-screen). In the Bowdlerized version, the scene goes from the teen waking up to seeing Jason without showing the father at all. The Spike version however is more uncut than the Syfy cut all the violent murders are intact but the language is muted and the nudity deleted and is presented in its original aspect ratio.
  • In the Kare11 airing of Anchorman all of the violent scenes were cut such as a man catching on fire, Frank getting his arms chopped off, Brick stabbing a man with a trident, and when the biker kicks Baxter the dog off the bridge it's edited to make it look like he threw him.
  • An airplane edit of Juno changes Juno's father's line, "I'd like to kick that Bleeker kid right in the wiener" to, "I'd like to kick that Bleeker kid right in the knee".
  • The German airline edit (most likely the only edit in that country) of The Spirit trims, re-frames, and digitally masks large portions of the scene with The Octopus strutting around in Nazi regalia while "Deutschland Uber Alles" plays in the background for fairly obvious reasons.
  • A TV edit of 8 Mile in the US digitally removes Eminem's Rabbit's middle finger in its most blatant use, leaving him with a lumpy nub of flesh with no fingers instead of a hand.
  • In the version of Mean Girls shown on ABC Family, they make obvious edits to remove words such as "bitch". For example, the scene where Regina says, "Boo, you whore." to Karen is cut so that she just says, "Boo." and hangs up on her.

Regina: But, wait! Aren't you so mad at Gretchen for telling me? It's alright if you are! I mean, it was a witchy thing to do."
Cady: Yeah, it's pretty- WITCHY.
Janis: Let's rock this witch.

    • In addition, most edits of the word "bitch" into "witch" are incomplete, so the dub sounds more like "bwitches". Hilarity Ensues.
    • This even happened to the theatrical version of the film. Tina Fey's original script was rated R, and was filled with sexual innuendo, drug humor and "wall-to-wall titties" (Fey's words) in the vein of such teen sex comedies as Porky's and American Pie. Several scenes that were in the movie were raunchier in their original form — the "made out with a hot dog" line was originally supposed to say "masturbated,"[9] Regina and Karen's Halloween outfits (already Stripperiffic in the final film) were basically bikinis, and the scene where Gretchen and Jason are caught making out in the bathroom originally had Gretchen about to give Jason a blowjob. There was also a subplot involving an ecstasy-popping raver kid named Barry that was dropped from the finished product.
    • The script was toned down after Lindsay Lohan was cast in the lead role, due to the fact that she was then considered a family-friendly teen actress (which became Hilarious in Hindsight several years later after her fall from grace due to drugs and run-ins with the law).
  • TV airings of Resident Evil: Apocalypse replace L.J.'s every utterance of "motherfucker" with "motivator."
  • Just about every really funny part of Paul Blart: Mall Cop's alternate version is turned into a really stupid-sounding kid-friendly gag. Although, props to the filmmakers for creating a toned-down alternate version to avoid the usual hack-job editing.
  • When Superbad is shown on FX, a lot of swearing is cut out or dubbed over, in most cases, rather well. The whole scene where Seth is talking about his childhood obsession with drawing penises is cut out, which makes the reason he hates Becca confusing.
  • In the USA edited version of Two Fast Two Furious the main character flips off someone going reverse in car. The edited version has him holding a fist towards the character which is apparently offensive.
  • TV edits can be hysterical. The broadcastable version of Repo Man has a character screaming, "Flip you! Flip you, you flippin' melonfarmer!"
  • One particularly annoying example would be the Saturday-night airings of Harry Potter in Australia last year (as a build-up to the release of the 7th movie). For some reason, all the scenes where people die are cut (for example, when Cedric is killed, it goes right from 'Avada Kedavra' being yelled to Harry lying over his body sobbing). It was quite jarring to realised that there are people out there who are crazy (or stupid) enough to do something like that.
  • FX's version of Burn After Reading is just sloppily dubbed over. It seems like the actors dubbed their own lines, but it's just that it's not seamless at all, including Brad Pitt constant referencing Malkovich's "stuff" instead of shit. The dubbed-over lines for John Malkovich zigzags in quality as well.
  • FX's edit of Martin Scorsese's The Departed has been turned into a comedy by way of poor choices in re-dubbing throughout the entire film (such as in the scene of Jack Nicholson telling Dicaprio that someday he will wake the "freak" up or the scene of Dicaprio losing it with Mark Whalberg with how about I "freaking" kill you. And, of course, there was Matt Damon's, "This gonna be "freaking fun" rant towards the end of the film).
  • In Final Destination 3, a photo shows a woman giving the middle finger (with both fingers) to the camera. Since the photo is integral to the plot, cutting out all scenes of it would render the movie incomprehensible. Instead, the middle fingers were digitally altered to peace/"V-for-Victory" signs.
  • ABC Family's edit of Love Actually completely omits John and Judy's storyline.
  • A cable edit of Me Myself and Irene constantly substitutes "mammajamma" for "motherfucker," which, ironically pushes all of the scenes involving Charlie's sons into Refuge in Audacity territory.
  • TNT's edit for Watchmen edits for offensive language, sexual content (particularly all scenes of Dr. Manhattan, which have his genitals digitally blurred out), and violence (the violence cuts usually just cut away to another scene or fade out to a commercial). Additional scenes from "The Ultimate Cut" DVD version are added to make up for the content that was cut (the TV version includes the "Tales of the Black Freighter" sequence).
  • Showtime Canada's showing of the 2009 Star Trek cuts the scene with Spock and Sarek set just after Spock tried to kill Kirk on the bridge. The scene is important because Sarek's talk allows Spock to deal with the emotions he's experienced due to his mother's death and regain his bearing. Without it, what we get is Bipolar Spock, leaving the bridge a psychological wreck and returning apparently seconds later (after the commercial break) calm and confident.
  • An example of a movie's plot suffering from the effects of this: Gothika opens with Chloe's psych evaluation, where she describes murdering her stepfather, because it was "the only way to help him." When Halle Barry's character asks, "To help him to do what?", the TV edit changes her response to, "To help him stop fighting me!". The original is, "To help him stop fucking me". Since most of Chloe's problems revolve around how no one believes she's a rape victim, it makes her sound like an ordinary psycho (or someone who was physically abused by a parent at a young age and finally snapped in adulthood) and undermines most of what she represents in the story.

2010s

  1. ↑ though the only three-letter-word used as a swear that exists in the English language is "ass," so, that's not an improvement
  2. ↑ some edits exist where the nudity is covered up with digitally-rendered bras and panties, similar to how Showgirls is normally edited
  3. ↑ (either muting it, so "Get the fuck OUT!" becomes "Get... OUT!", or replacing it with ridiculous euphemisms like "motherfucking" becoming "mothergrabbing")
  4. ↑ (it keeps Billy Ray yelling at a woman he was hitting on "Ya BITCH!" but later, when he's pretending to be a pimp, replaces "bitches" with "ladies")
  5. ↑ Not only does this remove the virginity reference, and not match up to the lip synching of what the actor was actually saying, but the whole second part ("If you can't say it, you can't do it.") is rendered into complete nonsense by the fact that "hell" is not a verb! All-around worst network edit ever.
  6. ↑ (most TV versions of this movie that air during the hours when children and families are watching TV just redub the line as "I've got a 50-year-old lust in a 3-year-old body")
  7. ↑ (most TV versions -- particularly the Disney Channel version in the 1990s and a FOX version that aired back when FOX aired edited-for-TV movies on weeknights and special weekends)
  8. ↑ [in response to Jessica getting a weasel stuck in her cleavage
  9. ↑ In fact, if you read the girl's lips when she says, "Made out with a hot dog? That was one time!", it's pretty obvious that the line was dubbed over.
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