Executive Meddling/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

**:* 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, {{spoiler|on which the Venger is revealed to be the Dungeon Master's son and which is freed from the curse that kept him as the Venger}}, you could actually understand his position. You could even see that moment as character development in hindsight for {{spoiler|the Dungeon Master himself}}.

*:* 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.

*:* 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]]:

*:* [[Fridge Logic|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.

*:* 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:

**::* 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, [[The Other Darrin|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 ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]''.