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Bowdlerise/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}|Bowdlerization]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* [[In-Universe]] example of the ''[[Studio C]]'' sketch ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pn0n_-rM4E Protecting the Innocent]'' in which certain words are used as a cypher for other words. E.g. "Fairy" means "gun"
* The [[Very Special Episode]] of ''[[Family Matters]]'' in which Laura causes racial tension at her school after suggesting that black history be taught along with white history usually cuts to commercial before the audience can see that someone has spray-painted "NIGGER" on Laura's locker (once upon a time, there was a TV channel that showed it uncut in reruns, but it hasn't been seen since). With this scene gone, it looks as if Carl is mad at the kids in school putting the note in her locker that read, "If you love black history so much, why don't you go back to Africa?"
* Some rebroadcasts of ''[[Phyllis]]'' on TV Land / [[Nick
* [[The BBC|BBC Kids]] (at least in Canada) has shown episodes of ''[[
** Note that BBC Kids, like BBC America, is only part-owned by [[The BBC]]. Their relationship to the BBC proper is similar to that of the various UKTV channels in the United Kingdom. They should under no circumstances be mistaken for real BBC channels.
** Those heavily censored episodes also aired on the Ontario-based kids' channel [[YTV]]. Because they were also available on [[PBS]] at the same time in fully uncensored version, lack of viewers forced YTV to pull the plug on the show. Honestly? Very much a [[Mercy Kill|mercy killing]].
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** ''Kryten'' as well, for lawyer-friendly purposes presumably, for the remastered and Dave edits. Rimmer describes a group of skeletons as having 'less meat on them than a Chicken McNugget'. The other versions remove the 'Mc' part from the speech but don't cover Barrie's lips.
*** Even versions of the episode shown years after its original airing had "McNugget" in that sentence. It was removed shortly after [[McDonald's]] successfully sued activists under the UK's much-more-liberal libel laws...and won.
* In the United Kingdom, there are "daytime edits" of American 1990s-to-early-to-mid-2000s sitcoms such as ''[[Friends]]'' and ''[[Scrubs]]'', in which invective and references to sex beyond [[Double Entendre]] levels is removed.
* The UK version of [[
** In the United Kingdom, the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode ''The Weight of the World'' was screened without the part where Buffy smothers Dawn with a pillow. So when Buffy goes into a catatonic state and admits to Willow that she 'killed Dawn', even if it was just in her thoughts, it makes hardly any sense at all.
*** Actually it still makes a little sense because {{spoiler|she had been captured by Glory}} and so she could have been blaming herself for that.
* The syndicated version of ''[[The Sopranos]]'' survives relatively unscathed sex and violence-wise, as David Chase filmed alternate scenes (the scenes at the Bada Bing Strip Club have scantily-clad dancers who don't take off their clothes and the violent deaths are often replaced with shots of someone's face or shown at an angle so the violence won't be as severe). However, all of the profanity and explicit sexual lines are redubbed with toned-down versions that either weaken the dramatic impact or are just plain [[Narm|Narmy]]. One particularly notorious instance of editing came when the line "...sucking on a Cub Scout's ass" became "...chewing on a Cub Scout's ear" <ref>which still implies sexual molestation to a Boy Scout, no matter how you slice it</ref>.
** This inevitable censoring was parodied -- ironically when the show first came out -- in a ''[[Mad TV]]'' skit which had the Pax network holding the rerun rights to the show and cutting out all scenes of violence, using jump-cuts to remove all offensive language, and even reducing a lap dance scene to nothing, turning it into a five-minute blip of an episode.
{{quote|
'''Tony:''' Anger? Anger? Anger what?
'''Melfi:''' Well, you're clearly angry at her.
'''Melfi''': Yeah, no sh--
--ing genius insight! Who are you, f--
--ing Ray Charles? Lemme tell you something, I didn't have anger AT her, alright, I HATED that bi--
'''Melfi:''' Well, why don't we explore this?
'''Tony:''' Tell you what, huh? *he stands up* Why don't you explore this ''(goes to grab his crotch, but the scene cuts away)''--
'''Tony''' ''(now sitting down)'': I got --
--ing better things to do with my life than the spend time yakkin' about my motherf--
* Happily, as he leaves the office* See you next week!" }}
* In ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'', when the Spanish Inquisition arrives late in court, Cardinal Ximénez exclaims, "Oh bugger!" This scene was frequently removed, since 'bugger' was considered too profane back then.
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*** Speaking of season 19 episodes being edited, the Martin Lawrence episode had Martin's monologue (which included vulgar references to women's hygiene) cut off and replaced with a series of title cards explaining that the rest of the monologue will never be televised again, as it nearly got everyone on ''SNL'' fired.
** The season 11 (1985-1986 season) premiere hosted by [[Madonna]] originally featured a cold opening in which NBC network executive at the time, Brandon Tartikoff, announced that Lorne Michaels' new ''SNL'' cast will all be urine tested for drugs, followed by Anthony Michael Hall turning in his sample. The censors at the time found the sketch to be too gross (yet 26 years later, they would allow a monologue featuring [[Steve Martin]] performing a urine test on Alec Baldwin to see if Baldwin breaking Steve Martin's record for being ''SNL'''s most frequent host is legit), so it was cut from all reruns (including the 60-minute reruns) in America. The airing of this episode on Canada's Comedy Network has this sketch intact.
* In an episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', Dr. House prescribes cigarettes to a patient suffering from an inflammatory bowel. In France, the cigarettes were changed to two bowls of rice.
* The Gospel Music Channel (available to [[Direc TV]] customers) airs family-friendly programs such as ''[[
* [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Amok_Time#Other_information The German version] of the infamous ''[[Star Trek]]'' episode "Amok Time" had much of the [[Ho Yay]] and references to sexuality altered. Given that the episode is all about Spock needing to [[Mate or Die]], and snapping out of it when he believes that he's killed [[The Not Love Interest|Captain Kirk]], removing the [[Ho Yay]] and the references to sexuality from the episode is a little bit like removing the water from the ocean. How bad were the edits? Well, they made [[Mate or Die|Pon Farr]] into a non-sexual illness, and turned the episode into an [[All Just a Dream]] episode.
* The EO, a Dutch evangelical public broadcast organisation, likes showing nature shows. What they don't like too much is the concept of evolution by natural selection. To solve this, they alter [[David Attenborough]] documentaries to suit their creationist ideologies while still presenting them as BBC documentaries. Attenborough was not amused.
* Hallmark Channel bowdlerizes several of its shows, including reruns of ''[[Cheers]]''. Words such as "bitch", "slut" and even "butt" are censored. Oddly, Carla's insult to bald John Hill, "Two heads like that would make a perfectly good butt," is censored when the episode is rerun, yet featured uncensored in the network's ads for the show. Also, the penultimate line in the entire series, when Sam realizes the bar is his true love and says, "I'm the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth," is chopped to "I'm the luckiest son on Earth."
* In most foreign airings of Season 4 of ''[[The Amazing Race]]'', there is no mention of Reichen & Chip being "married", and their kiss at the Finish Line was edited out.
* The ''[[Glee]]'' episode featuring songs from ''[[Rocky Horror]]'' had them all butchered to network standards. Justified by the actual school production censoring the show in-universe.
* When rerunning episodes of ''[[Eerie, Indiana]]'' on Saturday mornings, Fox Kids bizarrely edited part of the episode Zombies In [[P Js]]. In the episode, residents of Eerie turn into shopping zombies when they fall asleep and there's a sequence of Marshall and Simon slapping each other in the face all night to keep from falling asleep. Eventually, however, this fails and they go sleep-shopping with the rest of the town. When Dash finds them later, he's unable to wake them up until he slaps Marshall. In the Fox Kids edit the scene of Marshall and Simon slapping each other is left in but the shot of Dash slapping Marshall is edited out, cutting from Dash snapping his fingers in front of Marshall's eyes to Marshall rubbing his cheek and looking angry, and rendering Dash's line "Thanks, I needed that," senseless.
* When ''[[The Fresh Prince of Bel
* BET's reruns of ''[[The Wire]]'' would not only edit the profanity, sex and violence but also edited the show down into a 1 hour timeslot (including commercials) on the network cutting many scenes and when episodes were aired from the seconds season any scenes [[Unfortunate Implications|featuring the docks storyline that was central to that season, which featured mostly white characters,]] were completely removed causing the season to be made up mostly of scenes of the criminals from the first season sitting around in prison.
* When the [[Disney Channel]] aired reruns of ''[[Boy Meets World]]'' several episodes in seasons 5-7 had to be edited because at that point the show wasn't really a kids show anymore and had more mature themes and suggestive content. Many sex references and instances of swearing were removed and at least three episodes were not shown at all due to their content, one that dealt with teen drinking and two that featured sexual situations and dialogue.
* When ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'' made its debut on [[Channel
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