< Bowdlerise

Bowdlerise/Western Animation

  • Somewhere between this promo and the actual show the last line of The Cleveland Show theme song went from "My happy black guy face" to "My happy mustached face." Interestingly enough, the closed captioning on the first several episodes still used the "black guy" line, despite it being redubbed in the audio.
  • The Ren and Stimpy Show got quite a bit of this during its original run on Nickelodeon. Standout examples include the Family Bath in the episode "Big Baby Scam", Powdered Toast Man burning the Bill of Rights, and some of Ren's grislier death threats to Stimpy and Sven in "Sven Hoek".
  • The opening song to Disney's Aladdin, Arabian Nights was changed from "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home" in the original theatrical version to a more acceptable "Where it's flat and immense, and the heat is intense/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home." for the home release. The original version made it to the early pressings of the soundtrack on CD, but later versions used the less racist version. The original version was also reused for the TV series, with no changes.
  • Virtually all Looney Tunes shorts have been anywhere from lightly cut to lopped, cropped, and chopped when aired on television (on network TV, syndication, and cable) for reasons ranging from violence (mostly involving guns and suicide gags) to ethnic stereotyping to cuts to fit the time frame for more commercials about which no one gives a damn. The ones that have objectionable content but can't be cut without turning the cartoon into a plotless mess are simply banned (i.e., The Censored Eleven, the final Golden-Age cartoon "Injun Trouble," and a glut of World War II cartoons, such as "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips," "Tokio Jokio," and "Confusions of a Nutzy Spy"). A website called "The Censored Cartoons Page" has been made to catalogue all the cuts. See here
    • Also thankfully, now that Cartoon Network recently started airing the shorts again after being absent from the airwaves since 2004, most cartoons are shown uncut and uncensored (some cartoons like "Scaredy Cat" are still shown edited, but done in a less intrusive way, though Your Mileage May Vary on that).
  • Similar to the Looney Tunes, many of the gags deemed racially insensitive in MGM cartoons were edited when shown on Cartoon Network, which made a few shorts, including Tex Avery's "Magical Maestro" (which edited out the opera-singing dog turning into a Chinese stereotype and a blackface singer), very disjointed and confusing.
    • Of note are the Tom and Jerry cartoons that remove all appearances of Mammy Two Shoes, a heavyset black woman with a very stereotypical voice. Sometimes, this meant the cartoon had very harsh edits, like in "The Mouse Comes to Dinner" where the cartoon starts with Tom popping up out of a potted plant for seemingly no reason at all. Older versions (particularly the ones Chuck Jones was in charge of when he was an animator at MGM in the mid-to-late 1960s) had Mammy Two Shoes replaced with a white teenage girl (as seen in "Saturday Evening Puss"). Newer versions (particularly the ones that air on Cartoon Network -- and some that have cropped up on the "Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection" DVD releases) either edit out all scenes of Mammy Two Shoes (as mentioned with "The Mouse Who Came to Dinner" and "Fraidy Cat") or retain her, and either mute her voice or give her a new, less stereotypically black voice.
  • The opener for The New Scooby Doo Movies includes a shot of a Western gunfighter pulling out his gun and firing it into the air. At some point in time, this clip was cut out and replaced with a clip of Scooby running away, while you can still hear the gunshots with the music. The show's re-release on the Boomerang network includes the unedited opener.
    • The shot of Scooby running was actually used earlier in the theme, just on an orange background instead of a blue one. They basically just took the hand drawn animation cels and pasted onto a new background. Then, another animation was made of Scooby pointing over to the left towards the gunman was animated to cover up the rest of the clip that the running didn't replace.
  • In Don Bluth's Disney Swan song The Small One, the "Jewish" merchants [1] have a line in their song, "We simply cheat a little if we must" changed to "We work a little harder if we must" even though their hand actions haven't been altered in any way. A lesser edit occurs at the end when the star that appears over the manger was given more lines to look less like a cross, although the lines that form the cross remain and are the most prominent.
  • G.I. Joe: The Movie: Duke goes from dead to being in a "coma," and then recovering (off-screen), thanks to similar editing done in the Transformers animated movie.
  • The Simpsons in the UK has also suffered from this. One instance was particularly pointless because the unedited version was used in a trailer that immediately preceded the episode. The season nine episode "Trash of the Titans" (the 200th episode) has the following edits:
    • Homer announces to a courthouse clerk that he wants to run for Sanitation Commissioner. The clerk states that it's nice, but the line Homer is in is for people who have to register as sex offenders [2]. The edited version in the U.K. ends with Homer announcing his candidacy for Sanitation Commissioner to the courthouse clerk.
    • All instances of the word "wanker" (mostly used by U2's Bono) were cut.
    • The scene where Homer reveals that he buried the garbage under Springfield was edited to remove Bart, Lisa, and Marge guessing that Homer got rid of the garbage by selling drugs (though Lisa's line, "I wish it were drugs!" after finding out that Homer is burying the garbage under the town wasn't cut).
    • After the garbage erupts and destroys the town, Ray Patterson is asked to be Sanitation Commissioner again. Patterson refuses, ending his speech with "You're screwed. Thank you, bye." On the UK's Channel Four, the line was shortened to "Thank you, bye," but Mayor Quimby's "We are far from screwed!" was left in.
    • Recent UK reruns of "The Cartridge Family" edited the ending where, as Marge is about to throw the gun away, she realizes that she looks better with it and slips it in her purse, making it look like Marge threw the gun away off-screen and walked out like a Femme Fatale for no reason. Curiously, the BBC never had problem with the scene and Channel 4 has only gained a problem with it recently.
      • At first, the episode was never shown in the UK altogether, due to the beginning scene with the soccer riot and scenes depicting the comical side of gun abuse (including Bart using it to play William Tell with Milhouse), which British censors found offensive and likely to be copycatted by idiot viewers).
    • The season 16 finale ("The Father, The Son, and the Holy Guest Star") was edited in the UK to remove Homer's final line during his reconciliation session with Father Sean ("I've masturbated 8 million times and I have no intention of stopping"). The American version initially banned the episode (as it was scheduled to air around the time that Pope John Paul II passed away), but ended up airing it a few months later as the final episode of the season, making the intended finale ("The Girl Who Slept Too Little," in which Lisa confronts her fear of graveyards after one gets moved next to The Simpsons' house) a leftover episode that aired in the early part of season 17.
      • The practice of cutting the setups, but not punchlines, and therefore making the situations worse seems to be popular, at least in Australia (along with cutting scenes of physical violence). In the season seven finale "Summer of 4'2"", Homer tries to buy some illegal fireworks at a beachside Kwik-E-Mart, but to cover his tracks, he buys a lot of risque personal and sexual items (a porno mag, a large box of condoms, some panty shields, two enema kits, and a bottle of Old Harper). The entire scene with Homer buying the sexual items and the fireworks was cut, but the scene in which Marge picks through the bag and says, "Homer, I don't know what you have planned tonight, but count me out" was not edited. Whether this is due to bowdlerizers being Literal Genies or just stupid is open to debate.
    • For about two years after Princess Diana's death, two gags from two different episodes were edited:
      • Season four's "Duffless": Homer jumps out the window of the nuclear plant to escape a giant spider. Barney is waiting below with a mattress tied to a stationwagon. Barney notices something that looks like Princess Di and drives up (while Homer falls on his ass), only to be disappointed that it's just a pile of rags. The post-Princess Di-death edited episode just has Barney drive up for no reason [other than the fact that Barney is, at least until season 11, a drunk who really shouldn't be behind the wheel of any type of vehicle] while Homer falls on his ass.
      • From Season five's "Rosebud": Mr. Burns is in a sandbox with Maggie trying to bargain with her over his old stuffed bear. Maggie offers Burns her pacifier, and Burns reluctantly obliges. A cameraman pops up and snaps Burns' picture. Burns shouts, "Damn you, paparazzo!" The post-Princess-Di-death edited episode shortened the line to "Damn you!"
    • The Arabic dub (actually the forth and the fifth seasons, with some episodes left over) has Homer drink Duff Soda instead of beer and eat Egyptian beef sausages rather than hot dogs. Needless to say, that version was canceled after 52 episodes (30 of which actually aired). The uncut, subtitled versions were met with much more success, and aired up to season 16.
    • The TV version of The Simpsons Movie that aired on FOX, FX, and the Canadian channel Global has the following cuts:
      • Bart's penis showing through a bare space in a hedge during his naked skateboard ride through town was cut entirely on FOX and Global (on FX, the scene was shown, but when it came time for Bart to skate across the hedge with the gap in it, a black Censor Box that reads "European Version Only" was digitally added to cover the nudity); the "bountiful penis" scene (when Bart slams into the window of the restaurant that Ned and his sons just so happen to be praying at) was cut on all three networks.
      • Homer flipping off the angry mob as he's drowning in the sinkhole had Homer's middle/ring fingers erased, making it look like he's shaking his fists angrily. FX left this part intact.
      • Marge's line, "Somebody throw the Goddamn bomb!" was shortened to "Somebody throw the damn bomb!" on FX and "Somebody throw the bomb!" on FOX and Global.
      • Otto smoking a bong near the end of the film was cut on FOX and Global.
      • When the family discovers that Springfield is going to be blown up, Homer says he doesn't want to help the town because they chased them with pitchforks and torches at four in the afternoon. Marge says it was at 7:00 at night. Homer then says it was during Access Hollywood, which Marge points out is on at four and seven, to which Homer replies "D'oh!". For whatever reason (possibly a time cut), on at least the FOX version, Homer says "D'oh!" right after Marge says it was at 7:00 at night.
    • The episode "Cape Feare" (a season five episode that was originally a season four leftover) was banned in Germany not only due to the large amount of violence (mostly aimed at a child [i.e., Bart], but also because of the opening joke where Bart and Lisa watch a talk show called "Up Late with McBain," featuring a show announcer known as Obergruppenfuehrer (the SS equivalent rank of lieutenant-general) Wolfcastle, dressed in full SS uniform, complete with swastika armband. In Germany (for obvious reasons), depicting Nazism and swastikas outside of historical context is considered hideously illegal (which is why the video games Castle Wolfenstein and Doom II are banned in Germany).
    • The season 15 finale "Fraudcast News" (in which Mr. Burns tries to take over Springfield's media outlets after a newspaper falsely reports that he died) was edited in reruns in America and the UK. Groundskeeper Willie's line, "I've reviewed the new tractors. They're all shite!" either bleeps out the word "shite" (American syndicated version) or cuts the line down to "I've reviewed the new tractors." (UK version).
    • The season four episode "Marge Gets a Job" was edited after it first aired on American TV. When Bart finally takes his test, Mrs. Krabappel tells Bart that he's faked every illness he could think of, including Tourette's Syndrome. Bart responds that he's not over it, followed by twitching and growling, "Shove it, witch!" On the Sunday reruns (after it received complaints for Bart faking a serious, psychological illness and insulting his teacher), the reference to "Tourette's Syndrome is changed to "rabies" and Bart's twitching/"Shove it, witch!" line was cut. In syndication, the Tourette's Syndrome reference was reinstated, but Bart proving to Krabappel that he still has it was cut. On the season four DVD version, "Tourette's Syndrome" was once again replaced with "rabies," but Bart proving to Krabappel that he still has it wasn't cut (though, if you listen closely, you can hear Bart grumbling "Tourette's Syndrome" after Krabappel orders him to take the test and not come up with any more excuses).
    • Season 12's "New Kids on the Blecch" (the episode in which Bart, Milhouse, Nelson, and Ralph become a boy band with all the members of *NSYNC as guest stars) also had a line replacement between the original version, the rerun, and the DVD version. During the fun run in the beginning, Smithers is shown pulls Mr. Burns on a rickshaw, with Burns whipping him and ordering him to go faster. Mr. Burns's original line after that was, "You call yourself a Chinaman?" In reruns and on DVD, the line was changed to, "You call yourself Chinese?"
    • The Season 16 episode "Sleeping With The Enemy", at one point has Nelson's mother coming to the Simpson household after finding out that Nelson did (and was paid for) some chores around the house. In the original, Marge ends the conversation by telling Nelson's mother to go home and "not have intercourse on the way home!" and slamming the door, which enormously shocks the rest of the family. In the edited version however, the conversation ends with Marge saying again "Go home Mrs. Muntz," in a relatively calm tone - but keeping the door slam and family's shocked reaction in, making it seem as if they were reacting to Marge being a less-than-gracious host by rudely shoving someone out the door rather than a Covert Pervert by mentioning intercourse.
    • In the original version of "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons" Bart is asked to make a holy fire for Apu's wedding to Manjula. In the original airing, Bart uses pages from The Bible as kindling in the holy fire. On the Sunday reruns, weekday syndication, and the season 9 DVD set, The Bible was changed to a book that said, "Hymns."
    • Because of the nuclear disasters occuring in Japan courtesy of the March 2011 earthquake, a German TV network has either banned or edited all episodes centering on nuclear disasters (meaning a lot of the early episodes that actually showed Homer working at the nuclear plant -- such as "Homer Defined" and "Homer Goes to College," among others -- will never be seen again in Germany).
    • Channel Four in the UK has a rather inconsistent way of editing episodes. Whenever an episode premieres, the episode is shown uncut and uncensored. The same can't be said for the reruns, which will edit out all manner of violence, sexual innuendo, and some choice swear words (mostly the mild stuff, like "damn," "hell," "ass," and "crap"). Taken to the next level when the episodes air on the channel's T4 block, as they'll cut just about anything out, offensive or not
    • A couple of examples from their airing of "Homer Loves Flanders":
      • The end of Act One where Homer declares Flanders his friend as he drives by cuts off before Carl says, "I don't know. Something about being gay," after Lenny asks him what Homer was shouting.
      • The dream sequence of Ned climbing a bell tower and shooting passersby with a sniper rifle (and the dream ending with a mailman firing back) showed Ned climbing the bell tower and assembling the gun, but the edited version shortened the shooting to just one (even cutting out the part where the mailman firing back) before cutting to the scene of Flanders waking up from his nightmare.
  • Great Britain has shown a sensitivity to the depiction of the Ninja, stating that assassins shouldn't be glamorized. For example; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Likewise, Michelangelo's nunchucks were changed to grappling hooks, although Leonardo was allowed to keep his swords.
    • The reason for this bit of farce was due to the fact that at the time, nunchucks were even more illegal than a gun in England. Eventually he was given nunchucks, but they were never used for fighting, and just hung off his belt.
  • Mexican viewers who had the chance of having a satellite TV subscription before 2005 can tell three different South Park dubs. The first was the Venezuelan dub, not bad but with some South American slang that some of the audience didn't get. The second and best was the uncensored Mexican dub, largely devoid of local slang while still keeping the cuss words, with the neutral and pretty much accentless voices that are the trademark of good Mexican dubs. The third, aired shortly after South Park was moved to MTV, had all the profanity removed and replaced with "friendlier words". Needless to say, that was quite jarring for an audience that heard Kyle saying "Damn you!" when they expected him to say "Motherf***ers!", the local translation of his catchphrase "You bastards!". Eventually, the fan outcry was so loud MTV had no choice but to return to the uncensored dub.
    • ¡Oh Dios mío, mataron a Kenny! ¡HIJOS DE PUTA!
      • Indeed, in Argentina the only version that is shown is the Venezuelan version. First on Locomotion, now on MTV.
    • In a completely opposite way, the German dub of Seasons 1-7 is filled with profanity that wasn't originally there. The worst offender probably being "Red Sleigh Down" where Jimmy stuttering "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" was replaced with Jimmy singing "Silent Night" with the verses being replaced with random insults. Most people who also watched the English version say that it looks like the dub was made for children who go to bed later when their parents are gone so they can watch TV shows with "many bad words" in mind.
      • Try watching the Irish dub's version of "Pinkeye". The censorship to the gore within the episode is insane, and "laid" is bleeped out during Chef's zombie musical number. Some character names have also been changed to more Gaelic-sounding names (one example being "Wendy" to "Aoife").
    • The French dub, although quite good, is a lot more profane than the original American one. Mostly because French censors are a lot more lax with language on TV.
    • Oddly used in the episode "You Got F'ed in the A" for the first few airings lead member of the Orange County crew's hat said "Lil' Shit" in all reairings it now reads "Lil' Sheep".
    • South Park on American syndication is edited with scenes of characters vomiting or pooping being replaced with a black "Censored for your protection" screen.
    • The Russian dub of the "Woodland Creature Christmass" episode removed all references to Satan, Antichrist and Jews.
  • The Cartoon Network airing of Superman: Doomsday didn't cut out any death, but it downplayed some of the language and skipped past the more violent parts, which is very noticeable. For example right as Lex Luthor is about to beat the ever-loving crap out of his Superman clone, it cuts to him already on the ground (creating some massive Dub Text). Oddly, it shows Toyman falling to his death, cuts out the actual impact, but leaves in his body sitting on top of the car in the next shot. When the film reran on Cartoon Network, strong edits were still made, mainly to violence. Edits include Doomsday's many murders prior to arriving in Metropolis (the most notable being that of a deer getting its antlers torn off), Doomsday killing the people who woke him up (instead replaced with a gratuitous shot of Lex Luthor watching the aftermath on a computer), Lex Luthor shooting his secretary to death (the flash showing her silhouette falling to the ground was axed), much of the fight between Superman and Doomsday (Doomsday punching Supes so hard blood splattered on Lois Lane's face was clipped, and the blood on Lois' face was changed so it looked like she was moving her hair out of her face, among other edits such as Superman vomiting a large puddle of blood) and all of the profanity. The aforementioned scene of Toyman dead on top of the car had the blood splattered onto the car airbrushed out.
  • The direct-to-video movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker was quite Bowdlerized for its television premiere; in particular, the entire flashback sequence in the middle which explained the Joker's final fate was heavily, heavily edited to remove some of the more gruesome bits. For the usual reasons, it was this edited version that was initially released to DVD; fortunately, fan outrage eventually led to a second release for the original, uncut version.
  • What about dubbing over "offensive" accents or banning racial stereotypes?
    • See: Stiletto from Danger Mouse. Most American viewers didn't know about his original stereotypical Italian accent and speak until the DVDs were released. (the Nickelodeon run gave him a nondescript Cockney accent by the same actor).
    • see also: Charley on the TV Mister Magoo cartoons. Originally a "So sorry, Mistah Magloo" Asian stereotype, he was given an American accented voice dubbed over the original dialogue.
    • Sticking with UPA, when the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie was released in 1990, some stations reran the old UPA shorts. Yes, including Joe Jitsu and Go-Go Gomez (Mexican stereotype, complete with Mel Blanc's Speedy Gonzales voice). This was the case for awhile, and then the cartoons were pulled. Only to return, but now mysteriously only having Heap O'Callory and Hemlock Holmes shorts.
      • On RTV (a digital TV network that mostly airs episodes of old shows from the past), these cartoons air as Filler after the channel's block of Filmation cartoons, and they have shown several of the Joe & Go-Go shorts.
  • Here's an unusual case: when Toon Disney (now called Disney XD) started airing episodes of the animated Superman and Batman series, they left in quite a lot of objectionable content (like blood and mention of death), but edited out quite a lot more (like actual on-screen shots of death or religious overtones). For example, during the final fight with Darkseid in the Grand Finale of Superman the Animated Series, we clearly see the blood running from Superman's mouth, yet after the fight, they cut out the scene where Darkseid -- being carried away by his horribly subjugated minions -- gives his infamous "I am many things, but here, I am God" speech.
  • The Batman the Brave And The Bold episode "The Mask of Matches Malone!" contained a song and dance number from the Birds of Prey featuring some thinly-veiled references to various superheroes' mediocre sexual prowesses. Due to the attention the clip garnered after leaking online, the episode has never been aired in the U.S., though it is available for legal download from Apple.
  • Beavis and Butthead, post "fire incident." Lampshaded in a later episode, wherein Beavis began chanting "Water! Water!" in a similar manner to his previous "Fire! Fire!" upon viewing a video with a swimming pool in it.
    • Another time, Butthead suggests they take the batteries out of the smoke detector (because it was always going off whenever they were cooking burritos), to which Beavis says "But what if there was a...um, never mind."
    • And the time they were watching Rollins' Band's "Liar" and Beavis declares: "Liar, Liar, pants on...oh, whoa!"

[shot of corn dogs being placed in deep fryer]
Beavis: Hey, Butthead! Check this out!..."Fryer, Fryer, Fr..."
Butthead: BEAVIS!
Beavis: Oh! Sorry.

    • One of the most heavily censored episodes was "Home Improvement." In the reruns after the fire controversy, the scenes of Beavis and Butthead sniffing the paint thinner (even though there was a warning saying that doing so in real life will mess you up just as badly as it did Beavis and Butthead), painting Mr. Anderson's cat's butt, and setting fire to his garden were deleted, making it seem like they were doing the piss poor paint job on purpose (which actually makes sense as Beavis and Butthead are already established as being complete and utter idiots who epically fail at everything from doing well in school to scoring with women) and not because they were high.
  • In Rocko's Modern Life three gags were cut from the original versions of their airings. First in "The Good the Bad and the Wallaby" a scene where Heffer sleeps alone in the barn and a farm hand milks him with a milking machine was removed, in "Road Rash" a scene where Rocko and Heffer stop at the No-Tell Motel a sleazy motel where men take hookers to have sex in was removed, and in "Hut Sut Raw" a scene where Rocko is picking berries and accidentally grabs a bear's testicles was cut, in all other airings aside from the U.S. has these scenes intact.
    • Hell, they removed an entire episode from syndication because it featured Mrs. Bighead attempting to seduce Rocko.
    • And the "Best of" DVDs that are out now also contain heavy censorship, which has prompted Joe Murray (the show's creator) to attempt to negotiate for the rights to rerelease the show himself.
  • In Batman the Animated Series the Joker wasn't allowed to kill people onscreen, so any sort of mentions of him being a mass-murderer were restricted to police bulletins or news reports. Additionally, his Joker Venom couldn't kill people outright so an antidote was created in the series despite the gas being fatal most of the time in the comics.
    • They actually weaponized Bowdlerisation to fight bowdlerisation. They would make a scene that they knew they would get told to remove because the censors never checked the replacement. They only chickened out once on this, when they were going to have the Joker refer to Harley and Ivy as "busy little beavers". It got changed to "bees."
    • There was also a proposal for an episode featuring Nocturna that was axed because the censors wouldn't allow blood-drinking to be shown on a cartoon aimed at children. An animation model for Nocturna was even created before the plug was pulled.
  • The UK release of Lilo and Stitch was edited to have Lilo climb out under a table covered by a pizza box rather than out of a laundry dryer due to the BBFC's strict policy against showing characters doing imitable acts that could get impressionable viewers hurt, expelled, arrested, and possibly deported (one of which includes children climbing into and/or playing around in dangerous appliances that they can easily get into, but can't get out of because of how easily the doors lock, such as dryers and washers).
  • In the original Den storyline in the magazine, Heavy Metal, all the major human characters are bare-ass naked and comfortable with it. However, the film version of Heavy Metal has them wearing loincloths with Den himself going "There's no way I'm going around here with my dork hanging out."
  • Star Trek: The Animated Series got this treatment by the German TV station ZDF since they figured something animated just had to be for kids. The ZDF dub goes straight into Gag Dub territory in the eyes of any reasonable Trekkie -- with the characters delivering horrible puns, random cuts, and edits of scenes to get the episodes from a length of 22 minutes to 15 minutes as well as making everyone's personality easygoing and joyful -- including Spock's. Also, every episode ended with a crew member doing a supposedly clever recap in rhymes. Thankfully, there was second dub in 1994 that made it onto the DVD release later with all episodes being uncut, as well as all characters being voiced by their actual voice actors from the live action series.
  • A couple of Darkwing Duck episodes were edited in syndication removing scenes with guns or smoking. One of the most notable examples is in the episode "Time and Punishment" where in a future after Gosalyn had gone missing and Darkwing became a serious violent vigilante, at one point he points a gun at Gosalyn. She says it's his gas gun and he replies that he hasn't used a gas gun in years. The latter part with Darkwing's explanation of the gun was removed.
  • Professor Hubert J Farnsworth of Futurama had the pleasure of having a notable quotable, "Sweet Zombie Jesus!" (as heard on season two's "The Deep South") edited to "Sweet Zombie..." Also muted was the Professor's "Holy Zombie Jesus!" as heard in the season two episode "Bender Gets Made".
  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force ended up redubbing Santa's description of his elves from "faggy" to "sweet".
    • Parodied on the episode "Gee Whiz," which has a video on acceptable and unacceptable television content. In this case, "unacceptable" is a nun getting her head gorily shot off with a shotgun, while "acceptable" is the same but with rainbows instead of blood.
  • On re-airings of its fourth episode, Frisky Dingo has bleeped out a joke in which Watley says it's not prom night because he's not getting raped.
  • Mr. Magoo seems to have faded from the current scene completely, no doubt because his hysterical screwups tragic mistakes aren't considered funny by the visually impaired. Let's face it -- with modern glasses tech, anyone who isn't completely blind could find a way to watch any copies of these cartoons still circulating. Thus, there are no people now like Magoo was supposed to be; the only people who can't see with glasses on are totally blind, and they aren't Acceptable Targets.
    • When the cartoons were shown, Charlie, Magoo's Chinese houseboy, had his original heavily accented voice replaced with a less overdone one. The original voice always seemed a hair away from total panic.
      • On a channel called RTV, these cartoons air on Saturday mornings, and several of the one's with Charlie's You No Take Candle accent have been shown.
  • Recent releases and airings of The Land Before Time have some of the more brutal parts cut out of the scenes of Littlefoot's mother being attacked by Sharptooth, because of the kid-friendly reputation that the many sequels have given the franchise.
  • An episode of The Angry Beavers bleeped out "shut up" to sate concerned parents who thought that "Shut up" was too rude. When this generated even more controversy over people thinking that a far more profane word had been bleeped, it was replaced with a "shush up".
  • While Fox Kids was airing the Transformers series Beast Machines on Saturday mornings, they ran old episodes of its predecessor, Beast Wars, on weekday afternoons. It featured a number of cuts from the syndicated version that had aired until about a month beforehand, mostly to remove violence and a few "questionable" lines of dialogue. Gratuitous censorship, with no change in target audience.
    • In Argentina, Cartoon Network broadcast Beast Wars and War of the Planets uncensored.
    • When broadcast in Canada, Beast Wars was changed to Beasties as YTV found the word "war" offending. YTV forgot that Canadian kids see more American commercials (such as for Beast Wars) than they do Canadian TV shows.
      • That's not YTV's fault. Under Canadian broadcast regulations, a Canadian network can't broadcast a cartoon with "War" in the title. It's the same reason that War Planets was called Shadow Raiders in Canada.
      • Amusingly both Beast Wars and War Planets are made by the same Canadian animation studio.
  • When Gargoyles was first screened in New Zealand on TV 3, many of the violent scenes were cut from broadcast, to the point where the storyline became incoherent.
  • Family Guy has a FOX-edited version (which is the version that first airs), a Cartoon Network version (which has a lot of scenes and lines that the FOX censors vetoed before the episode aired), a DVD version (which is the Cartoon Network version with more things that were edited from TV; mostly for time reasons, mostly because Cartoon Network's censors found the scenes and lines offensive like FOX did), and a syndicated version (which is the FOX version, only more bowdlerized, often including lines being redubbed, like Brian's "I'm gonna go chew on the back of my ass" changed to "I'm going to chew on the back of my leg," and some unusual edits, like Peter asking his Gregg Allman poster for life advice, and Stewie mispronouncing "penis" and "vagina").
    • For a while, Channel 4 in the UK aired an edited version of Family Guy in the mornings. Just one edit was the cutaway gag where Peter swears in court. The "I do...you bastard" was changed to just "I do."
    • UK airings of "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" cut down the masturbation joke so Quagmire is only rummaging for his keys for a second. It was also used when FOX finally aired "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" around the time that Family Guy was returning to FOX (and Cartoon Network gained fame for airing "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" before FOX did).
  • Regular Show suffers from this in the UK. While edits to the mild cussing are somewhat understandable given the time of day it airs, there are still some fairly...baffling examples. One exchange involves Benson giving Mordecai and Rigby an earful, calling them 'morons' in the process. The UK airing takes some previous audio of him saying 'idiots' from only a few seconds earlier, and splicing it in where he said 'morons'. Not only very obvious and sloppy, but also thoroughly confusing [4]
    • UK thought "turd" was offensive so they asked Sam, J.G, and William to rerecord the voices. This version is more accurate, as Rigby, Pops, and Mordecai's lips match "plank" more than "turd", although "turd" is still said on High Score in the UK.
    • There are apparently substitute lines for certain timeslots in the US. For instance, Mordecai telling Rigby "You tick me off!" instead of "You've pissed me off!" in "Meat Your Maker".
    • Promos for "Skips Strikes" had Rigby telling Death's bowling team they'd rub their bowling balls in their faces. In the aired version it's changed to "bowling bags," but there's still a callback when Rigby makes a bet for Death's bowling ball full of souls.

Rigby: I could rub that in so many people's faces.

  • When The Rescuers was rereleased onto VHS and DVD, the scene where Miss Bianca and Bernard were flying on Orville Albatross through the streets of New York City and towards Devil's Bayou actually had to be reanimated because the original theatrical release featured a naked woman seen inside a window in the background for a split-second.
  • In the original Web Series for Making Fiends, there's a song about eating vegetables with every meal, "or your eyeballs will fall out." When it was briefly picked up by Nicktoons, one episode featured an extended version of the song that instead warned of your eyebrows falling out.
  • The last third of Three Little Pigs has the Big Bad Wolf disguise himself as a "Fuller Brush man" who is working his way through college. In the original version, he was a Jewish peddler, complete with Yiddish accent (though some versions exist in which the Big Bad Wolf's Yiddish accent is redubbed, but the animation of him as a Jewish man is not altered in any way).
  • The song "The Bunny Song" from the Veggie Tales video "Rack, Shack, and Benny" actually had to have all of its lyrics changed for a tie-in sing-along video because the original contained lyrics like "...I don't love my Mom or my Dad, just the bunny..." and "...I won't go to church, and I won't go to school...", which offended Christian parents.
    • But it is funny in the new version when Mr. Nezzer gets mad at the girls who sang the offending lyrics by yelling things like "NO, NO GIRLS! That's wrong!"
  • A Disney Sing Along Songs video actually rewrote the lyrics for the song "Topsy-Turvy" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame in a way so they do not show Esmeralda's makeshift pole dance involving a spear.
  • Not even Rugrats is safe from Bowdlerization -- at least in Malaysia. The episode "Zoo Story" edited out all scenes and references to pigs (Malaysia has a large Muslim population and pigs [whether used as food or not] are seen as highly taboo in the Islam religion, which is why family movies like Babe and Charlotte's Web have a hard time getting released in that country's theaters]. These cuts (and others not mentioned here) led the show to be Screwed by the Network four years before Nickelodeon in America finally cancelled it.
    • Over in America, the episode in which Chuckie freaks out over germs has him accidentally refer to germs as "Germans." All reruns edit the line by simply splicing out the "an" to make it sound like Chuckie said "germs."
  • When the U.K. showed the Recess episode "Parents Night", they edited the line where Spinelli's dad (her real dad, not the biker she hired to be her dad) is showing the gang Spinelli's baby pictures and says, "Look at her on that rug with her fanny in the air" [5]. The edited version shortens the line to "Look at her on that rug" and cuts to Spinelli moaning, "Why me?!"
    • In the episode "I Will Kick No More Forever", there's a scene where Ashley Q. is playing kickball and kicks the ball all the way to communist China. In a few overseas airings, the scene is edited to make it look like she kicked the ball into a Dumpster on the other side of the school.
  • The Rankin/Bass animated version of The Hobbit appears to have been bowdlerized both in its old-school TV broadcast days and in its migration to DVD. At one time, the scene where the Dwarves are captured by the Goblins ("Ho Ho my lad!") was shortened and all of the scenes with the Dwarves being violently chained were removed altogether. The scenes where Bilbo kills the Spiders in Mirkwood also removes the death screams of the Spiders. This purely audio edit seems to have survived to the DVD release. Curiously, this scene was neither gory, nor graphic to begin with; it was more purely suggestive due to the audible death screams, the removal of which more suggests that Bilbo simply chased them off instead of killing them.
  • In the animated version of the Discworld novel Wyrd Sisters, Nanny Ogg's favourite song was altered from "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All" to "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Bothered At All". This was a decision made by the actress voicing Nanny "because I knew there would be children watching". This would have been out of character for Nanny Ogg, since she is portrayed in the books as someone constantly making sexual innuendos.
    • Granny Weatherwax had earlier referred to it, with distaste, as "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Wossnamed At All", but that was perfectly in character.
    • But the play on words is kept perfectly. Both "buggered" and "bothered" can refer to either being the target of intercourse or being annoyed. Similar to how the root of "molestar" became "annoy" in Spanish and "sexually assault" in English, but with a single language. It's just that one is significantly more offensive than the other, and the less offensive one is a less blatant Double Entendre. It perfectly fits Nanny's character either way.
  • Adventure Time has a lot cut out of the episodes in Australia (as do The Looney Tunes Show, The Amazing World of Gumball, and Regular Show [6]). A list can be seen here.
  • An In-Universe example happens in The Amazing World of Gumball. Hector's mom Bowdlerized his comic before giving it to him.
  1. ↑ which, in reality, look more like Medieval Arabs instead of first century Jews
  2. ↑ The sex offenders in line are Patty and Selma -- who either don't realize that they're in the wrong line or are in line for abducting and raping a TV repairman in "The Cartridge Family", Jimmy the Scumbag from "Lisa's Date with Density," Mayor Qumiby's nephew from "The Boy Who Knew Too Much," and Moe Szyslak, who complains about how long the registered sex offenders lines are
  3. ↑ (which was true back then, but not now since "Futurama" has been revived and put on Comedy Central, making the Squeaky-Voiced Teen's suicide a bit hard to watch, because he basically killed himself over nothing
  4. ↑ In the UK, "moron" is considered a word that can't be said on TV because it may be insensitive to someone with mental problems (much like the word "spaz"), which explains why it's been edited (though how "idiots" is an improvement is anyone's guess)
  5. ↑ as "fanny" in British English does not mean someone's butt like it does in American slang
  6. ↑ which, given that show's content, would have been better off being banned rather than hacked to pieces for content
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