Gag Censor



At times, even the lack of subtlety provided by the ugly Censor Boxes is just not enough. Why not put something amusing in the place of some aesthetically repulsive black bars and boxes? Why not, say, a picture of a squirrel?

Or anything, really. Gag Censors are when faces, amusing pictures, logos, or any image is used to obscure certain parts deemed not suitable for public consumption.

This method ranks the lowest in the sliding scale of censorship subtleties—it doesn't attempt to shoehorn elements in to somehow obscure the sight like the Censor Steam, Censor Shadow, or Censor Suds; nor does it try to cover these parts with meta visual elements like Censor Bars or Pixellations. It, instead, puts an image over it.

It should go without saying that this is almost always Played for Laughs, and particularly common in Anime. Expect these things to disappear when the DVD version comes out. See also Scenery Censor.

Not to be confused with This Trope Is Bleep, which is a type of joke involving censors.

Anime and Manga

 * The famous Warai Otoko from the Ghost in The Shell series.
 * Rosario to Vampire uses censor bats and bears if there is more than one censor to be covered. He even chats with the audience!
 * B Gata H Kei uses a Demon symbol for this on the TV release over the EroGami (sex god) that normally covers things.
 * To Love Ru uses these as well as censor flashlight-like beams.
 * Mahou Sensei Negima uses large "Forbidden" stamps whenever Nodoka is reading her own mind.
 * Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Ja Nai N Dakara Ne uses these everywhere, constantly.
 * Softenni uses these as well in about 50% of the scenes.
 * Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei uses the face of one of the manga's assistants for this.
 * Here we go: . You couldn't see anything even if it wasn't there.
 * Hayate the Combat Butler uses a guy holding a sign literally saying "can not show."
 * Kiss X Sis uses pictures of chickens to censor illicit materials. In other words, we get cock-blocked.
 * The Shonen Jump pirate flag gets used as a censor (much to its embarrassment) in Hell Teacher Nube.
 * Asobi Ni Iku Yo uses several different censorship methods, including this one - generally, it's the Assisdroids jumping into the scene to cover things with their signs.
 * Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga: Phallic vegetables are used in place of male genitals. Trope subverted as the rather... fleshy looking vegetables actually do little to lessen the raunchiness of the pictures.
 * Air Gear has Koo, Ikki's pet crow cover the naughty bits when necesarry.
 * Hajime no Ippo uses starbursts early on, but eventually moves beyond this. Ippo's starburst is really long.
 * Mirai Nikki: "HAPPY?"

Live Action TV

 * Mancow Muller's eponymous TV show: they had illustrations of Mancow's face over any and all naughty bits.
 * On Myth Busters, many dangerous substances such as explosives or thermite are made by mixing "blur with blur".
 * Alternatively, they use animal sounds, such as "mixing woof with meow".
 * Mystery Science Theater 3000: in the Devil Fish episode the MST3K planet logo was used to cover up an accidental nut shot.
 * On VH-1, whenever someone says *meow*, they have a cat meowing. They also cover up a woman's *meow* with a cat...
 * Craig Ferguson's edition of The Late Late Show bleeps out its innumerable expletives by playing voiceovers of Craig saying "Oohlala," or some other silly-sounding quasi-foreign phrase, and covering the offender's mouth (if he isn't a puppet) with an appropriate national flag.

Music

 * German punk band Die Ärzte's music video for "Junge" has the musicians defend themselves against a horde of zombies in all its gory glory. Anticipating Germany's harsh laws against showing violence on TV, they produced another version with the bloodiest details covered by cartoon character's heads or have the entire screen blocked by phrases like "This scene is unacceptable. We'd like to apologize for that."

Nonfiction Series

 * X Play: For a brief period they would cover up extremely gory game scenes with pictures of kittens.

Sketch Comedy

 * Monty Python's Flying Circus: In one of Terry Gilliam's animations, a fig leaf covering a statue's genitals was snatched away, and underneath was a man's head.

Video Games

 * Among the many Urban Legends of Zelda revolving around Final Fantasy IX, one particular legend involves a risqué scene involving Cloud's head as a censorship method.

Web Comics

 * Dr McNinja covers up "naughty" things (usually profanity) with black boxes saying things like "Filth!" or "Goodness!" instead. As seen in the page image for Censor Box, these are also used to cover up a middle finger...and nothing else.

Web Originals

 * Cracked loves this trope.
 * In The Nostalgia Critic's review of The Room he puts the head of a jackass over Tommy Wiseau's ass.
 * The Nostalgia Chick's review of Showgirls used two photos of Blue Footed Boobies (and a bird honk) to cover any exposed breasts.
 * Oancitizen abuses this trope. And it is hilarious.
 * Stephen Georg, the voice of Ness in Fobbies Are Borange and fairly popular vlogger, also does Let's Plays alongside his vlog. In his Let's Play of Amnesia the Dark Descent, upon entering a certain room in the morgue, he encounters a corpse which apparently has visible male...parts. Either YouTube's policies, his own morals or both prevent him from leaving the parts exposed, so throughout any screentime said corpse receives, the Gag Censor he uses is an image of his own face in a goofy expression. Sadly, in later episodes where nude corpses appear, he instead merely blurs out the offending area.
 * Video game blog Kotaku used to insert a vector pink fish for this purpose, but now they just tag the article with "NSFW" and call it a day.
 * Immersion uses, among other things, two melons for censorship in the episode Fighting Girl Clothes.
 * Zero Punctuation goes for the standard black boxes, but usually decorates them with sayings like "IMAGE VERY CENSORED," "THANKS DEVIANTART!", or "NOPE, NOTHING TO SEE HERE."

Western Animation

 * Adventure Time: Logs over crotches at the end of "Wizard." Originally, it was going to be beavers, but the censors wouldn't allow it.