I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.
The way they censored the gay out of Steven Universe in Russia was just comically stupid. There’s a couple, Ruby and Sapphire, with Ruby being a more hot-headed butch type, and Sapphire being a cool-headed femme. So, Russia gives Ruby a goatee:
Even though, mind you, the dub still has a female VA for her. Anyway, last season of the show, Ruby and Sapphire get married. The showrunner didn’t want them to be able to censor it as easily, so she put Ruby in a dress and Sapphire in a suit:
So, naturally, they put the goatee on Sapphire this time:
Which kind of just makes it double gay, I think?
The Invincible TV series is quite gory. Blood gets censored to be white in China which makes for some interesting scenes of hands dripping with white stuff. Or this:
c u m
it’s ok, because now everyone is having a good time!
Oh god!!! That’s way worse!!!
Cat Bukake!
In France, advertising alcohool brands on TV is heavily restricted. It wasn’t a problem in the Simpsons since Duff was not a real brand of beer.
When Duff became a real brand, French TV had to blur every Duff logo and beep out every “Duff” pronounced on screen. Some episodes became unwatchable, Duffman became beepman, every beer became blurry…
Duffman became beepman, every beer became blurry…
Considering Duffman’s signature hip movements and the funky Ohhh yeaaah~ music that always plays whenever he arrives, someone who doesn’t know Duff is supposed to be a beer might get a very wrong idea about his job.
It’s like the censored Sesame Street clip of the Count
Wait, what?
Iirc they bleep out every time he says “count”
“I love to %@#$! 1…2…3”
Edit: lol https://youtu.be/6AXPnH0C9UA
You’ve made my day, thanks
<bleep>-man, can’t breathe! Ohh no!
The Welsh rugby team were at one point sponsored by a Cardiff brewery called “Brains” and when they played over in Paris the sponsors name was rendered as “Brawn”.
Also the cigarette brand “Benson and Hedges” were branded “Buzzing Hornets” when their F1 team were racing in countries that had already banned tobacco sponsorship.
Clearly needs more state regulations. People can’t be trusted to know what they want to watch and see with their eyes
Idk man France seems to be doing better than us these days I wouldn’t knock em too hard
Yes, alcoholism isn’t real and if it were we shouldn’t make it easier for people who try to quit.
Nobody said that. Also shouldn’t it be up to the recovering alcoholic to not watch tv shows that often depict heavy drinking if that bothers them? Nobody is forcing alcoholics to watch The Simpsons.
As I understand it the ban in France seems to specifically target real brands. So you can still show people drinking but you’re not allowed to show the logo of e.g. Heineken.
Is this a good regulation? I don’t know, but it might not be as arbitrary as the other comment suggested.
Nobody forced anyone to make a real beer brand called Duff. Liberal BS takes like yours are just so shortsighted. Might as well let kids buy cigs, their choice after all, isn’t?
Die Hard 2.
Original line: “Yippee ki-yay, mother fucker.”
Censorship line: “Yippee ki-yay, Mr. Falcon.”
There is no one named Mr. Falcon in the movie.
They chose something that was plausible with how his mouth moved to say mother fucker?
I think i remember a movie with that weird martial arts guy who lives in Russia now where they changed mother fucker to mother flipper lol
Yeah, they were trying to match the syntax, but mother flipper at least sorta makes sense. Mr. Falcon just made me think I had the bad guy’s name wrong the whole time.
Mr falcon is a way cooler replacement than mother flipper imo lol
For sure, 100%, but it’s more confusing as well. I remember the first time I heard it thinking, “Wait, why did they change it to Mr. Falcon? Is the general named Falcon? I thought he was Esperanza. Is his nickname Falcon? Did he make reference to falcons? Who is Mr. Falcon?”
I feel like even though there were probably instances of it before this, the “Yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon” is kind of the OG, because it’s the first one I remember to become well-known on this new thing called “the internet”.
Yeah, i was either going to do Mr. Falcon or, “find a stranger in the Alps,” and someone beat me to the Alps. I think Falcon was first though.
I don’t remember if it was that movie or another Bruce Willis action movie, but there was a particular nonsensical line that sticks with me decades later. “I don’t care about any of this sweet tooth boot wash!” Like, wut?
What was the swear? I’m guessing bullshit for the last bit, but what’s sweet tooth?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Yippi ki yey melon farmer
There’s also the sign changing from “I Hate N-words” to “I Hate Everyone”
Ah, the Norwegian subtitle crew had creative freedom when translating that line. The official translation was “hipp hurra kølletryne” which would translate back to english as “hip hooray club face” (“club” as in golf club or hockey stick - which of course also is a goofy euphemism for penis).
It’s in the first film but yeah walking through glass barefoot, shooting people and throwing someone screaming from a ledge is all cool for the kids to watch.
I’ve only seen the first recently as a Xmas movie every year but it’s in them all I guess so we’re both right
I remember when Young Guns aired on a cable channel in the 90s there’s a scene at the climax when Billy the Kid actually says “Murphy, you son of a bitch…” and shoots the baddie in the head.
So this cable channel edited it for him to say “Murphy, you sorry old buzzard…”. But the headshot was still intact because this is America.
John McClain kills every member of a heist crew then throws the boss off a skyscraper to his doom and the only concession made for tv is “Yippee ki yay Mr Falcon.” America.
I thought he said melon farmer
The most infamous would be South Park episodes S14E05 and S14E06 named “200” and “201”. The central theme of the episodes: Censorship. Something South Park had been subjected to ever since its inception. And this time, they centered around the limits of what is allowed around depictions of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. For context: These episodes aired after controversies around such depictions in media around the world had people killed.
So in an attempt to protect themselves, the network engaged in censorship of the episodes and it is sometimes unclear, what was intentionally in there as a plot point from the creators and what was added by the network. Although some egregious examples are clear, such as the complete bleeping of Kyle’s “I’ve learned something today” monologue at the end. While Stone and Parker inserted clear plot points like characters like Moses of all people asking, whether something was OK to show or say. I’m still uncertain whether the huge censorship bar over the Prophet is a plot point, or censorship or both.
The kicker: Prophet Muhammad had been shown in earlier episodes already, without sparking controversy and in “200” and “201” they even reference those episodes. As expected, they received death threats after the airing of the episodes and later pulled all five episodes with Muhammad depictions from their streaming sites (Super-Best Friends, Cartoon Wars 1+2, 200, 201).
After this they actually pulled super best friends from syndication as well.
I’m old, and I saw the Breakfast Club back in the 80’s on like, channel 11. For years I couldn’t figure out why Principal Vernon and Carl the Janitor went from hating each other to being friends.
Years later I saw it unedited and realized they cut out the whole scene with the two of them bonding and smoking weed. So much made sense at that point.
Oh my gosh. I think Ive only ever watched this movie on TV. Going to have to change that now after reading this comment!
I have HAD it with these monkey-fightin’ snakes, on this Monday-Friday plane!
Yippee-ki-yay, Mister Falcon.
Yippee kayak, other buckets!
Nine-nine!!!
deleted by creator
This city is a big chicken, just waiting for me to pluck it.
Disney consored Gravity Falls a lot before the episodes even aired. Alex Hirsch (the creator) had constant trouble for even some minor things.
The funniest bit was, when they had a flyer that literally said “not S&P approved”, because S&P (standards and practices) wouldn’t approve the flyer saying “bottles will be spun”.
they had a flyer that literally said “not S&P approved”
Also a recurring problem in ReBoot. The original network wouldn’t let them do a ton of stuff for often vague reasons or ones that implied something was deeply wrong with the person monitoring the show. There’s an article about all the absurdity.
That’s quite a list. A bonkers read!
Reboot did similar things in the 90s with direct mentions of “BS&P” (broadcast standards and practices) in multiple episodes.
https://youtu.be/oYp0O-rle20 for those who haven’t seen it.
That show was pretty tame if I remember correctly, just supernatural stuff, animated version of x files.
Mostly yes, except when Bill Cipher was around. He skinned a screaming head once or stole the teeth of a deer.
and rearranged every orifice on the rich guys face
The 20th Anniversary Edition of E.T. not only had superflous CGI E.T. scenes (no doubt inspired by Lucas), but also all guns of the federal agents were changed to walkie talkies.
Spielberg later apologized for the changes and rolled them back.
All those Monday to Friday snakes on this Monday to Friday plane.
Money fighting snakes
Someone else said it’s monkey fighting snakes
Reminds me of watching the TV version of The Thing. They change “bullshit” to “bull stuff” but all the gore is left uncensored
The US are sometimes very puzzling to us on the rest of the planet.
That quote has stuck with me forever lol, also:
Matrix TV edit.
When agents take Neo away in the beginning and bug his belly. Then later when they do a little surgery in the back of the sedan, Neo says “jeepers creepers, that things real?!”
4Kids dubs of anime removing guns and all mentions of death. I recently watched the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters and there’s a scene where I’m pretty sure Bandit Keith was originally threatening Pegasus with a gun. Without the gun, it just looks so ridiculous. And what did 4Kids have against rice balls? Arceus forbid American kids should learn anything about foreign culture, we must pretend these are donuts.
The original U.S. dub of Pokemon was the same re: riceballs. It didn’t make sense in the 90s, and it doesn’t make sense today. The worst thing that can happen is a kid asks their parents if they can try onigiri.
Oh no! Now we either have to tell our kids “no,” or we have to do the research to find somewhere that makes/sells it, or attempt to follow a new recipe ourselves. How will U.S. culture, composed of nationalities from across the globe, ever survive this tremendous upheaval!?
In all seriousness, onigiri is delicious and I wish there were greater demand for it across the U.S. Even in my ethnically-diverse blue state, I only know of one place that makes onigiri, but it’s far and a pain in the ass to travel to.
Weren’t they dubbed as ‘donuts’ or am I having a Berenstain Bears moment?
“Jelly filled donuts are my favorite!”
- Brock
That they were. I was so confused as a kid, because I was a big fan of donuts but had never seen one with a rectangular hole coming out the side (how would that even work?)
Onigiri is really easy to make yourself if you can get the ingredients. Tuna mayo onigiri is the bomb when you wake up with a hangover.
It was kind of a missed opportunity to sell onigiri in the west
In the Mexican Spanish dub the Onigiris became sandwiches lmao.
It’s more about nobody ( that wasn’t already into Asian food) knowing what it was. Even parents. And it not really being easy to look it up in the late 90s
It might have been easier to learn about if shows didn’t censor it out from the start. How are people supposed to talk about something if it’s deliberately removed? It’s like people went, “Americans don’t already know about this food, so let’s make sure they don’t learn about its existence.”
I remember 1997 on The Simpsons, when Marge wanted to open a franchise. One of the options (which her rivals took) sold pita. I was a kid, and this was the first time I had ever heard of pita and tahini. They were simply described as “pocket bread” and “flavor sauce.” The introduction of new foreign food items didn’t upset or confuse the audience.
It’s simply bizarre that riceballs are treated like some particularly incomprehensible thing.
Also, research may have taken longer (and involved trips to the library), but anyone who wanted to learn about something in the 90s still could’ve done it. It wasn’t pre-literate, just pre-internet.
I had the same experience when I watched the Pretzels episode with Fat Tony from the mafia as a kid, but in Spanish. They called them pretzels.
But Pokemon was a show about a fantasy world of made up animals with magic powers. 4Kids felt kids would be able to grasp that, but not rice balls.
Kids could accept a weird yellow mouse that could shoot lightning bolts, they would have accepted some weird food they hadn’t heard of either.
Kids probably would have just assumed it was part of the fantasy setting
Perhaps my favorite example of this is the 4kids One Piece dub. They couldn’t get rid of the scene where Helmeppo threatens Koby with a gun, so they turned the gun into…well.
Also quick shoutout to lollipop Sanji.
This is my favorite example. They replaced all guns with finger guns, so they were all just pointing at each other menacingly
I’m currently watching the second season of Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters. There’s an episode where Yugi and Kaiba are in a double duel and the threat is if they lose they’ll fall through a glass floor to the shadow realm. Somehow I strongly suspect the threat in the Japanese version was they’ll fall to their deaths. The ludicrously replace all threats of death with the shadow realm.
Let’s not forget the time Yugi and a magician were chained to the floor with buzzsaws inching closer each time they lost life points that would “send them to the shadow realm”
Yup, watched that one recently too
4kids one piece broke me lol
In my neck of the woods onigiris were redubbed as “popcorn balls”.
That actually makes more sense than donuts or sandwiches. They look like popcorn balls
TV censored version of Kill Bill hands down.
His name is buck, and he’s here to party.
How the hell did they tv sensor kill Bill? Jesus. That’s the point of the movie!
It was legendarily bad. I remember watching it on TV laughing the entire time.
Pretty sure that was the point. It was basically Pulp Fiction 2.0, Martial Arts Edition.
It’s genre pastiche to begin with so it can stand up to quite a lot additional weirdness
His name is bart-y and he’s here to part-y
There is a famous US tv edit of Snakes On A Plane where Samuel L Jackson shouts at a pivitol moment, “I’ve had it with these monkey eating snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!”
Monkey fighting snakes, if my memory serves correctly.
The best version of that movie is the censored version lol
on this Monday to Friday plane!
If I were stuck on a plane (let alone one with monkey-eating snakes) for 5 days straight, I’d reach a breaking point, too.
“Yippie kay yay, MR FALCON.” from Die Hard is pretty infamous.
