Executive Meddling/Western Animation

With all the Moral Guardians out there, Western Animation is rife with Executive Meddling.

"Eric: This is all Venger's fault! We ought to do something about that guy!
 * Most networks have a lot of rules imposed by their "Standards and Practices" codes on their kid-aimed action shows. No fights in school, because school has to be a safe place. Characters must wear helmets and safety gear when engaged in any imitable dangerous act -- they even tried to force the producers to put a helmet on Jake Long whenever he flew. In dragon form! (On what other planet was this executive born, where turning into a dragon and flying around is an imitable act?)
 * American Dragon Jake Long had the episode "Homecoming" becoming a major victim. It was originally scheduled as the season finale, until it was made clear that season two would be the last. First off, it was meant to be "Career Day", taking place then and not on Homecoming. It was also originally a two part episode where Sun Kim was to be Killed Off for Real and it would reveal Chang as Jake's maternal grandmother. However, it was declared "too dark," and the idea that Jake's grandfather had a child out of wedlock was considered unacceptable, so it was shortened to a single episode. Also, originally the Huntsman's plans involving the skulls would have actually started before being stopped, but this had to be written out, making the Oracle Twins' prophecy inaccurate. Finally, Rose was supposed to stay in New York  but the Executives decided that this would confuse viewers who missed the episode, so she was relocated, requiring a very long-distance vacation for Jake to bump into her again in the actual finale.
 * Disney meddled heavily in the third season of Gargoyles as it transitioned from weekday afternoons to Saturday mornings -- ultimately firing series creator Greg Weisman.
 * Said third season, "The Goliath Chronicles," is considered so bad by Gargoyles fans that they regularly disregard its existence... save for the first episode of the season, which is legitimately canon thanks to the Weisman-helmed Gargoyles comic.
 * An example of Executive Meddling that had a positive effect- the studio apparently told Greg Weisman that he needed to introduce a human supervillain who was capable of going hand to hand with Goliath and be a genuine threat (Xanatos, the most prominent and dangerous human villain, could only accomplish this feat with a special suit of Powered Armor). The resulting character was popular Gargoyles Anti-Villain Macbeth.
 * Disney Channel's practice of ending production on any show that has reached 65 episodes. Kim Possible was popular for three seasons and still got cancelled. This was not the first time the 65 episode "limit" for kids' shows caused consternation among the fandom. It took an outcry of fan support and letter-writing to CBS to give Beakmans World more episodes.
 * In the 4th season of Kim Possible, the animators were informed by Studio Executives that they absolutely had to do an Aesop-heavy episode about kids' health, so they complied, but tried to make it deliberately Anvilicious. Thus was the reason behind the creation of the episode "Grande Size Me."
 * This led to a fairly subtle Take That in the stinger. Ron stood facing the camera, delivering the aesop. All the while Kim and Monique stood in the background trying to figure out who he was talking to and wondering why he was doing it.
 * Here's another one. At the end of So the Drama, Kim, without provocation, kicks Shego into an electrical tower, which then collapses. This scene was actually written with no intention of Shego dying, but it ended up animated too seriously, making it look like Kim murdered her in cold blood. When test audiences thought Kim did kill Shego, the scene was ordered to be changed to show immediately afterward that she was not only alive but relatively unhurt, which given Shego's track record in the show, actually isn't all that surprising.
 * In an interesting twist, the network's interference was a good thing as Word of God says that the writers didn't originally come up with the concept of Rufus the Non-Human Sidekick and he only appeared because the executives suggested the idea.
 * Many good cartoons on the Disney/Playhouse Disney channels kicked the can early because of said 65 episode limit, regardless of popularity. Even worse is when the cartoons are sent to a leper colony to die and sees virtually no DVD releases.
 * In the case of Lilo and Stitch The Series, executives didn't like the character of Angel and didn't want her to appear again, but once they saw that her episode was the most popular in a marathon of the fans' favorite episodes, they relented, resulting in a cameo appearance in the Remy episode and a rescue episode dedicated to Angel and the other experiments Gantu caught earlier in the series.
 * Parodied in Darkwing Duck when executives try to mess with the show itself onscreen, such as trying to change the focus to villain Bushroot. The execs at least figured that killing Darkwing off should be vetoed.
 * A positive example from Phineas and Ferb: When Disney Channel executives heard the song "Gitchie Gitchie Goo," they asked the creators to make a song for each episode. This worked out REALLY well.
 * Also notable is a Take That in one episode aimed at Disney's Standards and Practices department. Phineas and Buford seem to be gearing up for a fight -- only to have it revealed that they have to thumb wrestle when the referee finishes reading off the exact policy required by Standards and Practices.
 * Also parodied in the episode "Nerds of a Feather," when Doofenshmirtz tries to start a Buddy Cop show about him and Perry. He gets Seth Macfarlane- err, a TV producer to agree, but as soon as the producer suggests giving Perry's character a girlfriend, Doof flips out and storms away. Word of God says this is based on some averted meddling from the Disney execs; the creators didn't want to go through with it because Perry's "married to his work."
 * Surprisingly, an episode of Pepper Ann, called "Girl Power," shows this example perfectly. When Pepper Ann's sister Moose sees her favorite comic-turned-TV show, Tundra Woman is, at first turned into The Ditz, then when Moose rallies people to make feminist complaints about this, the executives go way too far in the orther direction and turn Tundra Woman into The Amazon, which draws further complaints due to her losing all character in favor of being an overly-violent neanderthal. In the end, it was cancelled and replaced by a show with robots.
 * Also the same reason why Courage the Cowardly Dog was taken off the air for a while, eventually only being able to be shown in October, and now back to year-round, again because of popular demand. *resists snarky comment about how CN's shows are now*
 * Animated shows based on DC superheroes have had a few odd cases after around the mid-2000s. A peculiar case of executive meddling existed in the Justice League revival Justice League Unlimited, in the form of what fans called the "Bat-Embargo." The series writers were not allowed to use any sidekicks or villains from Batman's Rogues Gallery on the show, in order to protect them for another animated series that was running at the same time, The Batman. A silver lining in this and other legal entanglements was that it prompted the producers to dig deeper into The DCU and gave other interesting characters the Timmverse treatment for the first time. They still managed to slip a few past, however. Hugo Strange makes a brief appearance as a member of Cadmus and the Unlimited episode "Grudge Match" opens showing a shadow that is unmistakably Nightwing.
 * "Bat-Embargo" type decisions are nothing new. Back in the days of the Superfriends, when they got to the "Challenge" series, they could not have, say, The Joker or Catwoman on the Legion of Doom, since those characters were seen on Filmation's The New Adventures of Batman. Likewise, Riddler (outside of the opening, in a pink outfit!) and Scarecrow would not be seen on NAoB. And then there was the Black Lightning/Black Vulcan controversy.
 * Note that in turn, The Batman was forbidden to use Robin as long as Teen Titans was airing, resulting in the refreshing mythology mix-up of Batgirl coming first. Nor could they use Scarecrow, Ra's Al Ghul or Two-Face because of the Christopher Nolan films.
 * In this case, the embargo actually had a habit of working in the show's favor. Anyone familiar with Batman knows exactly where Harvey Dent's character arc is going and exactly what the plot twist is going to be in a Scarecrow-themed episode. Replacing those two characters with stand-ins led to a few major revelations working far better than they would have otherwise.
 * And Teen Titans had to go out of its way to avoid using the name "Batman," though "Gotham City" was still acceptable (though that worked out well, showing the friction between Dick and Bruce that was growing just before Dick took on the Nightwing mantle).
 * Additionally, the show wasn't allowed to use Wonder Girl due to a complicated contract issue that forbade Wonder Woman and her supporting characters from appearing in programs where they were not lead characters.
 * Because of The CW's failed pilot for an Aquaman series, Mercy Reef, the character was not seen in JLU's final season, and his arch-enemy Black Manta was turned into Captain Ersatz Devil Ray. The episode "To Another Shore" was to feature Aquaman vs. Manta, but his role was given to Wonder Woman instead. Knowing this helps to explain some of the episode's serious WTF moments: Why is Wonder Woman at a meeting about global warming (yes, Themyscira is an island, but...)? Why did she give a very Aquaman-ish threat to the leaders of the free world? Most of all, why is Devil Ray so pissed at her?
 * Speaking of Wonder Woman, current policy is that Wonder Woman and related characters are only allowed to appear if she's one of the main characters.
 * Plastic Man and the Blue Beetle were also forbidden from appearing due to media adaptation rights conflicts. Those conflicts have seen been resolved, so both now appear along with Aquaman and Black Manta in Batman the Brave And The Bold.
 * Speaking of which, apparently, there was problems getting Black Lightning into various DC animated series (which explains Black Vulcan in Super Friends). However, when they delved into it when they were doing Brave and the Bold, they couldn't find the exact reasons why, thus giving them a chance to bring Black Lightning into a DC animated production for the first time.
 * The Birds of Prey-themed episode "The Mask of Matches Malone!" had to be partially redone due to online attention paid to some sexual innuendo in the episode's musical number. So far, the episode in question has still yet to be aired in the United States.
 * The producers have also stated that the toy company that produces the show's tie-in merchandise encourages them to only use characters who they can make toys out of. As female superheroes are very rarely represented in boy-oriented toylines, there are very few episodes featuring a female character as the sole guest-star. The above mentioned "Matches Malone" episode is the only one in the entire series that does not feature an additional male guest-star to balance out the female hero.
 * In a positive example, the producers have stated that when using The Atom, Firestorm and Blue Beetle, they were encouraged to use the more recent, non-white versions for the sake of diversity. This in turn led to Ryan Choi, Jason Rusch and Jaime Reyes being given more prominent roles in the DCU after the 2011 DC relaunch.
 * Batman the Animated Series had its share of meddling in its production. Executives did not think that young viewers would identify with Batman very well, so decreed that his sidekick Robin (already meddled into an aberrantly college-aged version of the character) would have to appear in every episode in the second season, something that the creators did not want, as Batman needed some time alone as a solo vigilante. A proposed story involving a Catwoman and Black Canary team-up was axed when the executives noticed Robin was not involved. In the end, the creators won out, and by The New Batman Adventures period, Robin only made occasional appearances where they saw fit (this time as a young Tim Drake version, even), but the team-up script was forever lost. A similar plot was used instead in "Batgirl Returns." (Black Canary later appeared in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, by which time Catwoman was ensnared in the Bat-Embargo, above.)
 * Meddling and censorship sometimes led to the producers having to think of inventive ways of showing otherwise unacceptable content. For example, in the episode "Robin's Reckoning," they were not allowed to show Dick Grayson's parents plummeting to their deaths from a trapeze, so they instead framed the shot so that you simply see their shadows swinging out of view, then the snapped rope swinging back followed by the audience's shocked reaction. The creators conceded on a DVD commentary that this made the scene much more effective, and even thanked the studio for making them do it that way. Track down the book about B:TAS if you want to see many of the decisions Fox censors made for them. ("It must be clear that Batman is kicking thugs in the stomach." "Try to have Catwoman land on something other than her face or breasts." "For some reason, they didn't like the hyenas chowing down in the baby carriage." etc.)
 * The BTAS episode "Over the Edge" was subject to one of the most ironically positive bits of Executive Meddling known to man. Those suckers.
 * An interview with Dini shows him saying something to the effect of "If the network wanted us to change a scene because it was too violent or scary, our policy was to follow their words to the letter, but at the same time make it much scarier," noting that they could get away with a lot of Nightmare Fuel if they followed the words to the letter.
 * This is horrifyingly obvious when you see Return of the Joker. Rather than just being shot, is electrocuted and gives a nightmare-inducing death scream, and we don't see it happen or how the body looks like afterward.
 * FOX Network executives put the kibosh on an adaptation of Batman versus Dracula when they insisted vampires could not be shown drinking blood. Years later, standards loosened up, as The Batman would be allowed to use Dracula and show vampires drinking blood.
 * FOX also refused to let Dini use Firefly, a pyromaniac villain. (Blowing off half of Harvey Dent's face in a fiery explosion was apparently okay.) It wasn't until the series transferred to the WB that Firefly made an appearance.
 * Similarly, when asked to do a show about Batman in High School, creative interpretation of that concept gave us the Cyberpunk dark future of Batman Beyond.
 * Superman the Animated Series suffered from Executive Meddling as well, though not quite to the same degree. Bruce Timm said that for some reason, DC wouldn't give him permission to have Clark reveal his identity to Lois. Ever. And it came up again in Justice League, when Timm revealed that DC again squashed the reveal by forbidding him to say or insinuate that Clark and Lois were dating -- when they'd been married in the comic for over ten years. It wasn't until the build-up to JLU's (first) Grand Finale that Superman (not Clark) took Lois on a date.
 * Here's an Opie and Anthony clip of a caller specifically calling out Turner Executive Jamie Kellner for cancelling Batman TAS and Superman TAS, along with pretty much everything else that was good about the network.
 * Bruce Timm has confirmed that the members of the production staff were barred from using Sinestro or the Sinestro Corps in Green Lantern: The Animated Series due to plans for the character in the proposed film franchise. The writers have mentioned this worked out for the best, as it forced them to work with lesser known, untapped villains such as the Red Lanterns.
 * On the Marvel side of things, Human Torch was not left out of the 1978 The Fantastic Four animated series because network execs feared children would set themselves on fire to imitate him. Rather it was because Universal had the rights to the character for a(n eventually unmade) project.
 * Adventure Time is notorious for Getting Crap Past the Radar, and dancing circles around the censors. However, one thing in particular wouldn't fly with the censors- the character Tree Trunks dying by explosion in the episode Tree Trunks. In a case of very positive executive meddling, the creators revealed that she had been transported to a crystal world, and she was later rescued by the titular characters. She returned in other episodes, including the recent, and excellent, "Dream of Love." Tree Trunks is one of the most beloved characters in the show. If the creators had had their way, she would have exploded, and only appeared in one episode. But they were forced to think outside of their own box, which led to a few excellent episodes all about Tree Trunks, like Crystals Have Power and Apple Thief.
 * Transformers: Beast Wars story editors Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio stated, after the conclusion of the series, that they had no interest in working on toy-based series ever again, due to the demands of Hasbro executives, including which characters needed to be written out or introduced. For instance, Tigerhawk was shoehorned in only a few episodes before the series end.
 * One such issue of executive meddling came when the executives ordered them to kill off two Predacons, Scorponok and Waspinator, at the end of the first season to make room for the incoming characters from Season 2. DiTillio and Forward, recognizing how much of a fan favorite Waspinator had become, begged the execs at Hasbro to allow them to kill off the comparatively unpopular Terrorsaur in his stead, particularly as Tarantulas basically carried out the same function that he did only more successfully. DiTillio and Forward thankfully won this battle, and Waspinator was spared while Terrorsaur was killed.
 * All of this is ironic was because it was meddling that got Waspinator into the series in the first place. The writers didn't care for the character at all, but were required to use him. They made him the Butt Monkey out of frustration, but that made him popular with fans. And he even grew on the writers, too.
 * As it turns out, they both eventually did work on such series again, as DiTillio ended up writing for He-Man and The Masters of The Universe, and Bob Forward for the Hot Wheels Alien Racers series.
 * In fairness with the Tigerhawk issue, not including him would have meant the whole Tigatron and Airazor abduction by the Vok plotthread would have been left unresolved.
 * Speaking of which, the 2003 He-Man remake was criticized as having failed due to a severe lack of promotion for both the show and toy line, an inconsistent air time, and -- for the toys -- a gross mis-distribution of the figures and several missed shipments to retailers, among other things. While most of these accusations are debatable, one isn't: even years after both show and toy line were canceled, the toy line's designers Four Horsemen convinced Mattel to allow them to continue to make merchandise for the series for free, extending it long after interest in it has died. In a bit of reverse-meddling, Mattel only agreed if the new merchandise were immobile statues instead of the action figures Four Horsemen wanted.* Pretty much the exact same thing happened to Futurama -- except they came back on a different network, since CN's rights ran out.
 * The subsequent renewals of Futurama as a set of movies and then a relaunched series both began with some reference to the idiocy of the executives who shut down their business. The first movie spent about five minutes depicting the executives as complete and utter buffoons before describing how their remains were ground up to form a useful powder.
 * Re Boot was the near-constant target of Executive Meddling from ABC. It got so bad that in one episode the network demanded that a shot of Dot kissing her younger brother on the cheek and saying she loved him be cut out for broadcast because it "promoted incest." One side-effect of this was the inclusion of numerous jabs at the Broadcasting Standards and Practices office at ABC in the show.
 * In Argentina, Media Watchdogs tried to ban this show, showing the "Evil Dead" episode as evidence that it was not suitable for children. Thankfully, they never succeeded.
 * The game portion of the first episode aired on Cartoon Network rather than ABC is more or less a non-stop series of "look what we can do now" moments.
 * In the episode where Enzo loses in a Mortal Kombat-style fighting game, the demon played by the user is clearly announced as Satan. His fatality is one-handedly grabbing his opponent's heads and crushing them -- although the actual crushing part only happens offscreen, you still see him grab their heads and still hear it quite clearly. This is also the episode where Enzo's eye is slashed out onscreen. "Look what we can do now" indeed.
 * And let's not forget the line: "It's the ABCs, they've turned on us! Traitorous Dogs!" the ABCs (Armored Binome Carrier) being Megabyte's fleet.
 * At one point Enzo aims a ridiculously large bazooka at Megabyte's troops, only to discover, to his disgust, that it fired a life raft labeled "BS Approved."
 * And for much of the episode about Enzo's birthday, an uptight female binome rejected most of the acts Dot was planning for the party. This was probably intended as a Take That, however, since the same episode then features Dot singing in a revealing red dress, with Enzo staring at her in what is, hopefully, surprise. Also, an awesome guitar duel between Bob and Megabyte.
 * Probably the most infamous example was Dot's chest, or as the animation studio called it on their own blog, Dot's "Mono-breast." ABC would not allow Dot to show any cleavage, even when she wore costumes where it would be anatomically impossible not to show it. When ABC dropped Re Boot, the studio celebrated by stuffing Dot into an Elvira costume, and dedicating an entire episode to her new breasts (oh, and Evil Dead and horror movies in general also got a couple of nods).
 * Wait, did you say Enzo was dressed as Michael Jackson from the Thriller music video? Funny, I don't remember that...
 * NBC adopted the Christian video series Veggie Tales to air on their new children's programming block qubo, but not before bowdlerizing any and all references to Christ, God, the Bible, and Christianity. Public response eventually made them lighten up -- the Biblical discussions before and after each story were still cut, but religious references within the episode could stay.
 * The parents' groups forced the producers of Dungeons & Dragons to end every episode with an odd, Family-Unfriendly Aesop that "The group is always right; The Complainer Is Always Wrong," which resulted in presenting The Lancer Eric the Cavalier as a constant whiner, who does everything in opposition to the group and, thus, always gets into trouble.
 * However, the group actually agrees with Eric in The Dragon's Graveyard, which is considered one of the best episodes.

Hank: Eric's right!

Eric I am?"

""When Spider-Man lands on a roof, make sure he doesn't harm any pigeons."
 * And all of them were chastised by the Dungeon Master for listening to Eric. He then treated them to a lecture about mercy.
 * Well, if you consider the never-produced ending,, you could actually understand his position. You could even see that moment as character development in hindsight for.
 * According to the scriptwriter Michael Edens, the Disney Death of in Exo Squad was caused by Executive Meddling. Originally, he was supposed to be Killed Off for Real as early as in the destruction of, as foreshadowed in a Dream Sequence six episodes before that.
 * This gained a combined Take That and Lampshade Hanging upon the Retool of Pinky and The Brain into Pinky, Elmyra, and the Brain, in the form of the retool-explaining Expository Theme Tune: So Pinky and the Brain / Share a new domain / It's what the network wants / Why bother to complain? ...
 * Brain even voices his displeasure, saying he deeply resents this.
 * Also, spoofed in Pinky and The Brain in the episode "You'll Never Eat Food Pellets in This Town Again," where the title characters are actually actors in a hit TV show about two lab mice who take over the world. After a ridiculously tiny drop in ratings, the executives of the show's network decide to alter the show beyond recognition, turning it into pretty much any other '90s sitcom. The whole thing turns out to be Brain's nightmare, but when you consider the genuine meddling going on behind the scenes of the actual show...
 * Ironically, a year before the Elmyra retool, "new character" executive meddling was parodied (with a bit of blatant Three Stooges Homage) in "Pinky and the Brain... (and Larry) ." Larry does almost nothing but introduce himself repeatedly, he inserts his name into every conversation, his presence on the show is completely unexplained, Brain hates him because he screw things up worse than Pinky ever could, and by the end of the episode he gets kicked out, only to be replaced by... Zeppo.
 * Not even Jem was safe from Executive Meddling. The bosses asked Christy Marx, the creator and writer of most episodes of that series, to create a new Misfit for them. Christy attempted to make a black member for the Misfits, but the bosses rejected that, but offered her another idea: the new Misfit could be British -- leading to the creation of Jetta.
 * Their odd reasoning was since the Misfits were the antagonists of the show, the executives were worried that African American groups would take offence if one of the villains was black. Jetta was the best compromise that they could come up with ("ethnic," but still white).
 * Well, given that Jetta was a pathological liar and a pickpocket from a poor family, it's probably better that she didn't end up as a black woman like Marx intended.
 * After season one, Christy Marx was also told that she had to re-use music from previous episodes, forcing her to find ways to justify re-using old music in new scripts. As a result, only about half of the music from season two is original, and even then, some of the new music is repeated only a few episodes later.
 * X-Men Evolution had an example when the producers were forced to cut a scene where the character Lance Alvers saves Kitty Pryde from being crushed by a statue. Apparently, the WB execs felt this would frighten young children, not because the character was imperiled -- but because it wasn't that long after September 11th. Even though this was a show where mutants with superpowers attacked each other and stuff blew up all the time. As a result of the cut, Lance is seen just holding Kitty with no explanation why, leaving viewers confused.
 * The WB was horrible about jumping to ridiculous conclusions like this (see the Buffy the Vampire Slayer example). Anyway, Lance and Kitty didn't fare well with Executive Meddling at all. They were broken up in season 3 due to Kids WB complaining about too much romance on the show. Scott and Jean's relationship was spared though.
 * During his tenure as head writer on The Real Ghostbusters, J Michael Straczynski constantly battled with ABC execs. Some production members have noted having a happier time with the syndication episodes, which were subjected to far less scrutiny and it shows. (The HP Lovecraft-inspired, "The Collect Call of Cathulhu," is just one of the episodes people have noted the network wouldn't have cared for.)
 * Especially contentious was the ongoing debate over the Ghostbusters' secretary, Janine Melnitz. A child psychologist hired as a consultant by ABC felt the character was too cynical and abrasive. Her personality should be more supportive and "feminine", instead. The consultant also expressed concerns that her sharp, angular glasses might scare children -- and yet, all the grotesque ghosts and monsters running around were a-ok. JMS acquiesced to one of ABC's demands, making Janine a Ghostbuster for an episode. The execs had felt young girls needed a positive female role model and saw this as an opportunity to do so.
 * Other additions the executives wanted were more Slimer-centric episodes, and junior Ghostbusters, a group of children that followed the Ghostbusters on missions, including a handicapped member. Both were attempts to pander to different age groups. Eventually, JMS simply quit out of frustration. After his departure, all of these changes came to pass, including altering Janine's look, personality, and voice. JMS would come back in Season 6 (though other jobs meant he could only do a few episodes). He Lampshaded the changes made to Janine in the episode "Janine You've Changed."
 * In Extreme Ghostbusters, Janine is back to her original personality, Slimer is back as a minor supporting character, and no mention is made of the Junior Ghostbusters...
 * The "puppet mode" Stinger segments that play during the credit sequence of Chowder were completely removed from their first run due to the current practice of Cartoon Network appropriating a show's credit sequence for additional show promotion and advertising with their blatant Credits Pushback (a practice becoming increasingly more common on television in the United States). Fortunately, the Stinger segments are now finally being shown, but only when the show is aired during "off-peak syndication."
 * Similarly, The Stinger sequences for Camp Lazlo were sacrificed via Credits Pushback as well. It's a wonder anybody on Cartoon Network even bothers with Stingers anymore.
 * It isn't just Cartoon Network, or even TV shows that suffer from Credits Pushback. Anytime anything happens during the End Credits you might as well write it off. Try watching The Breakfast Club on TV, really, try to. Three freakin' networks and they squeeze the end credits into a tiny box in the side (or bottom) of the screen.
 * Spider-Man the Animated Series also came in for a substantial amount of meddling. The writers weren't allowed to use the words death, die, or kill; hence, when Peter found out Uncle Ben had been killed, it was shown as a police officer shaking his head and saying "I'm sorry, kid. The guy was armed." Also, realistic guns were out, so even petty thieves were armed with futuristic lasers.
 * A case of executive meddling having an outright odd effect was in the character of Morbius, a vampire. The writers weren't allowed to show him sucking blood through his fangs, so he apparently has fangs for no reason, as he instead drains plasma (they can't use the word "blood" apparently) through suckers in his hands. The suckers were so squicktastic that they made the character even creepier, whereas his declarations of "I hunger for PLASMA!" were often Narm.
 * Another example is Carnage. In the comics, he was a mass-murdering psychopath, but in the series he wasn't allowed to kill anyone -- instead he sucked out their "essence" through his hands, which was restored to his victims after he was sucked into a portal. In the scene where he acquires the symbiote he attacks some prison guards; he picks one up and makes some knives with his fingers but instead it shows him busting through a wall.
 * In all fairness to Fox, the NYPD's description of Cletus Cassidy implied his psychopathic tendencies, not to mention his mannerisms and laughter were still pretty creepy in their own right (especially the laughter). So while Carnage could not kill anyone, the censorship didn't stifle his sadistic personality.
 * Sandman was never seen because rights were tied up with the (unmade) original movie plans and instead Hydro-Man was used in their place.
 * Spider-Man was also never allowed to throw a punch because it would make the show too violent. The writers managed to slip just one punch in the 65-episode series.
 * Although Tropes Are Not Bad in this case, as it forced Spider-Man to be much more clever in his crimefighting, which fits his genius-level intellect.
 * They also weren't allowed to break windows, which also got snuck in, one wonders how they missed that.
 * If that's not absurd, listen to these:

"Spider-Man can imprison a villain, but they can not be given a ticket to California to leave.""

"James Tucker: They wanted a super-up Superman. They didn't care how we did it, but they wanted him to be more of a badass. For me, I didn't want to alter our existing Superman that much. So along with Michael Jelenic, we came up with the clone from the future. (More here.)"
 * Another positive effect occurred when a mixup over villain names forced the writers to introduce the Hobgoblin in season one rather than the Green Goblin, to match the toys that had been ordered. This allowed Hobgoblin to become an engaging character in his own right and a precursor to the more dangerous Green Goblin.
 * The censorship standards led to The Punisher being pretty much castrated. He was purely non-lethal and pretty ineffective as a result. However, the telling of his origin (for those unaware, the brutal shooting of his wife and young children which obviously couldn't be shown) was incredibly effective. The only visual was a kite flying in the sky and at the sound of gunshots fell to the ground, landing in a puddle and forming the classic skull as it became soaked in water.
 * Vlad Masters, Danny Phantom's Arch Enemy and Evil Counterpart, was originally going to be a vampire. This is pretty evident from his appearance, the fact that he's named after Vlad The Impaler (y'know, the guy who was the inspiration for the infamous Count Dracula), and that his supervillain name is "Plasmius" (as in Plasma, something you find in blood, which is what vampires feed on). Needless to say, the executives at Nickelodeon thought the idea was "too occult" (Never mind that the show is about ghosts...) and had him changed into the bitter yet still somehow appealing half-ghost villain we all know and love.
 * One could argue its third season was a result of Executive Meddling; the main writer for the first two seasons was fired and Season Three resulted in heavy alterations that caused severe Fanon Discontinuity for some fans.
 * The third season was actually a cess pool of Executive Meddling. First off, the schedule kept changing, moving the show's time slot to odd times in the middle of the day. Also, some of the episodes were played out of order, and given how plots built during this season (with several major events like Plasmius becoming mayor and Danny gaining ice powers) this made the season hard to follow. Also, Nickelodeon decided that they wanted this to be the last season, despite series creator Butch Hartman wanting to make new seasons and that there was no drop in the ratings. This meant that all of the plot lines had to be wrapped up quickly.
 * One episode of the Beetlejuice cartoon show is basically a huge Take That to ABC's Broadcast Standards and Practices, featuring an annoying, fairy godmother-like character Goody Two Shoes who claims to represent the "Bureau of Sweetness and Prissiness" (yes, she does use the abbreviation at one point). The characters finally manage to shake her by being too Sickeningly Sweet even for her tastes, and the end of the episode Lampshades actual censorship in the show, namely how the camera cuts to another character's reaction whenever Beetlejuice eats a bug.
 * There's also the ratings-obsessed Mr. Monitor, who's practically the personification of Executive Meddling.
 * Given the three different companies responsible for the production of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) -- toymaker Playmates, Mirage, and 4Kids -- it wasn't surprising that this eventually crept in. Of particular note are the events surrounding the show's seventh season. After an intended follow up season to "Fast Forward" was aborted, a struggle between the three parties began over the direction for the cartoon. Among the eventually rejected suggestions were a card game-based series, a series with the Turtles caring for their infant past selves, and a completely fresh Continuity Reboot.
 * When a little boy burned down his trailer home and causing the death of his baby sister, the program Beavis and Butthead was blamed because Beavis was a bit of a pyromaniac. As a result, he was no longer allowed to shout "Fire!, Fire!", he was no longer able to carry around a lighter and set things ablaze, and many past episodes' fire references were edited out. As it turns out, the kid's family didn't have cable and there was no way the kid could have seen the show.
 * It did lead to one memorable music video scene -- the video was Wax's "Southern California," which famously features the Unusually Uninteresting Sight of a man on fire jogging down a street. Instead of Beavis saying anything about fire, he just goes into a catatonic daze of pure bliss.
 * Beavis continued to hilariously lampshade this bit of Executive Meddling as the show went on. Upon seeing a monk in a video, he begins excitedly shouting "friar, friar!" while Butthead nervously prods him to stop. Beavis eventually mutters "oh yeah" and settles down again. Another time, he slowly and deliberately chants "liar, liar, pants on..." and then concludes with a distracted "whoa!". Yet another time, while watching Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy," Beavis sees Robin Williams and exclaims, "Look, it's Mrs. Doubt-FIRE!!!"
 * 15 years later, this was apparently lifted as the first new episode of the series have Beavis proudly exclaiming "FIRE! FIRE!"
 * Several aspects of the Darker and Edgier second season of Legion of Super Heroes have the fingerprints of meddling. Superman X's existence seems to have come out of a pressing need to have a Superman with a warrior complex and even more superpowers:

"Stan Berkowitz: ... the network focus-grouped The Batman (and Legion of Super Heroes) and found out that what our very young male audience wanted was more fights, jokes and costumes and fewer female characters. No surprises there..."
 * More depressingly, Saturn Girl's season-long Convenient Coma and the near-disappearance of Phantom Girl seem to be the results of maximizing the Ratings for the target 8-to-11-year-old male Demographic:

"Ted Turner: We have more cartoons than anybody: The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo. They're nonviolent. We don't have to worry that we're encouraging kids to kill each other -- like some of the other cartoon programs do."
 * After Devil May Hare, the first Looney Tunes short staring the Tasmanian Devil was made, executive Eddie Selzer made it extremely clear that no more cartoons about him would be made, since Taz was, in his opinion, stupid and unfunny. However, Jack Warner himself liked the cartoon, so this was overturned.
 * Not that the WB animators were likely to listen to Eddie Selzer anyway. According to Chuck Jones, once while he and his frequent collaborator Michael Maltese were brainstorming ideas for a new Bugs Bunny cartoon, Selzer stuck his head in Chuck's office and said that he didn't think bullfights were funny so he didn't want them to make any bullfight cartoons. They hadn't even mentioned bullfighting during their brainstorming session, but after Selzer left, Maltese waited a few seconds, then said, "Well, he hasn't been right yet..." They immediately produced Bully for Bugs, in spite of Selzer's orders, which turned out to be one of Bugs' better vehicles.
 * What about Swat Kats? Apparently it was cancelled because "it was too violent." Sure people were killed offscreen, but only a few. It's not a violent as current kids action shows. The executive producer, Buzz Potemkin, even tried to save the show, but Ted Turner got it cancelled anyway. It just proves that greedy executives cancel all the good shows.
 * It was less about greed and more about ego; Turner believes his are really the only good ideas, and because he had the history of Captain Planet behind him, he was able to lobby against SWAT Kats after Turner Entertainment acquired it. It's possible he gained the rights simply to kill it.
 * The interview he gave for Entertainment Weekly not four months after the show had been canceled blatantly implies this is the case:

"Krusty: Folks, I've been in showbiz for sixty-one years, but now these jerks have sucked all the fun out of it. I don't need twelve suits tellin' me which way to pee!
 * Which still doesn't make any sense because every single example he listed is violent, albeit in a more slapstick way. What's more the violence in those shows is imitatable as kids can't really shoot missles at each other.
 * A positive example: originally, the Kids Next Door were to use high tech equipment to fight adult tyranny. The folks at Cartoon Network, however, asked this to be changed since Dexters Laboratory had already done this. This resulted in 2x4 technology, which Mr. Warburton has called one of the coolest things about the show.
 * Ren and Stimpy was another animated show that was subject to Executive Meddling. The Nickelodeon suits made creator John Kricfalusi do some cartoons that were traditional and heartwarming, to help offset the extreme grossness of the show.
 * The Executive Meddling forced John K to replace some of show's gags and premises, instead of going for coarse and down-straight obscene. The toilet and sex jokes took over the absurdity and nonsense. Nick's executives also asked him to give a softer side to Ren, which made him an adorable Jerk With a Heart of Gold.
 * In John K's words "for every idea Nick accepted, they threw out five others" and some of the censoring they did was downright ridiculous(I.E. in Big House Blues, they removed a scene of the dog-catching shaking his butt at Ren, because the execs thought it was "too feminine" and Stimpy's Invetion almost didn't get made because of nervous execs)
 * The Simpsons is practically immune to this trope in real-life. Producer James L. Brooks has the clout to make it a rule that the network can't give notes. Little things have been tinkered with (largely relating to legal/censorship issues), but the series has been spared the problems others have faced. That doesn't mean the series doesn't parody this trope, though. This trope was parodied in when too much meddling caused Krusty to retire for the umpteenth time.

Male Executive: Uh, for "pee," could you substitute "whiz"?

Lindsey Naegle: I don't know, that could upset the Cheez Whiz people.

Male Executive: I was just thinking that.

Krusty: I can't take it anymore!"

"Meyers: No, no, no! He was supposed to have attitude.
 * It was also parodied when executives came up with Poochie.

Silverman: Um... wh-what do you mean, exactly?

Myers: Oh, you know, attitude, attitude! Uh... sunglasses!

Lady: Could we put him in more of a "hip-hop" context?

Krusty: Forget context, he's gotta be a surfer. Give me a nice shmear of surfer.

Lady: I feel we should Rasta-fy him by... 10 percent or so."

"Homer: Oh, I can't wait. Look, Marge, I got a scorecard printed up at that all-night scorecard place.
 * Also a major factor of the plot in the episode "Beyond Blunderdome." In the episode, Mel Gibson intended to star in a potential remake of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Homer disliked it, and the fact that he was the only person to actually honestly voice this opinion was the reason why he hired Homer to help him with it in the first place. Homer then came up with some ideas, such as speeding up the film, replacing the main villain with a dog with shifty eyes, and finally rewriting the entire filibuster speech to have Mel Gibson go to his usual roles of a mindless killing machine. Ultimately the last one was chosen. Several executives were appalled by the change after a test screening, and decided to burn it. Eventually after a literal chase throughout Hollywood, they relented, and the Executives who were against the new version turned out to be quite right in their judgment about how horrible the change was, as the audience was disgusted and mortified by the final version, with one audience member, Jimmy Stewart's granddaughter, threatening to sue Homer Simpson and Mel Gibson for tarnishing her grandpa's masterpiece.
 * Was parodied in the episode Homer to the Max:

Lisa: Isn't mid-season just a dumping ground for second-rate shows that weren't good enough for the fall schedule?

Homer: You're thinking of all the other years. This year's shows are classic. There's "The Laughter Family" -- that's animated. Networks like animation 'cause they don't have to pay the actors squat!

Ned Flanders: [voice slightly off] Plus, they can replace them, and no one can tell the diddley-ifference!"


 * This conversation also acted as both an inside joke and a Take That to the FOX executives, since they often don't pay the Voice Actors enough money, with several of them threatening to quit because of the low pay, and some actually managed to succeed temporarily. To sell the joke even more, Ned Flanders was voiced by Karl Wiedergott in this scene instead of his usual voice actor, Harry Shearer
 * In "Natural Born Kissers," treasure-hunting Bart and Lisa dig up an alternate (and implausibly happy) ending for Casablanca. The Old Jewish Man reveals he was one of the executives who insisted the happy ending be filmed, but he literally buried it after watching it.
 * He also apparently insisted on a "killing spree" ending to Its a Wonderful Life.
 * One of the few times Matt Groening exercised his executive meddling privileges was during the production of "Homer vs. Dignity", aka the Panda Rape Episode. The original ending had Homer, dressed as Santa Claus, on the Christmas parade float, throwing pigs blood on the audience while sobbing uncontrollably. Groening insisted on a rewrite, and the blood was changed to fish entrails (which allowed for a hilariously bad pun, "Merry Fish-mas to all!")
 * The now-abandoned premise of having a character "warn" the audience about the scariness of the Treehouse of Horror episodes was a clear reference to network squeamishness. The final warning, in fact, in Treehouse VIII, was delivered by a FOX censor himself, who described his role as "protecting you from reality" (before being brutally murdered on-screen).
 * In "Once Upon a Time in Springfield", Krusty is approached by two unnamed network executives who forced to add a female character named Princess Penelope to his show to increase the ratings and attract more female viewers. Krusty refuses, but they are ready to make a reality show to find his replacement. Desperate to stay in this sweet gig, Krusty grovels and agrees, while the network executives congratulate themselves on a job well done by giving each other a high five. As the ratings improve and Penelope immediately overshadows Krusty as the star of the show, Bart and Milhouse (who are loyal fans) try to get the show back to the way it was. However, the situation gets more complicated when Penelope reveals to Krusty that she's his biggest fan and joined the show mainly because of him, leading to the two falling in love and nearly getting married.
 * Seems Executive Meddling has finally happened. All nudity on The Simpsons is banned by fox, or at least butt shots.
 * That lasted all of 2 episodes! HA HA!
 * They are however banned from ever parodying the Fox News crawl again.
 * Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Mike and Brian have implied this as the reason for their inability to resolve the Ursa subplot. Apparently, they had plans to give many things much more closure, but this trope, along with time constraints, forced them to the end the series the way it did. By their own choice, they ended up turning down a proposal to have the Ursa subplot resolved in a brief throwaway scene of her and Zuko reuniting at the end, as that would be a textbook example of a Writer Cop Out, wrapping something up in a quick, unsatisfying way.
 * In the DVD commentary for one of the episodes, one of the creators makes a vague reference to "certain people" who objected to the show having such strong female characters. May have been an attempt at Executive Meddling that didn't take.
 * The ambiguity of  is also due to this trope, as execs were against showing a teenager being violently murdered.
 * DVD commentary also mentions that Nickelodeon would have liked Aang to be thirty, use bladed weapons, and ride a motorcycle. These suggestions were the subject of a Take That in the episode Sokka's Master.
 * The first episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes was originally going to have Jimmy dying and ending up in Miseryville as the result of an administrative error, making the fact that the show took place in Hell even more clearer. Some broadcasters were disturbed by this, so in the end Jimmy's past was simply left vague.
 * An in-universe example: An episode of Daria revolved around the school holding a contest where entrants would create health and safety posters. Jane and Daria collaborate on an entry, featuring a skinny blonde girl, and a poem explaining that she has achieved this supposedly angelic physique through the magic of bulimia. Mr. O'Niel and Ms. Li love the painting, but aren't too keen on the less-than-sugary poem, so they ask the girls to change it to one with a more sanitized and curriculum-approved message about good nutrition. The girls refuse, citing artistic reasons, which sets off a series of events which culminates in a very entertaining scene where Mrs. Morgendorffer threatens Ms. Li with legal action.
 * After the South Park episode "Jared Has Aides" premiered, the episode was banned from Comedy Central's airwaves until 2009 because it depicted Butters getting beat by his parents. The creators were forbidden from treating Butters like this ever again.
 * In the two-parter "Cartoon Wars," remember the message stating that Comedy Central refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad handing Peter Griffin a football helmet? That was real; Trey and Matt tried to get the network to sign off on it, but they refused. (The episode remains censored to this day, even on DVD and the Internet.)
 * "200," the first episode of a 14th season two-parter, featured the Super Best Friends, a superhero team consisting of religious figures -- including Muhammad (who was previously uncensored with no problems in the group's first appearance in Season 5, though that was made and aired before September 11th, 2001 and The War On Terror). This time around, Muhammad was portrayed as a giant censor bar, except for the scenes where he was in a bear suit. A New York-based Muslim group practically shat bricks over the portrayal of Muhammad in a bear suit, and warned Trey and Matt that they might very well end up like Theo Van Gogh (a filmmaker who was shot and stabbed multiple times by an Islamic extremist for making a documentary about violence against women in Islamic cultures) because of it. Comedy Central, fearing the worst, waited until Trey and Matt delivered the next episode ("201"), then heavily censored it prior to air; they bleeped out all instances of the word "Muhammad" in dialogue and even bleeped out the entire "moral of the story" speech at the end, which had nothing to do with Mohammad and was actually about intimidation and fear (an irony that was not lost on many people). The scenes depicting Buddha snorting cocaine and Jesus looking at pornography went completely uncensored.
 * After the Code Lyoko pilot, Garage Kids, was made, the changes made to the show's plot and setting angered co-creator Thomas Romain so much that he left the production staff.
 * Word of God says this is why Least I Could Do hasn't been made into an animated series yet. Ryan Sohmer had signed a deal with Teletoon for 13 episodes of Least I Could Do, when suddenly notes from the higher-ups started coming in. Notes that said the show needed to "feel more Canadian," that the setting should be specifically in Toronto, that Issa should be an Inuit, that Mick should wear a Toronto Maple Leafs shirt and that Rayne and Noel should go out fishing instead of on walks. Needless to say, Sohmer kindly told them where to stick it and backed out of the deal.
 * Parodied in Johnny Bravo, "Cartoon Makeover." Weird Al, Don Knotts, and The Blue Falcon team up to revise the cartoon to make it more appealing to the audience. Naturally, the kids hate it and the previously mentioned trio turn the show back to normal before the episode's end.
 * Apparently, when the idea of The Venture Brothers was first pitched to Adult Swim, executives wanted to change the character of Doc Venture (they saw him as too mean) as well as switching the episode format to two 15-minute episodes. Even though the show wasn't changed, Adult Swim still regrets even making such suggestions.
 * It is speculated that the reason why the show suddenly went from featuring actual Jonny Quest characters to Expys starting in Season 3 (Jonny became "Action Jonny", Race Bannon became "Red") was due to the production of the live action film making Warner nervous as to what the show was doing to the characters (Jonny was a paranoid junkie, Race a former torturer who gets killed and voids his bowels onscreen)
 * This is the EXACT reason Sym Bionic Titan was cancelled, apparently because the higher ups at Cartoon Network wanted toy companies to make toys for the series, but failed to get licensers for it.
 * Now it seems that there actually were several toy manufacturers who wanted to take on the show but Cartoon Network never contacted any of them and the show was basically murdered because of a personal falling out between executives at CN and Genndy Tartakovsky.
 * Even My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is not safe from meddling, though according to Word of God, executives have been mostly hands-off for the show, and the writers have been allowed a lot more freedom than expected, with some exceptions:
 * Season One had that E/I label on the upper-left corner of the screen on TV, like any educational show must have. In Season Two, it's mysteriously removed. It's not clear why this is, but bronies sure are satisfied that the show appears to be hindered by the standards much less now.
 * Princess Celestia was originally to be a queen, but was demoted to princess because apparently, Disney has supposedly made it so that little girls affiliate queens with evil and princesses with good.
 * This is also why all of Princess Celestia's toys are pink, even though she has a white coat in the series.
 * In a positive example, Apple Bloom was originally to find her cutie mark on her own without any help. Lauren Faust was asked to add Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to be her friends, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were born. Oddly enough, Faust always thought they should have their own spin-off pre-school show, but Hasbro suggested that the Crusaders should be used in the main series first.
 * One of the most common forms of this was the demand for specific, popular characters from previous gens to appear in the show in a prominent enough fashion to sell the toy version of them. Thankfully, no specifics about how those characters would have to appear, so the writers could deal with this fairly easily (for instance, Cheerilee becoming the teacher of Ponyville).
 * The episode "Suited For Success" can be viewed as a Satire of executive meddling, as Rarity's artistic vision of Pimped Out Dresses for all her friends is compromised by their nitpicking, despite the fact that most of them don't have any clue what they're talking about, and with Rainbow Dash offering absolutely no advice other than "Make it 20% cooler." The second take on the song in the episode (to begin with based on another song about executive meddling) even contains lines that make some sense in the context of the story but really work in such a satire: "Make sure that it stays within our budget." is an example of one of those lines. It makes sense in the story, because the ponies naturally don't have unlimited money to spend on the dress, and even moreso an irony, as they impose many lavish changes to their respective dresses, but still demand that "even if [Rarity] simply has to fudge it, make sure it stays within [the ponies'] budget". It also works in respect to the satire as well.

As previously stated, executives have been mostly hands-off for the show, but one thing mentioned by Lauren Faust as a "requirement" was "to incorporate fashion play," which was handled by making it a matter of Rarity being an artist. The episode can be seen as incredibly meta if you think about it like this.
 * According to this, Big Macintosh was planned to get his own episode, but it was rejected.
 * He can only be called Big Macintosh in-show instead of Big Mac, due to the latter being an obvious usage of a copyright from another large company. This may no longer be in effect, however, as he has been called "Big Mac" several times in season 2.
 * Chalk this one for the Moral Guardians: The character Derpy Hooves, a grey cross-eyed pegasus who's largely looked at as the Bronies' avatar has been subjected to this. Apparently, there were complaints that the character portrayal was that similar to a mentally challenged person, something too offensive to show on a children's television show and they complained to Hasbro to fix it. Apple removed the episode of her appearance, only for it to come back with a completely edited version of the infamous scene. Derpy has a normal voice, her eyes changed, and Rainbow Dash doesn't even refer to her fandom name. Needless to say, the fandom was not too happy about the edit.
 * Neither were the animation crew OR Hasbro. In fact, Hasbro confirmed that only the itunes version would be edited and that all other versions would remain the same AND that they would NOT change Derpy's name. There are POSSIBLY going to change her voice though, but for a different reason than one would think. Tabitha St. Germain (her voice actor) said she didn't know Derpy was FEMALE when voicing her as she'd been basically a last-minute choice and so she based her voice off a neighbor's SON, feeling pretty foolish when she found out otherwise AFTER she had finished her recording.
 * It Got Worse. They now posted the edit version of The Last Roundup on the Hub, despite the pleas of many fans. The backlash skyrocketed again. And NOW the edited version of the episode is what was put up on Netflix, instead of the original version.
 * To be fair to the Moral Guardians, the term "derpy" can and has been used as an ableist slur. Hasbro likely didn't know this, and in combination with the original voice, many did see it as making fun of the mentally challenged. A simple changing or at least not mentioning the Fan Nickname probably would have satisfied most of the complaints, but that would make the Shout-Out intended pointless. It's divided the fandom ever since.
 * In-universe example/spoof of this in The Boondocks: Huey is asked to direct the school's Christmas play, but important aspects of his script are vetoed by the school principal; Huey eventually walks off the project, but his teacher puts on Huey's version of the play as written (and gets fired for it).
 * Two episodes of the Boondocks second season, "The Hunger Strike" and "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show" were banned from premiering on Adult Swim. Both episodes were centered around BET and portrayed them as being socially irresponsible, and exploiting black stereotypes for profit. Despite denial by Adult Swim, many believe that BET threatened Sony and AS to pull the episodes with legal actions. Viacom (parent company) was confirmed to threaten legal action against Adult Swim. Thankfully, both episodes were featured on the Season 2 DVD.
 * Family Guy had an episode, PTV, that dealt with Executive Meddling (thanks to Lois bringing the FCC into Quahog after having the straw break the camels back in regards to some of his lewd shows, and other more personal reasons depending on the version).
 * The same episode in Real Life also subverted it in a way: The FCC was okay with the creators using Peter's pooping off the side of the highway onto another highway and it landing on Lois's car's windshield (the original reason for Lois' calling in the FCC) for another show of Peter's so long as they at least do minor things such as remove Peter lowering his pants, silence the wet sound of the poop landing, and making the poop look ambiguous. The writers ultimately decided that the changes weren't worth it, so they rewrote it to be Lois being too sensitive to the content after seeing a Sideboob hour.
 * I'm not 100% sure it was rewritten completely, I remember this version of the episode from somewhere - the show in question was named "Douchebags". If it was rewritten it must have been only on the TV broadcast version of the episode at least.
 * In the episode "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater," one of the cutaway gags was supposed to show a man and a woman silhouette's making out and the woman slides down and off the screen as the man tilts his head back and smiles from the blowjob he was getting. The FOX network decided this was to risque and demanded the animators to shorten the scene, fighting with the animators frame by frame until they reached an agreement. The edited version shows the woman sliding down only 1 or 2 frames until the next frame showing diamonds cuts in.
 * Many jokes and gags in the syndicated runs are either edited or cut out completely.