->'''[[TheKrusty 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!\\
'''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!\\
-- ''TheSimpsons'', "[[http://www.snpp.com/episodes/CABF10 Day of the Jackanapes]]"

->''What you have to remember is that in the movies there are two types of people 1) the directors, artists, actors and so on who have to do things and are often quite human and 2) the other lifeforms. Unfortunately you have to deal with the other lifeforms first. It is impossible to exaggerate their baleful stupidity.''\\
-- '''TerryPratchett'''

What network executives do to justify their jobs: Interfere in the creative process that produces television shows.

Creating a successful work of fiction, television shows in particular, is -- whether the execs want to admit it or not -- a crapshoot. They don't really understand what makes a hit. ''Nobody'' does! You can never predict what the audience will like until they actually see it. As a result, executives tend to be both conservative and imitative, trying to make [[FollowTheLeader every new show like one or more previous shows]] that were successful (see XMeetsY).

One way in which these traits manifest themselves is for the executive to force changes on a show which he feels is too different or edgy, in order to make it "[[LighterAndSofter less risky]]" or "more appealing to the audience" -- in other words, garner higher {{ratings}}. "More appealing" often translates into "more action-oriented" or "sexier" or, in the immortal words of Woody Harrelson as Steve Martin's producer in ''L. A. Story,'' "more wacky, less egghead."

Usually this guts the chosen show of whatever was unique and interesting about it just as it was hitting its stride and gathering an audience who appreciated its differences and direction. Sometimes it can even sink a show. In [[TheyJustDidntCare the absolute worst cases]], ExecutiveMeddling can lead to severe AdaptationDecay, involuntary CharacterDerailment or even WriterOnBoard. It can even result in TooGoodToLast (or ScrewedByTheNetwork) if an executive somewhere in the chain of command takes a particular dislike to a series. Writers and directors may strike back in the form of WriterRevolt.

Sometimes this is the result of executives' apparent belief that television audiences consist entirely of [[ViewersAreMorons superstitious low-grade morons]] who will flee from anything the least bit unusual [[AngstAversion or depressing]]. When the results are not what they expect, it results in rounds of finger-pointing and denial.

Network executives also meddle in shows for [[{{Pride}} ego]] gratification and for the [[AGodAmI delight in exercising power]]. If a show they "improved" becomes (or stays) a hit, they will then take ''all'' credit for the program's success.

If the show itself escaped executive meddling okay, but its time slot is changed around and has zero promotion, then it's ScrewedByTheNetwork.

Executives aren't ''always'' wrong. (But, well, since when does someone doing their job ''right'' get any attention?) The prevalence of this trope leads people to think ''any'' {{retool}}s or "JumpTheShark" ordeals are a result of outside influences. When it isn't, it may be a result of problems from within like CreatorBreakdown, ProtectionFromEditors, WriterOnBoard or AuthorFilibuster--things that a responsibly meddlesome executive can prevent from ever coming to pass. (Quite often whoever you think is responsible is merely {{Misblamed}}.)

See also ViewersAreMorons, CreativeDifferences, ExecutiveVeto, ObviousBeta, MediaWatchdog, and MoralGuardians. Compare WhatCouldHaveBeen, WagTheDirector and DevelopmentHell / {{Vaporware}}. Contrast with GettingCrapPastTheRadar and ProtectionFromEditors.

----
[[foldercontrol]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Ikumi Mia blames part of the failure of ''TokyoMewMew a la mode'' on her Nakayoshi director limiting her to two volumes and telling her not to focus on the previous series' characters.
** Executive Meddling actually produced the original series as well; Ikumi-sensei wanted to do a horror series focusing on a much darker {{catgirl}}, without a [[{{Sentai}} colourful cast]] of [[PettingZooPeople Kemonomimi]] friends. Ichigo's predecessor wasn't even a MagicalGirl.
* In ''DigimonSavers'', there is an episode where a bomb-shaped digimon called [=BomberNanimon=] attempts to blow up an amusement park by throwing bombs everywhere. When dubbed, its color was changed to orange, [[http://www.duckfeather.net/digimon/index.htm the bombs were turned into ''fruit juice'' and it was re-named "Citramon." ]] English producer/writer Jeff Nimoy stated that he had to do this or Disney would cut the episode.
** However, once you get past the utter randomness; [[PragmaticAdaptation it becomes a fitting]] {{homage}} to Don Patch of BoboboboBobobo, which ended its dub a few weeks beforehand.
* Rumor has it that ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh GX}}'' was cut short because Yuki Judai's voice actor was fired and the show's developers didn't want to spend the extra cash to replace him in the middle of a season; as a result, the show was forced to wrap up half-way through its run, and its successor, ''Yu-Gi-Oh The 5D's'' was rushed to air to make up the difference.
* In the original versions of ''TurnAGundam'', protagonist Loran Cehack was a woman. However, in the transition to animation, the executives refused to allow the protagonist to be an ActionGirl. In revenge, the creator simply made the resulting character crossdress and be mistaken for a woman as much as possible.
* The translators working on ''InitialD'' originally wanted a straight translation, but {{Tokyopop}} executives demanded various changes, resulting in the translators writing an [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2002-07-13/tokyopop-open-letter-regarding-initial-d open letter to the fans]] in which they joked about releasing the manga shrink-wrapped with White-Out and a felt-tip pen.
* In an (arguably) positive example, Masashi Kishimoto, author of ''{{Naruto}}'', stated that he originally didn't plan to have the members of Snake/Hawk besides Sasuke fight on-screen, but Shueisha ordered him to.
* ''CodeGeass'' suffered this from Day 1; the initial series plan involved an idealistic rookie soldier and his ideological conflicts with his battle-hardened C.O.; when Sunrise rejected this concept, the creators took it back to formula and, with input from {{CLAMP}}, made it the show it is today.
** More recently, the show's director/co-creator stated in an interview that thanks to being ScrewedByTheNetwork and having the show moved from its original timeslot to an entirely different one (forcing them to try to appeal to the old fans as well as a new demographic that hadn't even seen the first season), they essentially had to throw out their original plans for the show's second half, adding in a one-year TimeSkip and starting from there.
* The entirety of the "Blue Knight" saga and the subsequent story arc in ''AstroBoy'' were the result of executive meddling. Apparently Astro's willingness to work with the police and try to change the social order from within made him unpopular with the new generation of student radicals in the late 60s who believed that modern society was corrupt beyond all redemption and called Astroboy a hopelessly idealistic anachronism. Tezuka's editors at Shonen magazine noticed this and ordered him to make the series DarkerAndEdgier and have him fight against the forces of law and order. Tezuka handled this fairly well, however. Instead of simply turning Astro into the sort of violent, twisted, anarchic AntiHero that was popular at the time, he created an engaging story about Zionism and its consequences driven by a charismatic AntiVillain antagonist and gave Astro reasonable motive for his actions. Tezuka had him waver back and forth between accepting and rejecting Blue Knight's extremism before denouncing him once and for all. In the subsequent "Astro Reborn" story, however, he becomes a more destructive AntiHero due to losing his memories, but eventually reverts back to his old self, partially due to the DarkerAndEdgier ''AstroBoy'' not selling well after all. This may be one of the rare cases where ExecutiveMeddling actually did some good, as the Blue Knight saga is one of the most well-liked stories by modern fans and was highly influential in later adaptations; then again, Tezuka himself always regretted letting Astro abandon his pacifist ideals to embrace the Blue Knight's extremism, however briefly.
* ''SaintSeiya'' ended prematurely because of this. It was planned to have two more big story arcs which would focus more on the Gold Saints, but the series was canceled and it took the anime more than ten years to finish afterward.
* The executive meddling in the English dub of ''SailorMoon'' resulted in the transformation of the lesbian couple Haruka and Michiru into the ''implied incestuous lesbian couple'' Amara and Michelle by making the two cousins in an attempt to get rid of any homosexuality. The dubbers ''did'' make them cousins, but didn't bother to remove any of the romantic implications between them, possibly as a TakeThat to the executives.
** On the other hand, ''SailorMoon'' owes its very existence to executive meddling. When creator Naoko Takeuchi was trying to think of a new series, it was her editor who suggested the heroines wear sailor suits (he had a thing for them) and the name came from that as well. Takeuchi agreed, but only if she was allowed to indulge her own preference by including an handsome man in a tuxedo.
* KenAkamatsu got hit with this hard while writing ''MahouSenseiNegima''. After ''LoveHina'', he wanted to try something new and do a {{Shounen}} series, but the executives wanted to capitalize on the success of ''LoveHina'' with another UnwantedHarem series. As a result, ''MahouSenseiNegima'' ''looks'' like an UnwantedHarem, but starts adding {{Shounen}} elements around volume 3, which [[GenreShift increase in frequency]] until it pretty much ''is'' a {{Shounen}} series with some UnwantedHarem elements still hanging around. According to some fans, the combination of genres actually benefits the quality of the series.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
*''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}'': The original conclusion for the ''Dark Phoenix Saga'' called for Dark Phoenix being psychically lobotomized; however, then-Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter ordered writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne to come up with something more drastic as punishment for her crimes, and she was killed off. This is a positive example, as Jean's death is remembered as one of the most poignant and touching moments in all the MarvelUniverse.
** Comic book legend says Claremont's script originally provided proper punishment for Jean Grey's actions; however, when Jean consumed the star for power, John Byrne threw in the planet of plant people that died as a result of the cataclysm. That's why Jim Shooter demanded her death.
** But they ''did'' plan on bringing her back, just not having committed such a horrible crime.
** It was meddling when writers were forced to kill her off again, even though it had ''nothing'' to do with the DPS at that time. They later tried to drop a bus on Jean to make sure she can never come back with "Endsong", but ironcially the "final solution" (rumored to be the wholesale destruction of Jean's body) was changed by executive meddling to leave things so that Jean may one day return, assuming editorial changes.
**Another ''{{X-Men}}'' example dates from the beginning of the series--Stan Lee wanted to call it "The Mutants," but the bosses said that [[ViewersAreMorons very few readers would know what a mutant was]]. Lee's protest that ''nobody'', including him, knew what an X-Man was had no effect.
**While on the subject, {{Chris Claremont}} returned to the titles in 2000, and since his return he has fallen victim to this trope numerous times. ''Exiles'' was re-packaged as ''New Exiles'' and Claremont was told he could only use characters he created, or wrote, during his first run on ''{{X-men}},'' as the protagonists. Igor Kordey was replaced as the artist on ''New Excalibur'', while already working on the first issue; nobody informed Claremont, the writer, at the time of the change in artists. During his third, and latest, run on ''Uncanny X-men,'' Claremont had to drop an ongoing plot, namely the formation of a new Hellfire Club, while the story was in full swing. He was told to abandon the story because a different writer at the time professed interest in using the Hellfire Club. Eventually it turned out to be {{all just a dream}}, making the forced abandonment of the plot in ''Uncanny X-men'' a jarring example of executive meddling.
*** The exact polar opposite has occurred with Claremont's ''X-Men Forever,'' where Quesada has apparently assured Claremont he can do absolutely anything the title's rating will allow with his characters, starting with rebooting the series to just after ''X-Men (vol.2) #3'' and[[KilledOffForReal killing Magneto and Wolverine permanently]] -- [[WordOfGod word of Claremont]] says they will never, under any circumstances, return in X-Men Forever (indeed no dead character will come back from same again) -- and having a BigReveal that makes the mutant gifts of the X-Men a death curse that will burn them out before they're 50.
* Originally, ''{{Watchmen}}'' would have involved the Charlton Comics superheroes whose rights DC had acquired. They would not permit AlanMoore to do his proposed storyline with the actual Charlton characters, so instead he created [[{{Expy}} Expies]] of them. Even before TheMovie, many more comics readers will have heard of the ''{{Watchmen}}'' characters than the Charlton originals.
**Somewhat justified in that Moore wanted to kill off [[spoiler: Peacemaker]] and [[spoiler: the Question]], whereas DC still had plans for them.
**Proving once again that TropesAreNotBad.
* DCComics executives decided they needed a newer, hipper GreenLantern, so they gave the writer of his series three issues to get rid of the old guy and all related characters. The result was ''Emerald Twilight'', one of the most controversial comics of the DarkAge.
**To be fair, previous writer Gerard Jones pushed for a scenerio to keep Hal around, via the notion of having the Green Lantern Corps be taken over by the Zamarons, who would get rid of the yellow impurity/24 hour charge and install Sinestro as head of the Corps, resulting in Hal becoming a fugitive Green Lantern due to his refusal to serve his new female masters. But his version wasn't sexy enough, resulting in then-publisher Paul Levitz, along with senior group editors (at the time) Mike Carlin, Dennis O'Neil, and Archie Goodwin, as well as GL editor Kevin Dooley, plotted the new ''Emerald Twilight'' story, which was eventually given to Ron Marz to write.
** Not to mention that the "newer, hipper" GreenLantern, Kyle Rayner, never really came into his own due to DC purposely baiting fans, via their declaration of "there can be only one Green Lantern and that Lantern is Kyle Rayner!" as far as destroying the Corps and even forcing the Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott to be renamed "Sentinel" and stripping him of his own power ring in favor of internalising its energy, to justify Kyle Rayner's existence.
** Kyle eventually settled in just fine once GrantMorrison [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap worked him into the]] [[JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]] and Ron Marz was able to [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap moderate from the original characterization]]... which was undone by some more of this trope as DC's new EIC set about resetting their hero base to the 1960's with Kyle's title as one of the first victims. At least Kyle was handled slightly better than Hal was on his way out.
** ''[[{{Understatement}} Slightly better?]]'' Kyle wasn't turned into a villain in the most stupid way manner (what happened to him in the "Sinestro Corps War" arc was never meant to be permanent), and he's still alive. He is one of the main characters of the current ''GreenLanternCorps'' title, is kinda dating a [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe hot alien chick]] and even had his own miniseries for a while. His character may be different from when he was in JLA, but at least he's still ''respectable''.
* ''[[Series/SonicTheHedgehog 'SatAM' Sonic The Hedgehog]]'' is ''very'' different from [[SonicTheHedgehog the games]], the titular character being the only perfect match between them. Unfortunately, Sega doesn't quite understand that [=SatAM=] is an AlternateContinuity, and so has caused sometimes painful Executive Meddling in the Archie comic based on it to attempt to use it as a merchandising vehicle for the almost-completely unrelated game series.
** The last issue of the comic's ''[=EndGame=]'' story arc was intended to be a 40-page extravaganza, with a different ending which left Sally (who was dropped from a tall building by a Freedom Fighter tricked into wearing a Sonic costume and taking out what she ''thought'' was one of the gang's mortal enemies) stone dead. However, fan reaction to Sally's fate and Sega's push for using her as a marketing device forced the story to be cut down to the normal 27 pages, and changed Sally's death into a coma. The re-release of the arc in the ''Super Special'' anthology rectified most of these problems. Of course, then Sally's {{Chickification}} came along, which may have been a FateWorseThanDeath.
** The British ''Sonic'' book, ''SonicTheComic'', was brought to cancellation because of Executive Meddling: the publishers did not have faith that the book would continue its popularity, despite selling more than ''2000AD'' at one point, and began decreasing the budget and demanding that there only be one new story per issue, the others being reprints of older stories. Then the comic became 100% reprint, the cover illustrations being just about the only new thing in them, until finally, the comic was axed completely.
*** These publishers operated under the bizarre, nonsensical idea that some comics won't last beyond a certain time despite what ''all'' sources and sales figures might say; they even considered cancelling ''2000AD'', Britain's most popular sci-fi comic and the "birthplace" of ''Comicbook/JudgeDredd''. Fortunately, the computer game company Rebellion bought the title, which continues to this day.
*** Amongst the other comics they ''did'' cancel at around the same time was ''RedDwarf Smegazine'', which was canceled just at the point when a sales spike from the 1993 series might have been expected.
** There's a rumor online that after the excellent TearJerker SatAM episode "Ultra Sonic" where the hero is temporarily reunited with his uncle, Sega demanded that Sonic never cry again.
* The recent ''Comicbook/{{Spider-Man}}'' storyarc "One More Day", in which Spider-Man's entire history for the last twenty years has been [[RetCon Retconned out of existence]] after a DealWithTheDevil, seems to have been written almost entirely on the direction of Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada for the sole reason of removing Spider-Man's marriage to long-time love interest Mary Jane Watson from continuity, thus prompting a healthy debate ([[SeriousBusiness to say the least]]) amongst fans questioning not only whether this plot development was necessary, but also whether a method of staging it which was less convoluted, ridiculous and both out of character and at odds with the overall tone of the series could have been devised. Writer JMichaelStraczynski agreed with the general idea and had been part of the planning process, but he and Quesada fought fiercely on the execution; when Quesada eventually vetoed him, Straczynski wanted his name out of the credits.
** Before ''One More Day'', there was the infamous ''Clone Saga'' in 1994. It was initially supposed to be a six-month arc, but after sales were good, Marvel's marketing department forcefully stretched out the story by almost ''two years'', ending in 1997. Interestingly, the ''Clone Saga'' was started for much the same reason as ''One More Day'', thus proving that, even though Marvel proudly crows that Status Quo ''isn't'' God in their books, they secretly long for it to be.
** ''One More Day'' and the ''Clone Saga'' are perhaps the textbook examples of Executive Meddling gone wrong on the comics pages; unfortunately for Spider-Man, they weren't the only instances. [[http://sfdebris.com/everything/nmsm1.asp This three-part essay]] describes the whole ordeal for those who want a particularly detailed, opinionated history.
** And apparently ''One More Day'' has now extended into the daily newspaper version of Spider-Man as well. Or at least it did, until apparent fan outrage caused them to do an AuthorsSavingThrow.
* Bob Budiansky, original writer of the Marvel ''{{Transformers}}'' comic book, was continually forced by Hasbro to introduce new characters during his run, causing him to burn out as the quality of the stories took a nosedive. Eventually, a burnt out Budiansky passed the writing duties on to Marvel U.K.'s Transformers writer Simon Furman, who brought to the American title the pseudo-religious/supernatural themes that would eventually lead to concepts such as The [=AllSpark=].
** Simon Furman recently got hit by this. He had just spent a few years writing a series of epic ''Transformers'' stories for IDW publishing that featured LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, as well as interesting new concepts like the [[ZombieApocalypse Dead Universe]] and a plausible Decepticon invasion plan that made vehicular disguises relevant to the story. Then, due to falling sales, IDW decided to truncate Furman's twelve-issue GrandFinale into ''four'' issues of the Spotlight series (necessitating each chapter focusing on a single character's thoughts in addition to all the action), and a five issue "Maximum Dinobots" series. Given the limited page count afforded him, Furman did an admirable job of wrapping up all his far-flung storylines.
* In the DCU CrisisCrossover ''InfiniteCrisis'', Nightwing was very nearly a victim of Executive Meddling, since Editor-in-Chief Dan Didio didn't know much about his character beyond "not Batman or Robin." Eventually he was convinced that a character that had been published consecutively for more than sixty years shouldn't be killed on a whim, so he was spared.
** Didio is notorious for imbecilic ideas like this, earning him the fan nickname "The Didiot" on the forums. He has other names but there may well be young tropers reading this.
** The biggest example of this may be that Didio and the editorial staff had complete control over the storyline for ''Countdown to Final Crisis'' specifically because Didio hated everything about DC's previous weekly series, ''52''. Of course, many comic fans liked ''52'', while ''[[SoBadItsHorrible Countdown]]''...
*** According to an interview with Mark Waid, Didio declared ''Countdown'' to be "''52'' done right." His tastes obviously [[{{Understatement}} differ from the fanbase's]].
* In the original ''{{Batman}}'' comics, The Joker started out as a sadistic serial killer; in the first two years he was used he killed close to 30 people. Eventually the editors decided that allowing him to kill so many made Batman look bad -- and not just bad, but incompetent, for not being able to stop him. As a result, for the next twenty years the Joker became a laughing idiot who robbed banks, built wacky gadgets, and pulled harmless pranks. Then in the 1970s Dennis O'Neil revived the character and made him a psychotic murderer again, even ''more'' dangerous than he was before.
** They did and do have a point, admittedly. Batman's [[JokerImmunity inability to permanently stop]] the Joker while simultaneously fighting gods and demons ''does'' make him and the Gotham legal system look bad. There's a thin line to walk.
*** An even stronger example is Batman himself. In some early issues of ''Detective Comics'' Batman himself would shoot criminals to death on a regular basis, until DC editorial director Whit Ellsworth asked the writers to tone it down and [[LighterAndSofter make it kid-friendly]]. This sounds incredibly jarring to modern audiences because ThouShaltNotKill has been Batman's defining moral principle for so long, rendering this early facet of his character almost unbelievable.
**** While the general summary is true, it's an overstatement to say that Batman would shoot and/or kill criminals "on a regular basis" in the early days. There were two instances of Batman killing with firearms in the early days - he shoots a vampire, and kills Hugo Strange's Monster Men with an aerial strafing run. Both fit categories where killing is [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman arguably acceptable]], even under a traditional heroic code against killing.
* [[Characters/{{Batman}} Cassandra Cain]] is an irritating example. Her FaceHeelTurn was forced by the EiC, but the story had potential, and it could have been good ''if the writer of that story bothered to do any research about the character he was about to write at all!'' After [[AuthorsSavingThrow the damage got a band aid]] it was decided that Cassandra'd get a new mini series of her own. It could've been good, but executives gave the job of writing that mini series ''to the same writer who flocked up her character to begin with.''
** Which also leads to some serious FridgeLogic: if Batgirl is able to beat Batman in a fight and Tim Drake could defeat Batgirl does that make Robin a better fighter than Batman? Also, how come they chose the one female member of the bat family (who still fights) to turn evil even though she has even less of a reason to than Batman himself?
** Let's be honest here: this is the "One More Day" of the DCU.
* Most of Dwayne [=McDuffie=]'s run on ''{{Justice League of America}}''. Despite writing what is supposedly DC's flagship title, issues he's had to deal with include not being able to use ANY of the Big Seven, and having to constantly rewrite stories around the plots of other books. In one instance [=McDuffie=] was informed that Hawkgirl was to be killed off in ''Final Crisis'', but at the last second was informed that she wouldn't die after all. The latter news came after a scene reacting to her death was both written and drawn.
** For the curious, that scene was in issue 31, where Roy Harper and Black Canary are talking about Roy's losing Hawkgirl to Hawkman. The dialogue rework is handled alright, but still inexplicitly takes place in a cemetery.
* The entire ''company'' of ImageComics is perhaps one of the quintessential examples of why ExecutiveMeddling is not always a bad thing. Image Comics was founded in 1992 by a coalition of former Marvel comic creators, mostly so they could have greater financial and creative control over their work (Marvel's policy at the time was to merchandise the crap out of their characters while only paying artists freelance rates and modest royalties). Now in fairness, the success of Image did lead to a lot of changes in the structure of the comic industry, many of them for the better, and Image itself has changed a lot over the years. On the other hand, the early history of Image Comics in many ways practically ''personifies'' all the things modern comic fans despise about the Dark Age of Comics. The company's success only exacerbated the growing popularity of infamous Dark Age comic tropes like DarkerAndEdgier, the DarkAgeOfSupernames, and the NinetiesAntiHero. Many of the more reviled icons of the Dark Age originate from or were associated with Image Comics. And all because someone thought it was a good idea to found a company based entirely on ProtectionFromEditors.
* A ''Mini Marvels'' backup feature in an issue of ''MarvelAdventures'' jokes that this is what the Skrull invasions of Earth are attempts at -- for the Skrulls, Earth is a popular reality show that they've gained ownership rights to, and now they want to exercise creative control. Unfortunately, Earth has turned out to have rather extreme ProtectionFromEditors.
* ''BloomCounty'' had this as a favorite target.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''KingdomOfHeaven''...one of the biggest examples on how ExecutiveMeddling can ruin a film. Originally more than 3 hours, the studio forced RidleyScott to cut the running time, cutting out complete elements of the story. Many characters and much of the plot was altered with this move, none more than the character of Sibylla. King Baldwin V, Sibylla's son, was cut completely from the movie. Depth for many characters were cut, such as much of Balian's backstory. When this movie opened in theaters, it was met with mostly poor reviews.
** The Director's Cut however, was critically acclaimed, some calling it the most significant DC of all time. Ridley Scott has disowned the theatrical version and calls this version, the "real" version.
* The movie ''{{Hellboy}}'' was almost a victim of Executive Meddling. While the movie was in its infant stages, executives felt that Hellboy should be changed from an out-and-out demon to a ''human'' who was somehow inexplicably born in Hell, or a human who turned into Hellboy when he got angry, a la the [[Comicbook/IncredibleHulk Hulk]]. Thankfully, the director vetoed all attempts to change the character.
** Executive Meddling succeeded in destroying Guillermo Del Toro's earlier film, ''Mimic''. He compared it to "...having a beautiful daughter and watching her arms get cut off," possibly a ''TitusAndronicus'' reference.
** Executive Meddling is also the reason why he can't get his ''At The Mountains of Madness'' script off the ground. Supposedly, the screenplay is religiously loyal to the HPLovecraft original, complete with [[UltimateEvil all the subtlety Lovecraft was known for]], and no gratuitous sex scenes, with makes it anathema to producers. Nonetheless, it appears to be being made.
** Guillermo Del Toro has got a pretty good track record for sticking to his guns whatever the executives try and tell him. He almost couldn't make ''PansLabyrinth'' because studios wanted him to [[SmallReferencePools set the story in Nazi Germany instead of Franco's Spain.]]
** He's not the only one: Keep in mind that he's Mexican and Mexican directors are famous for sticking to their guns (or at least trying), especially toward higher-ups and very especially towards American movie companies due to cultural, racial and historical reasons. That's the reason why only three Mexican directors (the other two are Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu) work in Hollywood. Other Mexicans either didn't accept any kind of American meddling or hate Hollywood with a passion.
* AlanMoore has had no direct involvement with film adaptations of his [[ComicBook comics]]. However, film executives have made changes, to the point where, early on Mr. Moore has not only distanced himself from any further attempts to make film translations of his works, he has also ''voluntarily relinquished all rights to the profits from them''. (He has also asked to have his name taken off the adaptations. Starting with ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'', they seem to be listening.)
** Speaking of ''{{Watchmen}}'', Fox's version certainly counts here. The film was updated to take place during the War on Terror, it went from a character study to a straight action flick, and [[spoiler:Ozy's big plot went from killing half of New York to bring about world peace to simply going back in time to kill Dr. Manhattan, thus somehow transporting the characters into the "real world", where they're known as comic-book characters]]. Be thankful for DevelopmentHell, folks; LoveItOrHateIt, WB's version is certainly more faithful, challenging, and involved than it could have been.
*** Even that movie was close to suffering extreme ExecutiveMeddling. Originally, they wanted to set it today, and Snyder said "If you change anything, I'm out." He was also the one who insisted on using David Hayter's script (which was endorsed by AlanMoore while he still believed that Hollywood could makea good movie), though it was amended slightly by Alex Tse, and he cast Jackie Earle Haley (say that out loud, it's really funny) as [[CueCullen Rorschach]]. There's a reason [[{{Pita}} I]] consider Zack Snyder to be one of the best comic book movie directors ever.
* After almost finishing production on ''[[Comicbook/{{Superman}} Superman II]]'', director Richard Donner was fired by producer Alexander Salkind, who wanted a lower-budget movie with more {{camp}}. The result on the franchise was disastrous -- many of the stars, including Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman, refused to work with new director Richard Lester, and the third and fourth movies in the series were so critically disliked that ''Superman Returns'' [[CanonDiscontinuity ignores them entirely]].
** The production of what would eventually become ''Superman Returns'' was similarly fraught with meddling from above. When KevinSmith was recruited to write a screenplay for the film in 1997, he eventually gave up after being ordered by producer Jon Peters to write a scene where Brainiac fights a ''polar bear''; [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk listen to him talking about it here]]. J.J. Abrams, also at Peters' instruction, created a treatment featuring Superman as an ordinary human being who got his powers from his suit, a living creature that crawled out of a tennis ball tube. It is said that Peters is not a fan of comic books, which may explain his apparent unawareness that he had ordered Superman to be turned into [[Comicbook/SpiderMan Venom]]. It wasn't until Bryan Singer was handed the project in 2003, and steadfastly refused to make any alterations to the mythos, that production actually got underway.
* Speaking of Jon Peters' involvement in ''{{Superman}}'', there's the legendary Saga of the GiantSpider. He seems to have something of an [[AuthorAppeal obsession]] with monstrous arachnids, often robotic.
** Peters had requested of NeilGaiman that Dream fistfight a spider, among others, in the proposed and quickly abandoned original ''TheSandman'' adaptation attempt. Peters finally got his spider fix when he produced the movie of ''WildWildWest''.
** The saga of the giant mechanical spider would later be spoofed in the animated movie ''Superman: Doomsday''. Supes really ''does'' fight a giant mechanical spider while a bystander who resembles Kevin Smith (and is voiced by him) calls the whole affair "lame".
** In ''ComicBookTheMovie'', Mark Hamill's character at one point interviews Kevin Smith about the film adaptation of his favorite superhero, where Smith mentions how executives wanted him to add a scene with a giant mechanical spider. Later, he acquires a copy of the shooting script with one shot of him looking up after reading "Scene 37: The Giant Mechanical Spider".
** The giant spider would make a brief appearance in the comic ''Superman: Birthright,'' which managed to do the impossible and make it '''''spectacular.'''''
** And possibly due to Jon Peters' ridiculous request for Brainiac to fight a polar bear, the miniseries ''Superman: Kryptonite'' has perhaps a ''very'' subtle joke where Superman is outside his Fortress of Solitude, talking about his relationship problems with Lois Lane. His lone listener, as it turns out, is a resting polar bear.
* Russell Mulcahy, the director of ''{{Highlander}} II: The Quickening'', has blamed the incredible crappiness that is the film on the fact that the film's insurance company took over production after he repeatedly came in late and over-budget. They made numerous changes to the movie, including changing the Immortals' BackStory, and merging together the two fight scenes between [=MacLeod=] and the villainous Katana. Mulcahy tried to salvage the movie later by re-cutting it to match his original vision as best he could and releasing it as ''Highlander II: The Renegade Version''. The movie was still pretty terrible, and future movies [[DisContinuity ignored it]].
* Producer/distributor Harvey Weinstein is infamous for recutting films without the consent of their directors, to the point that he has been [[DetractorNickname derisively nicknamed]] "Harvey Scissorhands" and "Darth Weinstein".
* The traitorous Lt. Valeris in 1991's ''StarTrek VI: The Undiscovered Country'' was originally written to be Lt. Saavik from the three previous films, so that her betrayal would have a more profound impact. However, GeneRoddenberry overruled writer/director Nicholas Meyer in what was by all accounts an epic battle of rank-pulling, and forced the creation of a "new" protege for Spock. In this case, it was Creator Meddling.
** However, Roddenberry had been a victim of pretty extreme executive meddling himself ([[YourMileageMayVary though many might say the franchise was better for it]]) after the quasi-failure of ''The Motion Picture'' in 1979. Paramount execs, enraged by the first film's price tag (one exec, when interviewing Harve Bennett for the job of replacing Roddenberry as Executive Producer flat out asked "Can you make it for less than forty-five-[[PrecisionFStrike fucking]]-million dollars?") and outraged by a script Roddenberry was shopping which would have had the Enterprise crew have to ensure the assassination of John F. Kennedy, kicked Roddenberry upstairs, taking him completely out of the day-to-day running of the next three movies. Helmed by two people unfamiliar with ''Star Trek'', they are universally considered the best movies in the series.
* An example of Executive Meddling having a positive effect; when he completed ''[[TheViewAskewniverse Clerks]]'', first-time director Kevin Smith initially experienced a lot of trouble raising interest from a distributor in order to sell it. It was suggested that he remove the unnecessary and out-of-place DownerEnding in which Dante is killed by a robber. The rest is [[TheViewAskewniverse history]].
* ''{{Film/Spider-Man}} 3'': Sam Raimi wanted to do a movie focusing on a hero with negative qualities and a villain with positive qualities, while wrapping up sub-plots involving Mary Jane and Harry "Goblin Jr." Osborne. The story was packed as it was, but producer Avi Arad insisted that fan-favorite Venom also be added into the film. Sam Raimi, who disliked the character, at first refused but eventually gave in and shoehorned Eddie Brock ''and'' Venom into the script. The result? '''Three''' villains, a cluttered story, and many unhappy fans. If you look closely, there's still parts where the story seems to make no sense at all unless you pretend Venom's not in it.
** One has to consider, though that even if Venom hadn't been put in, the Vulture was going to serve Venom's role anyway. Therefore, ''Spider-Man 3'' may have just simply been doomed anyway.
* As part of the movie's general spoofing of "underdog sports hero" movies, the script for ''Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story'' originally had the likeable underdog heroes lose the final dodgeball round to the JerkAss villain, but nevertheless recover some of their losses thanks to one of their number winning big in Vegas. The suits forced them to change this to an ending where the heroes ended up winning after all. In response, the director turned this into an over-complicated DeusExMachina-strewn ending, and later had a scene over the credits with the villain whining about how he only lost because "audiences can't cope with anything challenging, can you?" It's also spoofed on the DVD, which features an "alternate ending" which, if it had been genuine, would have been the cruelest ending ''ever''.
** They even play with the DeusExMachina ending: the movie even puts a small sign that says "Deus Ex Machina" on the treasure chest at the end!
* The ''{{Daredevil}}'' film is a pretty clear version of this: the director filmed one version of the movie, only for Fox executives to think that Jennifer Garner's ''Elektra'' had potential as a spinoff once they saw early footage. So the movie had a hacksaw taken to it as a result, with an entire lengthy subplot revolving around Matt Murdock defending a murder victim removed (with the consequence of the movie's ending now making no sense and leaving virtually no mention of the iconic Nelson & Murdock law firm in the movie), Elektra given prominence, and most of Daredevil's origins shunted to the side. As a result, the theatrical cut was panned, and then Elektra also didn't do well in theatres. Thankfully, the director's cut has become quite popular on DVD, and holds up as one of the better Marvel movies.
** It still doesn't explain why defence attorney Matt Murdock was prosecuting a rape suspect or then kills that same rapist later in the film, but even the best director's cut can't fix everything.
*** Well, technically, he didn't kill him. He just didn't save him from becoming 'Hose Quesada... and the rest of Hose Quesada' if you get my meaning.
* It seems that quite a lot of the film adaptation of ''[[HisDarkMaterials The Golden Compass]]'' resides somewhere on the cutting room floor, mainly because the studio was dead set on making this their new blockbuster franchise. Can't have anything remotely edgy in a PG-13-rated blockbuster franchise, can we? Therefore, among [[TheyJustDidntCare other things]], the books' notable avoidance of InfantImmortality has been done away with -- never mind that [[spoiler:the characters' deaths are very important to the plot. Indeed, Roger's death sets up the book's shocking cliffhanger by providing the very means by which Lyra and her father cross over into the other world]] -- and the setting of the second book.
** About the scene in the spoiler tag: it ''wasn't'' ExecutiveMeddling. It was a decision by the director and scriptwriter. They wanted to end the movie before the climax of the book so they could include it in the opening scenes of the ''Subtle Knife'' movie. So, [[spoiler:Roger WILL die in the next movie]].
*** Except, of course, there won't be a next movie. That's hubris for ya.
* Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale bowed down to a lot of Executive Meddling in order to get ''BackToTheFuture'' made, but they stopped short of renaming the movie ''Spaceman from Pluto''. Steven Spielberg handled this by answering the memo that suggested the new title with another one that basically read: "Thanks for the joke memo, guys: it's the funniest thing ever. We're still laughing about it." It actually worked, as the executive behind this was too proud to admit he was serious.
** The sequels only exist because of this. After the runaway success of the first film, Zemeckis and Gale were basically told "We're making more and either you'll make them or we'll get someone else." They opted to do the sequels.
* In ''TheMatrix'', the Wachowski brothers had wanted to have the machines use the humans plugged into the Matrix as a gigantic neural network computer. However, executives thought that [[ViewersAreMorons the audience wouldn't understand this]], so they changed it to using the humans to generate electricity, even though this violates the laws of thermodynamics and creates several plot holes (though some fans find it decent as a metaphor).
* In the stoner flick ''Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle'', one of the main focuses in the movie is about the subtle but ever-present racial issues that the racial minorities face in a hilarious manner. The execs wanted the director to change their ethnicity to them both being Jewish, which would have effectively nullified the central concept of the characters and, at the same time, ironically proven the point of the film. The director/writer said no and, as a compromise, placed a Jewish buddy duo into the movie as the lead characters' close friends.
** Perhaps as a reaction to this, the film's sequel places the racial issues completely front and center, with a plot that involves Harold and Kumar being arrested as terrorists simply for getting onto an airplane.
* ''FightClub'' has two noteworthy examples of Executive Meddling which are generally agreed to have improved their subjects. The scene where the narrator severely beats another member of the club out of jealousy for the apparent attention he was getting from Tyler Durden originally focused more on the beating. Censors deemed this unacceptable, so the scene was altered, in spite of the fact that many considered the alteration to be more disturbing than previously. In an even more extreme example, during the scene where Tyler is discussing with the narrator the night of sex he has just had with Marla Singer, there was originally a flashback line where she intimately whispers to Tyler that she "wants to have [his] abortion". Studio executives were outraged by this line and demanded that it be changed. The director complied; and the studio executives begged for it to be changed back when it turned into Marla nostalgically exclaiming that "[she] hadn't been fucked like that since grade school".
** ''FightClub'' also has a notable example of director/writer meddling which was considered an improvement. The films ends with the success of Project Mayhem and what appears to be a sort of reconciliation between Marla and Tyler, which differs rather greatly from the novel's ending. Even the book's author, Chuck Palahniuk, is said to have liked it better than his own ending.
*** Notably, though, Palahniuk mentions in his book "Non-Fiction" that the process of watching the book become the movie was deeply depressing, most especially in the amount of actors who just decided to write in their own bits of dialogue, including Pitt & Norton. It's more likely he preferred the ending simply because it wasn't a crap Hollywood ending.
* The ''Film/{{Alien}}'' series has the distinct honor of having one example of this spread over two media: with both the original movie's Adult Alien action figure and the "Newborn" Alien in ''Alien: Resurrection'', the sculptors and director, respectively, wanted to add actual genitals to them, but were slapped down as being "too much".
** In fairness, [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16716_7-terrible-early-versions-great-movies.html heavy meddling by Walter Hill and David Giler]] turned the Dan O'Bannon/Ronald Shusett from crap to great.
** ''Alien³'' had even more meddling: just to start, after some meddling in ''Aliens'', Sigourney Weaver didn't want to return, but the studio president disagreed on removing her character. The script by Vincent Ward suffered many changes, the biggest being turning the setting from a wooden monastery planet to a prison planet with monk inmates. And after director David Fincher finished the movie, the studio reworked it without his consensus.
* Ralph Bakshi's ''CoolWorld'' suffered from perhaps the more extensive cases of Executive Meddling. Originally, the movie was supposed to be about half-doodle/half-human [[PunnyName Debbie Dallas]], out to kill her human father for causing her to exist. The executives secretly rewrote the script and handed it back to Bakshi, changing the animated horror/thriller story to one about an artist getting trapped by his own creation. Bakshi also intended to have Drew Barrymore as the female lead, but instead they stuck him with Kim Basinger, who thought that it was a ''[[AnimationAgeGhetto children's movie]]''.
* ''TheWorldIsNotEnough'' had an ending early in production featuring a poignant scene in which JamesBond visits a mental hospital to cheer up FallenPrincess Elektra King, who has been institutionalized to treat her Stockholm Syndrome. This was nixed for unknown reasons, and replaced with a much less satisfying comedic ending featuring [[BondOneLiner very bad puns]] and [[LivingProp Dr. Christmas Jones]].
* The planned ending of the 2007 film of ''IAmLegend'' tested poorly and, at the studio's insistence, was replaced with one that was both nothing like the book and ''completely against the point of the original film''. Among other things, it introduces some serious plot holes, skips the shocking twist that made the book so successful (while still heavily foreshadowing the nonexistent twist), and ''removes the reason for the movie to be called "I Am Legend"''. Which, really, seems to be par for the course of ''every'' adaptation of the book.
* A planned adaptation of {{Terry Pratchett}}'s ''Discworld/{{Mort}}'' was nixed when producers wanted to [[CompletelyMissingThePoint "lose the Death angle"]]. See the above quote for Pratchett's comment.
** Thankfully, the adaptions of ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' and ''Discworld/{{The Colour of Magic}}'' remained faithful to the material.
*** Despite marketing ''The Colour of Magic'' in the film and TV tie-in section of bookstores. Someone must pay.
** There was also a film version of ''Discworld/{{The Wee Free Men}}'' in the pipes, but according to Terry the script he was shown "had all the hallmarks of something that had been good, and then the studio had got involved," and the project is now mired in DevelopmentHell.
** The BBC wanted to do seven series of thirteen episodes of the Watch novels. Unfortuntaely, according to Terry, they had the attitude "We cannot be bound by anything in the books because we are the BBC" So a Bible was written, which contained the absolute immutables. And back came the letter "Thank you for the Bible. If we feel the need to change anything in it, we'll be sure to let you know afterwards". The Watch-Novels-as-BBC-series has been canned.
* In ''TheDayTheEarthStoodStill'', Klaatu was [[spoiler:initially supposed to survive the barrage of bullets via the AppliedPhlebotinum that brought him back to temporary life in the final cut]] to reinforce his God-like powers. Unfortunately the censors didn't like the ending, suggesting it was too left-wing of a movie, forcing the line, "That power is reserved for [[CrystalDragonJesus the Almighty Spirit.]]" Given that the new Klaatu is Keanu Reeves, who did the same thing in ''TheMatrix'', someone must love irony.
* Another positive example: Forbidding Ingrid Bergman's character to leave her husband for the Bogart character in ''{{Casablanca}}'' led to its classic BittersweetEnding.
** Although this was a product of the HaysCode, and was not specifically directed at ''Casablanca''.
** Ingrid Bergman was always going to get on the plane; the ending that was changed was Bogart's character getting arrested by his French police friend (changed to him saying: "Round up the usual suspects" instead.)
* ''{{Airplane}}!'': the studio wouldn't let the producers use a propeller plane as the airliner, so the producers gave the jet a propeller plane sound instead.
* The movie of RobertAHeinlein's ''The Puppet Masters'' suffered from this. Executives who wanted to change the slugs to spores from space and other disgraces are listed in [[http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp15.Building.the.Bomb.html this essay]] by the script writer.
* ''Babylon A.D.'', which evidently made sense at some point, was reportedly disowned by its director over a particularly [[TVTropesWikiDrinkingGame egregious]] example of this. The full story can be found [[http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2008/08/babylon-ad-mathieu-kassovitz.php here]]. The studio in question? Fox.
-->"The film's production was reportedly riddled with problems, from vast delays to budgetary concerns to weather setbacks. Kassovitz points to the studio, 'Fox was sending lawyers who were only looking at all the commas and the dots,' he says. 'They made everything difficult from A to Z.' The last stroke, Kassovitz says, was when Fox interfered with the editing of the film, paring it down to a confusing 93 minutes. Diesel too was astounded at the film's length. Having just completed production of the fourth installment of ''The Fast and the Furious,'' he had not seen a cut of the film in six months. 'Am I even in the movie any more, or am I on the cutting room floor?' the actor joked. Fox could not be reached for comment on this story."
* The ''Hitman'' movie was severely meddled with, at least according to [[http://www.cinematical.com/2007/11/06/timothy-olyphant-says-hitman-director-was-maybe-sort-of-fir/ well-substantiated rumors]]. If you watch the trailers (and promotional stills) carefully, you can see the remains of a different "train station" scene. It is said that the producers ordered the editor (Nicolas de Toth) to actually direct the re-shoot (the infamous swordfight scene) without even notifying the director Xavier Gens about it. Also, the leaked near-final script contains scenes that could be matched to the remains seen in trailers and promotional photos. The studio in question? Fox. Again.
* Shusuke Kaneko originally wanted to use Varan and Anguirus for a ''{{Godzilla}}'' film he was directing. However, the Executives at Toho Studios made him use two more popular monsters instead. And, thus, we ended up with ''Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack''. Though, this is a case of Executive Meddling being a good thing since GMK is one of the better films of the franchise.
** Although the weird thing is that King Ghidorah is the ''villain'' in all other films that he appears in.
* The 1986 musical ''LittleShopOfHorrors'' featured a {{KillEmAll}} ending true to the off-Broadway musical in which all of the main characters are eaten by Audrey II, who goes on to take over the world in a special effects extravaganza. David Geffen felt audiences would hate the ending, so it was completely reshot (clumsily) so that Seymour and Audrey would live while Audrey II was electrocuted. The original DVD had the alternate ending with a sad Frank Oz optional commentary, but was recalled by Geffen.
* The original plans had ArnoldSchwarzenegger in ''ConanTheBarbarian'' being the narrator. The suits didn't like that, therefore ''Mako'' became the narrator.
** Which, again, just goes to show that ExecutiveMeddling can have positive effects, because Mako's narration is so [[LargeHam high on pork content]] it's ''impossible'' not to like it.
*''Logan's Run'' had [[http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/loganmovie/index.htm loads of important scenes cut]]. The reason? The studio suddenly decided it had to be a PG movie. ''[[WallBanger A PG-rated movie based on Logan's Run.]]''
* One of the wonderful defiances is from TimBurton in ''MarsAttacks!'' He was told he couldn't kill JackNicholson's character. The solution? Cast him twice, [[spoiler: and kill him twice]].
* ''EnemyMine'' suffered from this one. The studio executives believed [[ViewersAreMorons the title would confuse audiences]] who wouldn't realize "mine" was the first person possessive, and so insisted on the addition of a subplot involving a mine. Run by the enemy.
* While the EdWood "masterpiece" ''Glen or Glenda?'' would have been a horrible movie regardless, the suits [[{{Pun}} pulled the strings]] behind the scenes, adding softcore bondage so the film could draw more publicity as an adults-only extravaganza. Ironically this meant that the film didn't make much of a profit and only gained national attention when it was re-released in theatres in the coming decades.
* The Orange Cinema adverts reference this. In a recent one Macaulay Culkin (the actor who played the boy from ''HomeAlone'') is acting in a deep-sounding film about a guy in jail writing a diary/letter about his experiences/history. Then a director comes on, and pitches a ''HomeAlone'' sequel. Next thing we know people are thumping into each other and paint cans are knocking their heads (like in the movies). Mac is not amused. (The advert could also be in reference to ''Home Alone's'' {{Sequelitis}}.)
* The first draft of the ''SuperMarioBros.'' movie script was actually quite faithful to the games, containing such things as King Koopa as the giant turtle we all know and love, Luigi with a mustache, actual mushroom-shaped goombas, Toad as the familiar mushroom we all know from the games, piranha plants, chain chomps, cheep-cheeps, hammer bros., big pipes sticking out of the ground, thwomps, and a scene featuring Luigi using the racoon power-up. Unfortunately, the project was handed to a director who [[WallBanger wanted a more hip, adult, action-oriented film]], and [[VideoGameMoviesSuck we all know what happened next]].
* ''AStreetcarNamedDesire'' had a fair amount of this going on during production. Some of the jazzy, brass-heavy music was deemed "too suggestive" and re-scored with strings. The ending was also changed, to show Stella leaving Stanley after he rapes Blanche.
* The movie version of the stage musical ''[[SeventeenSeventySix 1776]]'' -- which was actually commissioned by the US government as part of the runup to the bicentennial -- was subjected to ''executive branch'' meddling: Richard Nixon disliked the modern-day parallels/implications of the VillainSong (or at least Antagonist Song) "Cool Considerate Men," which was an ode to the wealthy, risk-averse conservatives who opposed the Independence movement ("To the right, ever to the right! Never to the left, forever to the right!"). He pressured his old buddy movie producer Jack Warner to not only expunge the number from the film but to ''destroy the footage'' as well. However, Warner was no longer directly in charge at the studio and the negatives were simply packed into unmarked boxes. The song was restored to its rightful place in the movie for the Special Edition DVD release.
*According to the commentary on the extended edition DVD, the creative team behind ''Underworld'' was pressured by the studio to keep Viktor a sympathetic character throughout, and have Lucian be a straight villain. (One wonders what would have actually ''happened'' in said meddled-with movie, since that would have basically negated the entire story and the bulk of the action.) The writing/directing team luckily prevailed, keeping the revelation of Lucian as a sympathetic figure and Viktor as a lying murderous jerk.
* ''{{Brazil}}''. Dear Lord, ''Brazil''. Universal tried to hack this film -- now considered one of the greatest, most intelligent sci-fi films ever made -- down from 142 minutes to 97 (that's 45 minutes there, folks) give it a happy ending, turn it into a love story, and replace Michael Kamen's orchestral score with hit rock music to "attract the teens". Director TerryGilliam fought for and secured a theatrical release of his preferred 132-minute cut, ''without'' the studio's permission, and it is this version which is the standard on home video as opposed to the studio's "Love Conquers All" cut.
* ''The Watcher in the Woods'' was a major victim of ExecutiveMeddling.
** The film’s original screenplay, which was written by Brian Clemens was deemed too intense by Disney, with the company hiring first Rosemary Anne Sisson and then Gerry Day to revise it.
** It didn’t help the film that producers Ron Miller and Tom Leetch would argue some of the film’s scenes, with Miller wanting to tone down some of the film's intense scenes. An example of this includes a scene where the film’s heroine receives a BrightSlap from her mother, which was toned down to have the mother shake her shoulders instead.
** The film’s intended ending was to have [[spoiler: the Watcher appear and take the heroine to his spaceship, which contained the girl that was haunting the heroine throughout the film.]] However, Disney wanted to rush the film’s release to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Bette Davis’s acting career (Bette Davis played the role of the missing girl’s mother). As a result, the scenes involving the spaceship, which weren’t even finished at the time, were left out of the film, and the ending became unintelligible. After receiving a poor response by critics, the film was pulled from theaters and wouldn’t be officially released for over a year.
** Rather than finish the special effects shots required for the film’s intended ending, Disney instead changed the ending in which [[spoiler: the Watcher is now a pillar of light (instead of an insectoid alien), with the events of the missing girl’s disappearance and the Watcher’s presence being explained by the heroine’s younger sister (who is possessed by the Watcher).]] In the process, Disney also cut twenty minutes off the film’s run time and changed the film’s opening credits sequence (the original sequence was darker and featured the Watcher scaring a girl and incinerating her doll, with the credits appearing on screen while the doll’s head was melting).
** When Anchor Bay was releasing Disney films on DVD, the company enlisted the film’s the director, John Hough, to re-edit the film, with the plans being to release a two-dsic version of the film that would contain the original 1981 release and a director’s cut, which would include the original opening credits sequence and a finished version of the film’s intended ending. Disney showed great resistance to Anchor Bay’s planned release (with most of it probably being due to the fact that Anchor Bay’s releases of Disney films were of much better quality than Disney’s own DVD releases) In the end, while Anchor Bay was eventually able to release ''The Watcher in the Woods'' on DVD, only the original 1981 version of the film was released, with a rough cut of the [[spoiler: spaceship]] ending appearing on the DVD as an “alternate ending” (along with a second “alternate ending” that is an approximation of the ending that appeared in the original version of the film). Both endings would eventually appear on the Disney DVD version of the film.
* ''Times Square'' was a victim of this. The original cut contained lesbian content, which the producers wanted removed. Additionally, the producers wanted additional songs added so that the soundtrack would be a double album. Director Allan Moyle resisted, and ended up getting fired. The deleted footage is apparently lost.
* Rob Zombie's 2003 horror film ''House of 1,000 Corpses'' was initially filmed while Rob was negotiating for Universal Pictures to distribute it. When Universal execs saw the final cut, they turned pale and refused to release it, though it was eventually picked up by Lion's Gate. Rob groused to ''Guitar World'' Magazine shortly thereafter that "I called it ''House of 1,000 Corpses''; what did they '''think''' it was going to be about?"
* Dino De Laurentiis pared "Dune" down by hours and the result was a confusing mess to many people who didn't read the book.
** [[TakeThat Some might say the result was a confusing mess to those who ''did'' read the book, as well.]]
* A rare good case occurred with ''[=~Monty Python's Life Of Brian~=]''. The initial studio abandoned the film just as the Pythons were getting ready to shoot ("when they finally read the script," according to Michael Palin). Enter former [[TheBeatles Beatle]] George Harrison, who happened to be a) extremely rich and b) a total Python fanboy. He founded a production company for the sole purpose of financing the film and more or less let the Pythons do whatever they wanted. When asked why, Harrison said "Well, I wanted to see the movie."
* The first ''{{Dungeons and Dragons}}'' movie is a text book case of this. I forget the names involved, but an individual purchased the rights to produce a film based on the D&D game. The intention was to find a good director watch how they did things and learn a bit about the movie industry. However, being a newcomer to the industry, he gave too many rights to TSR, such as director approval. At the time, TSR was owned by what sounds to be a moron who alienated or turned down every director presented. I can't say for certain, but I believe that Francis Ford Coppola was one of the directors tapped and that said moron executive asked him "What makes you qualified to do this movie?" or something similar. In the end, Wizards of the Coast bought the D&D rights and decided to get rid of the whole situation by insisting that the would-be producer who wanted to watch a master actually be the director as well as insisting on the use of an older version of the script that had been previously thrown out of consideration. All told, it seemed as if they really just wanted to dump the extra baggage.
* The original ''[[EvilDead Army of Darkness]]'' ending had Ash drinking too much of a sleeping potion and, instead of waking up in the present, arriving in the [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic future]] and screaming through the credits. When test audiences complained about the ending, meddling executives stepped in to request a new, much happier ending be filmed in its place. It does make a case for TropesAreNotBad, though, as the theatrical ending's counted by many fans as Ash's CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
* The ''[[FridayTheThirteenth Friday the 13th]]'' series has suffered a number of WallBanger moments due to this. One particularly glaring example was in Part VIII, which was supposed to be one-third on the boat, and two-thirds in New York, and the studio forced the director to reverse the ratio. Another one is in Part VII, when the protagonist's dad pops out of the water and drags Jason down with him, he was ''supposed'' to look all gnarly and decayed, ''[[DidNotDoTheResearch like someone would after being at the bottom of a lake for ten years]]''. Instead, he looks he like just fell in a puddle. (Unintentional)HilarityEnsues.
* ''Batman Returns'' did relatively worse than the original film thanks to the one-two punch of a [[DarkerAndEdgier mature, depressing]] story that didn't appeal to parents who still thought that [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Batman was for kids]]. Burton was booted off and replaced with Joel Schumacher who made the series more {{Camp}} and [[LighterandSofter kid-friendly]]. Schumacher went on to singlehandedly [[BatmanandRobin kill off not only Batman but superhero movies as we knew it during the 90's]].
** Not singlehandedly. Schumacher was also plagued by ExecutiveMeddling and lamented that the higher-ups used ''Batman'' as a series of toy commercials.
* ''[[Film/{{Wolverine}} X-Men Origins: Wolverine]]'': The Fox executives decided that it would be a '''brilliant''' idea to take {{Deadpool}}, the Merc with the Mouth and possibly the most popular character appearing in the movie (people are getting tired of Wolverine), introduce him and then remove him quickly, and then ''sew his mouth shut''. Because he would be too entertaining and take attention away from Wolverine or something (no one knows the exact reason), even though Wolvie had already had three movies to himself.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In a literal case of "Executive" meddling, {{Shakespeare}} wrote "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in response to Queen Elizabeth I's insistence that he feature the character John Falstaff in a comedy. Falstaff's previous appearances had been in histories set in the 14th and 15th centuries; "The Merry Wives" arbitrarily plucks him out of time and places him in the contemporary 17th century.
* Daniel Keyes' first attempt to publish ''Literature/FlowersForAlgernon'' almost ran afoul of this; the editor he took it to demanded that he give the story a happy ending where Charlie keeps his enhanced intelligence. Fortunately, every writer Keyes asked about it told him to refuse.
* In an odd case, [=TSR=] told R.A. Salvatore to bring back Wulfgar, or they would do have someone else do it for them. What makes it odd is that Drizzt was clearly the [[EnsembleDarkhorse breakout hit character]], with Wulfgar as a mostly unneeded sidekick. Salvatore did the best he could, though, and in the end got some good stories out of it and wrote the character out again (this time much as he had written out the barbarian tribes the character belonged to shortly after the character's "death").
* ''The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories'', a short story by Neil Gaiman is not an example, but it is ''about'' Executive meddling, plus truly epic amounts of AdaptationDecay. A writer is called in to Hollywood to work on a film adaptation of his hit novel, ''Sons of Man,'' which is a speculative story about Charles Manson being possessed by a demon, and the children he sired of the women in the Manson family coming under the power of that demon, with a sole daughter he had trying to stop them. By the time the ever-changing Hollywood executives are done with it, its a slasher plot called ''When we were Badd'' about a serial killer named Jack Badd who posessed a video game after execution and possessed the kids who played it, with the now-male protagonist saving the day by burning the electric chair the killer was executed in.
** It ends with the writer's offhand quote of a song lyric being taken out of context and used as the plot for a completely different movie about a woman trapped in a loveless marriage. At that point he gives up and goes home.
* Writers in the ''StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' have editors going over work and vetoing what they don't think fits into canon. Some of them aren't all that bright. TimothyZahn, in a panel summarized [[http://gabri-jade.livejournal.com/105471.html here]], complains about editors claiming that R-2 can't fly Luke's X-Wing in [[HandOfThrawn Specter of the Past]].
-->"So," Zahn said, with absolutely the driest expression and tone of voice you ever saw, "I pointed out that way back in ''[[TheThrawnTrilogy Heir to the Empire]]'', Artoo flew the X-wing to Coruscant on his own. 'But Artoo can't fly the X-wing.' Okay, in [[TheEmpireStrikesBack ESB]], ''one of your own movies'', Luke's X-wing was inside the Hoth base, but Luke meets it outside. 'But Artoo can't fly the X-wing.' Then later in the movie, Luke tells Artoo, "No thanks, I'll keep it on manual for a while." Manual indicates that there must be an automatic. 'But Artoo can't fly the X-wing.'"\\
\\
"Finally," he said, "I figured out what it was that bothered them. It wasn't Artoo flying the X-wing; it was his docking the ship with the ''[[CoolShip Starry Ice]]'' without the aid of tractors." He added exactly three words to the existing scene, with Faughn now telling Luke that the Starry Ice had a pair of half-ports "with tractor assists". The editors were happy, and all was well.
** One that did work out was that LucasFilm shot down Timothy Zahn's original name for the Noghri which was Sith, to explain why Darth Vader was known as the Lord of the Sith.
*** The reason, of course, was that Zahn didn't realize that GeorgeLucas already had something very different in mind for the meaning of that title.
** In the ''NewJediOrder'' novel series, Anakin Solo was killed halfway through at the insistence of GeorgeLucas. Lucas had decided that since there were prequel-era novels starring Anakin Skywalker being published at the same time, and Anakin Solo was set to be the main hero of the second half of the ''[=NJO=]'' story, [[ViewersAreMorons readers would be confused by both eras having a main character with the same first name]].
*Legendarily, RobertAHeinlein's ''StrangerInAStrangeLand'' was pared for both size and content to meet publisher demands. Thankfully, the editing was done meticulously by Heinlein himself, so the novel came out more or less as intended. Following his death, the unedited version was released by Heinlein's widow. {{Your Mileage May Vary}} on which version is better.
* ''{{Harry Potter}}'': The first book, ''HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'', was meddled with to become ''... and the Sorcerer's Stone'' in the United States. Executives argued that kids "[[{{Viewers Are Morons}} wouldn't want to read anything with 'philosopher' in the title]]."
** The British publisher did their own meddling on the first book. They were the ones who insisted the author go by JKRowling since it was felt boys wouldn't want to read a book written by a woman. They also wanted to cut the troll scene where Harry and Ron save Hermione.
* [[SwordOfTruth Terry Goodkind]]'s book ''Wizard's First Rule'' had at least one instance of the use of the titular rule scratched out by the editor. Maybe it was for the better, since we all know [[ProtectionFromEditors where]] [[AuthorFilibuster it]] [[ProtectionFromEditors went]] [[AuthorAppeal from]] [[ProtectionFromEditors there]]...
** A. PleaseElaborate, and B. It wasn't for another five or six books that he got either ProtectionFromEditors ''or'' started doing the {{Author Filibuster}}s.
* The final book in the third ''WarriorCats'' series had it's name changed from ''Cruel Season'' to ''Sunrise'' because Harper Collins felt the original title was too sad and not appropriate for the younger readers. Not only does this cause a lot of confusion with the final book of the ''second'' series (''Sunset''), but changing the title still doesn't change the fact that the book ''is'' sad. To make things even more mindboggling, [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar the authors were allowed to use the phrase "cruel season" in the blurb of the very next book]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''ArrestedDevelopment'' had attempted Executive Meddling all over the place. After a first season in which it won Best Comedy at the Emmys, the ratings still weren't good so they asked the writers to dumb it down. David Cross angrily rants about this in the DVD commentary, saying that if the show is so critically acclaimed and won awards, and it still doesn't have enough viewers, maybe they should market it better.
* ExecutiveMeddling ''almost'' stopped the Daleks from ever appearing on ''DoctorWho''. SydneyNewman, one of the several creators of the series and the then-head of drama at TheBBC thought that [[AliensAndMonsters bug-eyed monsters]] like the Daleks smacked of [[WeirdScience lowbrow Sci-Fi]] rather than the more cerebral ScienceFiction approach he wanted. The series' first producer, 28-year-old Verity Lambert, remained steadfast and the Daleks appeared. As we all know, though, ''DoctorWho'' never again resorted to having the Doctor fight a MonsterOfTheWeek or stooping to fight PeopleInRubberSuits.
** For his part, Newman admitted during an interview years later that opposing the Daleks hadn't been one of his better ideas, contrasting it ironically with his reputation as a "brilliant" TV producer.
** Originally the Doctor would merely have a young companion, but that might seem "improper" unless they had a familial relationship, so Susan turned into his grand-daughter. (Obviously this particular attempt at ExecutiveMeddling also got abandoned.)
** Ironically, a few years later, however, Newman's boss, the head of BBC TV, suggested the 12 episode story featuring the Daleks, allegedly because of his mother liked them so much, much to the displeasure of Verity Lambert's replacement, John Wiles.
** Modern ''DoctorWho'' isn't necessarily free of this, by all accounts; it has reportedly been mandated from above that every story must feature some kind of monster, regardless of whether it is appropriate to include one. The episode 'Father's Day' was reportedly meant to not include any monsters at all, before this executive degree mandated the inclusion of the ClockRoaches that power the plot.
** ExecutiveMeddling really whacked the franchise upside the head in the mid-1980s as well. The head of drama at the BBC decided he didn't like ''DoctorWho'' and essentially decided to have the show put on hiatus for 18 months... scrapping pre-production on an entire season of the franchise, including [[MissingEpisode three fully-scripted and partially-cast episodes]]. The series was allowed to come back at a drastically reduced episode count (12 episodes at a half-hour each, compared to the 13 45-minute episodes they had before the hiatus) and with a lower budget. The series survived to have another Doctor, via ExecutiveMeddling, and three more seasons on the air... but even more ExecutiveMeddling put the show against [[CoronationStreet another network's incredibly-popular series]] without bothering to note it to the general public... and then the series was put on hiatus one more time in 1989 until [[TheMovie the 1996 movie]] and [[{{Revival}} the 2005 revival series]].
* In the pilot episode of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer,'' the character Willow wears drab clothing that her mother picked out for her. Network execs told creator JossWhedon that they wanted Willow to "look more like Buffy" who wore brighter, preppier, and more stylish clothing. This had a positive result, however, as Whedon decided to give Willow colorful, if geeky clothing, leading to the famous fuzzy sweaters and silly clothes.
** Willow's character was the subject of a lot of meddling. In the unaired pilot, she was played by Riff Regan, who actually looked like she could be a geeky social outcast, as opposed to... say... [[{{HollywoodHomely}} Alyson Hannigan]]. She wasn't recast for this reason, however -- she frequently flubbed lines and generally played the character as too nervous.
** But the most famous example of ''Buffy'' meddling involves {{The WB}}'s notoriety for jumping to ridiculous conclusions about what would upset the audience (see also the ''{{X-Men Evolution}}'' example below). Remember when the "Graduation" season finale of "BuffyTheVampireSlayer" almost didn't air in the wake of the Columbine tragedy? True, it involved the image of a class full of students coming to school armed to the teeth... to ''fight [[BigBad a giant demon-thing]]'' in a showdown between good and evil that had been set-up as the climax for the entire season. This was apparently considered TooSoon. Yeah...
*** The WB also postponed the ''Buffy'' episode "Earshot," as the episode involved a plot to mass-murder students (with a RedHerring that it would be by shooting). It was supposed to be the next episode to air following Columbine, so the network instead aired a rerun of "Band Candy". The irony is that Buffy keeps the character Jonathan from killing himself in "Earshot", which makes it all the more significant that he is the one to give her the Class Protector Award in "The Prom", the episode that was originally to air after "Earshot". OutOfOrder like that, it makes little sense.
*** To be fair to The WB, these examples aren't entirely as ridiculous as they're made out to be. Both involve potentially or actually violent confrontations involving members of the student body armed with lethal weaponry in a school, one of them has very very strong hints throughout the episode of setting up a school shooting (to the extent that Jonathan's suicide attempt arguably looks like a little bit of an AssPull to set up the RedHerring Twist; he's planning to kill himself with a frickin' ''sniper rifle'' in a ''clock tower'' for cryin' out loud), and the other of which involves the heroes ''actually blowing up the school''. The mood immediately after Columbine (when both these episodes would have aired) was very on-edge regarding both media violence and especially material involving violence in schools, which is not entirely surprising when you consider that a lot of kids and teachers had only recently been brutally executed in one. It's easy to sneer at them in retrospect, but back then there's very little else they could have done without being accused of being -- and, frankly, looking -- inhumanly insensitive and disrespectful in the process.
* ''TheJohnLaroquetteShow'' started off as a quirky off-beat comedy focusing on the main character's 12 Step recovery from alcoholism. Network executives forced the producers to eliminate the 12 Step material after the first season, which took much of the original unique and edgy flavor away from the show.
** From there it turned into another 'single people with relationship problems' type of show, the exact sitcom stereotype the series was trying to stray from. John Hemingway also lost his cool, brooding, intellectual demeanor in the process.
* Spock's pointed ears on ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' were almost the victim of panicky {{NBC}} executives, who were afraid that superstitious hordes of TV viewers would think he was Satanic. They went so far as to airbrush the points out of a number of promotional photographs. GeneRoddenberry managed to save Spock's ears by promising plastic surgery for the character if audience response was poor. As we know, it was anything ''but'' bad. After Spock's popularity was established, no one at NBC would ever admit to being anything but ''for'' pointed ears.
** Similarly, Roddenberry's original plan for perfect 50-50 gender equity among the crew of the ''Enterprise'' was scuttled by nervous suits who said, "Don't you see? It makes it look like there's a lot of ''fooling around'' going on up there!" It was only with great effort that he was able to retain a 30% female crew.
*** It's worth noting that, according to ''Inside Star Trek: The Real Story,'' written by Desilu Studios executive Herb Solow and co-producer Robert Justman, half the reason Roddenberry wanted perfect gender equity among the crew was because he spent half the time an episode was filming hitting on the actresses. Solow also notes that there isn't a single female security officer aboard the ''Enterprise,'' as Roddenberry believed that women were "tools in a man's shed," or something to that effect.
*** Which means that the executives were right, and it would have implied the crew was promiscuous. You sir have just broken my mind.
**** To be fair, the role model for the crew was Captain Kirk...
***** To be even more fair, this line of assertion is at best debatable given Roddenberry isn't alive to defend himself. There's no doubt Roddenberry was something of a womaniser, but Bill Shatner's book ''Star Trek Memories'', composed from interviews with many of the relevant players of the time, has a different point of view. It speaks of how Roddenberry wanted a female Number One (played by Majel Barrett, who would later become Roddenberry's wife, as well as Nurse Christine Chapel in the series proper) who was cool and authoritative as a foil for Kirk's exuberance, and for sheer uniqueness value: it would have been unique for [[TheFifties the time]], and Roddenberry fought almost as hard to retain his female second in command as he did his Vulcan science officer. The network was demanding that he couldn't have a ''female'' Number One because executives thought it would [[ViewersAreMorons turn off housewives, who wouldn't relate to a woman in a position of such authority.]] Roddenberry reportedly said "They told me I couldn't keep both Spock and Number One, so I kept the Vulcan and married the woman, because I obviously couldn't have done it the other way around..."
** However, these combined into a positive example of Executive Meddling; shelving #1, the original, female 1st Officer, led to Spock being the emotionless second-in-command and the most popular character.
** Uhura, the most visible female character, was denied a chance to command the ''Enterprise'' in one episode because an executive flat out told Roddenberry "we don't believe her in charge of anything". Nichelle Nichols got a lot of crap thrown her way by the executives: for the first season, she wasn't a regular member of the cast, and her ''fan mail was kept from her''. She almost left the show, until she met Martin Luther King at a party, who convinced her to stay on and serve as a black role model.
*** And it wasn't just females in such situations they disliked. The network, fearful of an outcry from the [[ViewersAreMorons Deep South]], put the kibosh on a scripted kiss between Kirk and Uhura in one episode, primarily because it would have been an ''interracial'' kiss. William Shatner in his book ''Star Trek Memories'' invites fans to look at the scene carefully -- it is implied that the two do kiss, but in reality it didn't happen. Reportedly there were a bunch of suits in the room peering at the actors to ensure the shot didn't take place. ExecutiveMeddling in one of its most immediate, physical forms.
****Actually, the kiss ''did'' happen. The producers insisted on the fake kiss, while Shatner, Nichols, and Roddenberry wanted to do it for real. Eventually, they reached a compromise: the cast would shoot two versions, one where the kiss was faked and one where the kiss actually happened. Shatner screwed up every faked take on purpose (including crossing his eyes and sneezing) and then shot the scene with the real kiss correctly, so that in the end there was only one version available to use. The response to the kiss was also much less vehement than the execs feared; a man from the South who was opposed to racial mixing wrote in to say that he couldn't blame Kirk for kissing "a fine looking dame" like Uhura.
** The original {{pilot}} episode for the original series, ''The Cage'', was considered "too intellectual" by the executives, so a new one was made. Gene Roddenberry then created the two-parter ''The Menagerie'' as a FramingDevice in order to utilize footage from ''The Cage''. ''The Menagerie'' won a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.
* However, when ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' had its pilot, the Meddling was a positive. "Encounter At Farpoint" was originally just about the crew visiting a strange starbase, in a one-hour pilot show. When the Execs wanted a "Two Hour Event", Gene and DC were forced to add in a new alien threat to pad the show out. This would be Q, one of the most beloved and important "villains" in ''Star Trek'' history.
* The original series concept for ''TheMaryTylerMooreShow'' was about a young divorced woman, but {{CBS}} executives were afraid that viewers would think that meant Mary had divorced ''Dick Van Dyke'' (Moore having previously played Van Dyke's wife in ''TheDickVanDykeShow''). To protect their investment from the legions of morons they believed were watching, the execs forced the producers of the show to turn Mary into a young unmarried woman fleeing a failed romance.
** Some tropers may also not recall that in 1970, a divorced woman was usually thought to be morally suspect and deeply flawed (even at that late date, divorce was still thought to be almost always the woman's fault). Having a divorced young woman ''as the main character'' would have been a problem no matter who she'd been played by.
* The series ''[[HomicideLifeOnTheStreet Homicide: Life on the Street]]'' was a repeated victim of ExecutiveMeddling, with {{NBC}} pulling the series off the schedule so frequently that only thirteen episodes were aired in the show's first two years, and several episodes in the first season aired out of order. Critical acclaim and a vocal cult audience kept the show on the air. Later, NBC pressured the show to cut loose veteran actors Ned Beatty and Daniel Baldwin and add younger, more photogenic cast members, including two unrealistically glamorous female detectives in seasons six and seven. Similarly, the show's original gritty, idiosyncratic camera style became much more polished and traditional as the series went on. Even the original squadroom set was repainted and modernized. Finally, NBC agreed to renew the show for an eighth season... ''if'' the show moved to Miami Beach rather than Baltimore, became about a private detective agency rather than a homicide unit, ''and'' fired the entire cast save Richard Belzer and the two aforementioned glamorous female detectives. Luckily for all concerned, the creators of the show refused to play ball.
** ''LawAndOrder'' suffered from the same type of meddling, when the show was forced -- in the name of expanding the demographic reach -- to replace Lt. Cragen and Paul Robinette with Lt. Van Buren and Claire Kincaid, respectively.
*** Of course, this is arguably a positive example. Merkerson is still on the show, having appeared in more episodes than any other cast member, and Hennessy lasted three seasons before getting her own show, ''CrossingJordan''. Florek eventually returned to his role as Capt. Cragen on the successful spinoff ''LawAndOrder: SVU''.
*** Even Dick Wolf has gone on record admitting that the executives were right that time.
* In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published a novel called ''It Can't Happen Here'', about the election of a fascist government in the United States. In 1982, Kenneth Johnson adapted it as a possible TV miniseries called ''Storm Warnings'', but it was rejected as "too cerebral". Eventually it was [[AdaptationDecay modified]] such that the American fascists became extraterrestrial invaders who ate people. The result was ''{{V}}''.
** This almost seems too much of a stretch to be true...
* In the second season of ''[[BabylonFive Babylon 5]]'', TheWB execs insisted on the creation of a hotshot fighter pilot character that they actually called "the Han Solo of Babylon 5," a phrase series creator JMichaelStraczynski hated due to its implication that [[ViewersAreMorons the viewer would be unfamiliar]] [[SmallReferencePools with any kind of science fiction besides]] ''StarWars''. Since it was the only way the show would survive past its first season, he went along and created Lt. Warren Keffer. However, he got his revenge by giving Keffer as little to do as possible, and at the end of the season, killed him off in a very painful manner. By this point, the executives had completely forgotten that they insisted upon the character in the first place.
** JMichaelStraczynski's experience creating the ''[[BabylonFive Babylon 5]]'' sequel series ''{{Crusade}}'' for {{TNT}} was full of meddling; Turner execs reportedly asked him to add more sex and violence, and write a second pilot directly under their oversight. They even forced changes in the color scheme of the sets and uniforms after filming had begun. A [[LampshadeHanging lampshade was hung]] on this in one episode, with a sarcastic comment about interfering higher-ups back on Earth. The series was canceled before it even aired, and to add insult to injury, the episodes were aired out of their intended order.
* The American version of ''BigBrother'' has had ''numerous'' cases of ExecutiveMeddling. Obviously such cases would wind up slanting the game...but slanting it towards a few houseguests won't always work. (Janelle winning would have been best for ratings...yet Maggie wound up taking home the prize in the end.) But there were several notorious instances where it severely affected the outcome of the game on top of player stupidity.
** In the third season of Big Brother, they found out the hard way that letting the houseguests see what was going on in the house after they were evicted and would cast votes for who should win made a ''large'' impact on the game. Daniele was known for playing the best game and by all means, they'd vote for her to win, right? Well even if she made it with Jason in the finals, the other houseguests saw her insulting them in the Diary Room and obviously picked the girl who was nicer to them to win.
** The eighth season tried to keep the JerkAss and his whiny spoiled daughter around because they were good for ratings. The idea of "America's Player" wound up affecting the game in their favour because they loved to see JerkAss prank people and just be mean. There was also a time in which he was practically assaulting another player with cigarettes. If anyone ''else'' did that, they'd have been kicked out of the show in a heartbeat. Then there are also rumours of how they allowed JerkAss and whiny spoiled brat to break rules that would have earned other players reprisals because they were good for ratings, and how one player's machinery during a crucial veto competition was malfunctioning and they never noticed. If it was JerkAss or Whiny brat, they'd have stopped the competition in a heartbeat.
*** On top of this, America's player ''also'' revealed that when he could ahve turned the game around with a crucial veto win, he was ordered by producers ''not'' to use it. (Subsequently...his #1 ally was evicted the following thursday. oy...) Then there were other rumours about how he wasn't even in the option to ''play'' for Veto for similar reasons. ("But we can't decide who to use it on it without spoiling it ahead of time!")
** The ninth season also had a highly controversial head of household competition. One houseguest who needed that ''one'' question to win Head of Household (in the final four, the 2nd most important one in the game) managed to get it wrong...well that was her fault, right? Her fault for not being on the same train of thought as the producers. The question was "True or false...There were more than two pre-existing relationships in the house". She answered false, like pretty much every person who had been watching the show would have in her boots. But then there is a slight pause and Julie Chen reports there were ''three''. What was this third relationship? Were two houseguests' lies about being a lesbian couple true? Nope....it was the ''guinea pigs'' that served as the house pets. Now how on earth was anyone supposed to figure that out? This of course wound up screwing houseguest Sharon.
*** Other conspiracy theorists believe that in the slight pause in between the houseguests revealing their answers and Julie Chen revealing the GuideDangIt answer that she was even told ''right there on the studio'' on live TV that it was three, and that for the MST-PST feeds that this was edited out.
** Some have also argued that the act of selecting people for reality TV is ExecutiveMeddling in itself. The people in charge try and pick a diverse series of contestants (There is almost always at least one openly gay guy, one princess, one dimwit, etc) but they try and pick the contestants who are most likely to clash and fight with each other because that's what gives ratings. If they pick huge fans of Big Brother they won't pick the people who can practically predict the flow of the game a week in advance because they'll be sitting around observing...they want people who'll be up and about picking fights and confronting other houseguests. The same has often been said for other shows like Survivor or TheAmazingRace.
* {{Fox}} insisted that ''{{Firefly}}'' have a "space hooker" and required Joss Whedon to write a second pilot because they wanted more action and less drama. They also threatened to pan-and-scan crop, no matter how it was shot, necessitating reshoots. Then they aired the episodes out of order and pre-empted a bunch of them for baseball. The series didn't even get to finish its first season.
* Tracy Tormé was forced out of the ''{{Sliders}}'' staff by Fox executives, who wanted less political and philosophical exploration in the show, and more action and sex appeal.
* Similarly, ''{{Andromeda}}'' executive producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe was constantly fighting with the Tribune suits, and he was ultimately fired halfway through Season 2. The plot and tone of the show changed drastically at this point; Dylan's attempts to create a new Commonwealth were rushed to completion so he could be at odds with them instead. The quality of the later seasons is debatable, but many fans wouldn't know -- they were so angry at Wolfe's treatment they stopped watching.
** The plot may have changed slightly, but the tone? Not a chance, the show was cheesy action hour from the very first scene of the very first episode. Still fun though.
* The SciFiChannel has apparently implemented a policy that any series that has only middling ratings instead of stellar ratings will be canceled, despite whatever vocal, devoted following it has. Three examples that jump out include ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'', ''{{Farscape}}'', and at the end of its 10th season, after being the longest running U.S. hour-long science fiction show ever, ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'', which annoyed the two main factions of the fanbase for different reasons -- half wanted it to continue, and half wanted it to have ended two seasons before it did. Note that each of these series replaced the last. They have more generally replaced cancelled shows with such things as [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever Monster movies]], ''ProfessionalWrestling'', and whatever syndicated series they could get on the cheap.
** And when {{MST3K}} came over from the abusive ComedyCentral, the execs decided that it needed more sci-fi movies, and eventually feature wacky subplots during the host segments such as Pearl Forrester wanting to become a licenced mad scientist, because that's what the audience will care about. Proof that you can run a network with ''no clue'' about why people watch your programs. Luckily, none of this hurt the ratings and they made that stuff funny.
** ''{{Stargate Atlantis}}'' is now getting this treatment as well.
*** At least ''Atlantis'' got the dignity of a five-season run (which is more than decent, when you think about it). On the other hand, I would not be in the least bit surprised if ''{{Warehouse 13}}'' didn't even get a second season.
* {{ABC}} executives ''tried'' to meddle around with ''{{Lost}}'' a few times:
** At one point in the season 2 finale, the foot of an otherwise missing statue was revealed, sporting only 4 toes. As stated by executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse [[http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showpost.php?p=1853178&postcount=40 here]], the statue was originally stated to have ''6'' toes in the script, but the network asked them to change it to 4 toes. According to their own words, Damon and Carlton didn't mind as long as it wasn't 5 toes.
** Lindelof also revealed [[http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1562722,00.html here]] that ABC had mandated some changes to the original draft of the season 2 episode "Dave", which implies that all the events from the entire show had merely taken place inside the mind of Hurley, one of the main characters who had once been an inmate in a psych ward. Supposedly, ABC execs were afraid that the episode might offer an explanation for the mysteries of the show as a whole, years before it would actually end. Since the general implication is still included in the final episode, it's uncertain what changes, if any, have been made to the draft to accommodate ABC's concerns.
** Oh, no, they succeeded, all right. Originally, Jack was supposed to be a one-shot character shown only in the pilot (and played by MichaelKeaton), who would be killed off by the Monster before too long. Instead of Jack, it would have been Kate leading the Losties. The ABC executives allegedly had a problem with this, protesting that it would lead to reactions of "betrayal, anger, and bewilderment" in the audience, and insisted that Jack be kept on as a main character, permanently altering the show's dynamic.
*** Before fans of Kate as she exists now get uppity about this change, it should be noted that Kate was going to be slightly older, not a fugitive and traveling with her husband who she believed was alive somehow even though he had been in the rear section of the plane. If this sounds familiar it is because those elements were incorporated in the recurring character of Rose.
* The SciFiChannel was unhappy with ''BattlestarGalactica'''s plot-heavy story arc-based episodes, since it required a lot of background and internal knowledge to understand and made it difficult to pick up new viewers. When the first two seasons didn't pull in the ratings Sci-Fi desired, the executives pressured Moore into creating more standalone episodes that weren't as plot-heavy. This plan backfired and the third season took heavy criticism from both fans and critics, particularly the infamous episode "The Woman King." Fortunately, the executives decided to let Moore call the shots in the 4th season.
** In one of the weirdest examples of ExecutiveMeddling ever, a higher-up at Sci-Fi insisted that the show's ''intro tune'' be changed. This is why, on Sci-Fi's airings, season one has a different intro theme, for apparently no reason. The intro theme you hear on the Sci-Fi channel in later seasons already existed for season one everywhere else it was broadcast. The reason for the insisted change? The original music was deemed ''too depressing.'' Yes, for a show about [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the end of the world]] via nuclear holocaust, an ominous Sanskrit chant is just going to drive the audience over the edge for how much angst they can take. The original was changed back because of a negative fan reaction that surprised Sci-Fi by how disproportionally large it was compared to the actual issue at hand. Anyone who hadn't seen the first season of ''BSG'' via Bittorrent before it finished airing in the United States, but after it finished airing everywhere else, probably heard the original theme on {{YouTube}}.
* When it came down to converting ''TokusouSentaiDekaranger'' into ''PowerRangersSPD'', ExecutiveMeddling caused a good chunk of the salary to go into the final episodes, meaning Disney didn't have enough money to, of all things, hire a live-action actor to fill the spot of Sam, the Omega Ranger. Their solution? Come up with some contrived plot about Sam crystallizing into a ball of light during his TimeTravel trip, and just get a ''voice actor'' to play him. Sam only ever appears as a stuntman in the ranger suit or as the CGI ball of light, making interaction between him and the other characters exceedingly awkward; the creative team was apparently so frustrated that they just wrote around him more often than not, and probably would have sent him back to the future, if not for StockFootage constraints. Not only was this move decried by fans, but they also gave them a sucker punch in the gut during the finale, where they ''do'' show Sam in his human form, albeit only for a few seconds. Sam rivals CousinOliver Justin as one of the most unpopular characters in the franchise's [[LongRunners sixteen-year history]]. It's been pointed out that at least Justin ''was'' a character, as Sam was basically treated like a weapon or a Zord.
* Two episodes of the RealityTV show ''CrissAngelMindfreak'', both dealing with gun-related illusions, including the infamous Bullet Catch trick, were kept from airing by executives due to concerns of viewers attempting the stunts themselves. This wouldn't have been too much of a problem... had the executives not gone so far as to ''remove the rights'' to the episodes from the show's Executive Producer and star Criss Angel himself to ensure they couldn't be aired. He recently regained the rights, and is attempting to gain permission to release them in upcoming DVD specials.
* {{NBC}}'s "Green Is Universal" week; one week where where every NBC show had to contain environmental themes. It was a great way for the suits to show off how "green" they were without actually doing anything.
** ''MyNameIsEarl'' lampshaded this one when Earl is required to organize a "Scared Straight" Program and Executive Meddling forces him to include environmental themes. He protests, because it wouldn't have anything to do with the story and would just be awkwardly shoehorned in.
** ''[[ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'' lampshaded this one as well, when David Schwimmer's character who is initially a "Corporate-Frendly Enviromentalist" starts to assume his eco-hero personality even when off the set.
** Thank god they never tried to drag ''Heroes'' into this -- instead, they just forced them to change the logo to be green.
*** In all fairness the ''Heroes'' producers showed ecological awareness by recycling the exact same plot for Claire Bennett.
*** Actually, Claire's cheer during her audition had some ecological message.
** Meanwhile, ''TheOffice'' simply relegated its "green" moment to a deleted scene, available only on DVD. One wonders if that editing decision was made deliberately late into the process...
** ''KnightRider'' kills two birds with one stone (ProductPlacement ''and'' lampshading): Dr. Graiman and KITT show off a 2010 Mustang concept to the visiting Eco-Friendly inspector as a ruse of it being KITT's next shell. It's made obvious to the viewers that the green statistics KITT gives are either a full blown {{Ass Pull}}, or, at best, a theoretical guess by Dr. Graiman.
** On ''{{Scrubs}}'', they used the Janitor [IIRC] to spout green messages, while they weren't doing anything themselves. Or having Elliot call someone "too thin" when she was almost the exact same weight. And they pointed out the hypocrisy of what NBC/Janitor/Elliot was doing.
** And they're doing it again this year! Executives never learn.
*** They are doing it EVERY YEAR!!!
** As for the other NBC networks (USA, Bravo, CNBC, TheWeatherChannel, etc.)...all it means is their corner logo turns green for a week and we get some PSA's about how it's easy being green, and maybe a lettuce quickfire challenge on TopChef.
**** And why is NBC doing "Green Week" every year? Because their parent company General Electric is trying to make a ton of green products, therefore they are using all of the networks they own as a way of advertising their products!
* As they have co-funded ''DegrassiTheNextGeneration'', the "N" Channel has exerted more and more influence over the writers and producers of the show. Their meddling can be seen most notably in the opening credits for the seventh and eighth seasons, which have moved away from showing the ensemble cast during an average school day and towards emphasizing the individual characters, much in the style of ''{{Beverly Hills 90210}}''.
* Because of the general subject matter and [[GallowsHumor dark sense of humor]], ''{{Titus}}'' was eventually cancelled because of Executives who didn't want to worry about it any more. Christopher Titus was on the phone at least twice for every episode trying to convince an executive why the current episode works the way it is. "It's funny that we are having an intervention to convince my Dad to ''start'' drinking again."
** On Sirius radio, Titus also said that Executives wanted Titus and Erin to break up in the show, much like Dharma and Greg did at the time. But since real life truly wrote the plot here, Christopher had to say no.
* You know that infamous episode of ''[[ThirdRockFromTheSun 3rd Rock from the Sun]]'' where a race of super-hot Venusians, all played by supermodels, attempt to take over Earth during the Super Bowl? Well, it's revealed on a DVDCommentary that that episode was the result of Executive Meddling. Yeah, we're not surprised either.
** [[DudeWheresMyCar Dude, what's wrong with hot alien babes?]]
* ''{{Angel}}'', in order to get a fifth season, changed location, changed their jobs from detectives to powerful corporate executives, shifted from a {{Arc}} based format to a {{Monster of the Week}} setup, and transplanted Spike into the show.
** The last one, however, was a frankly brilliant move.
* The Vogler arc on ''{{House}}''. [[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/arts/television/30hous.html An article in the New York Times]] described how ratings for the initial episodes were low, which led to executives proposing a 'bad guy' who would conflict with House. The writers acceded, but before any of those episodes made it onto the air, the show was moved next to {{American Idol}}. Ratings soared, giving the writers enough clout to do away with Vogler. Given that fans generally regard the arc as a low point in the season, it was a fortunate break. And for those keeping score, the show is on (what else) {{FOX}}.
* An entire TV movie of the show ''{{iCarly}}'' is based solely on the fact that iCarly got a TV contract and the director replaced the characters with a talking barneyesque dinosaur. They killed off one of the major characters in the show (in the movie) and got the original director to be the assistant to the new director.
* The firing of Brooke Smith, ''[[GreysAnatomy Grey's Anatomy]]'''s Dr. Hahn, for inexplicably [[GayPanic offending network sensibilities]] by portraying a popular 40-something lesbian character, may well go down as one of the more offensive examples of ExecutiveMeddling ever.
* The commentaries on the DVD release of ''TheWeirdAlShow'' reveal the truly epic levels of stupidity that were constantly forced on the show, mostly from the network's constantly fluctuating standards of behavior they were worried kids would imitate. For example, one of Al's few victories was to keep a gag about sticking his arms into a barrel full of melted chocolate, by arguing that most kids wouldn't have a barrel full of melted chocolate on hand to imitate the scene.
* Portrayed over the fourth season of ''{{Seinfeld}},'' which features a story arc of Jerry and George trying to pitch a show much like ''Seinfeld'' itself to NBC, which is slowly ground down into another lame cookie cutter sitcom. Unusually, no one seems to notice and they seem pretty proud of the final product. The most notable is Jerry pitching an idea to spend an entire episode simply on the characters waiting for a table in a restaurant (the setup of one of the show's most popular and iconic episodes) which the execs don't get. A flustered Jerry then gives an alternate idea for a ridiculous story where a man is sentenced to be Jerry's butler after hitting his car, which cracks all the execs up and becomes the story of the pilot episode.
* There is also the altering or pulling of reruns due to various rights issues would be considered executive meddling. This tends to mostly happen when they're released on DVD, usually manifested in changes to the show's soundtrack because the asking prices to certain mainstream tunes cannot (or will not) be met. Most infamously seen in the DVD release of ''{{WKRP in Cincinnati}}'s'' first season, and pretty much any TV release to come from CBS DVD since the inception of CBS/Paramount.
** And how about VanityPlate plastering?
*** And in recent years, there has been the extremely annoying habit of releasing EditedForSyndication episodes on DVD. Perhaps the most infamous example of this was ''{{Alf}}'', where the arrogant studio executives continously ignored the complaints from fans and released the entire series in a butchered form.
** This as well happened to ''{{Mission Hill}}'', where every single song that was played in an episode, except the theme song (Italian Leather Sofa by Cake), was replaced with license free music in order to be released on DVD.
*** This reason is probably the largest that ''{{Daria}}'' is taking so long to come to DVD. The show at the time used, ''literally'', every single song played on Top 40 and/or alternative radio during the show's run. This meant that the show used ''hundreds'' of songs, most only 5 or so seconds, the longest being the credit closer. The two movies released, ''Is It Fall Yet?'' and ''Is It College Yet?'', have their music intact; the two regular episodes included as bonus material are ''silent'', beyond the opening, actual speech, and a generic closer.
* Sexy ''{{Frasier}}'' character Roz Doyle was impregnated and turned into a single mom by uptight executives, who apparently felt that a sexually active single woman could not go [[UnfortunateImplications unpunished]] on network television.
** Of course the idea that pregnancy is necessarily a "punishment" for a single woman has UnfortunateImplications all its own.
* A rare positive example in ''GenerationKill:'' the first episode had major issues running over-time, partly because HBO kept re-inserting a lengthy scene that the director and producers were perfectly willing to live without and kept taking out of the cut. In the end, HBO simply allowed the episode to run over the original limit.
* This was basically what killed TechTV: Upon their "merger" with G4, the executives demanded that all the TechTV staff either move to Los Angeles (where the G4 studios were already located) or simply get sacked. Less than a third of TechTV employees, only 6 of which were actual cast members, picked the former option. To make things worse, all of two TechTV shows - ''Anime Unleashed'' and ''XPlay'' - survived the "merger" unscathed. (Three if you count ''The Screen Savers'', which itself saw a ridiculous amount of ExecutiveMeddling -- see below. Though some fans say [[DisContinuity it doesn't exist]].) The end result was massive NetworkDecay and a sharp decline in the network's ratings, both of which may be the fastest in the history of cable TV.
** The Screen Savers was also subject to heavy meddling during the merger. Practically overnight, it went from a tech show to... well, it was unwatchable and aimed at the LowestCommonDenominator. Yoshi [=DeHerrera's=] went from doing computer and electronics mods on the show to [[WallBanger demonstrating a messy homemade blender]] and doing a report on drift racing full of [[WallBanger rap slang]] and [[{{Stripperiffic}} bikini-clad]] [[FanService women]]. Mere months after he moved to Los Angeles to stay with the network, [[GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity they fired him]] to ReTool the show.
** G4 continues its downhill slide. As of this writing, the only TechTV show to have survived is X-Play, and even it is beginning to show signs of this trope: It now resembles a sketch comedy show more than a video game review show.
* The first season of ''LastComicStanding'' nearly had this backfire on the producers. After the last round of auditions, the final cut for who was going to be in the house and actually contestants was supposedly going to be decided by a panel of celebrity judges including Drew Carey. When the final cast was announced, the judges stormed out because their picks for who were the best comedians had been overruled by the producers' picks for who would generate the most in-house drama. The producers managed to turn this around for themselves by turning the judges' anger into a drama spot.
* The {{Showtime}} executives objected to an episode of the GenreAnthology series ''MastersOfHorror'' called "Imprint", directed by TakashiMiike, for its [[NightmareFuel extremely graphic and disturbing content]]. Executive producer and creator Mick Garris made cuts to the episode, but it was shelved anyway, and is now only available on DVD. Another episode, "Jenifer", had several cuts made for violence, with the deleted scenes being available on DVD.
* Another example that ultimately worked: Mel Brooks and Buck Henry originally wanted Tom Poston for the lead role in their spy comedy ''GetSmart''. NBC insisted on Don Adams because he was already under contract.
* One name in {{Toku}} is synonymous with ExecutiveMeddling: ''KamenRiderHibiki''. Originally it wasn't even intended to be a ''KamenRider'' series, but [[DolledUpInstallment was shoehorned into the role]]. However, the unusually introspective and character-driven ''Hibiki'' quickly gained popularity -- [[MerchandiseDriven but not toy sales]]. So around episode 30, most of the head staff was changed and the series was [[ReTool retooled]] to be more action-centric. This also included Eiki and Shoki being DemotedToExtra, as well as the introduction of TheScrappy Kyosuke Kiriya. Shigeki Hosokawa, Hibiki's actor, reported that the new writing staff was "fraudulent" and harder to work with, to the point where they were re-writing the final episode ''while the final battle was being filmed''. Just to cap it all off, the ending was changed at the last minute, [[spoiler:denying Asumu the chance to become an Oni, the staff actually scrapping his costume in order to enhance Kiriya's]]; fans were livid at this revelation, and several Toei executives were upbraided for letting things go so far.
** As for the cast, Hosokawa has said that he'd gladly reprise his role as Hibiki, provided a more competent director were in charge; Kiriya's actor Yuichi Nakamura [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap redeemed himself]] with his performance as Yuto Sakurai in ''{{Kamen Rider Den-O}}''; and Asumu (or rather, an AlternateUniverse counterpart of him played by a different actor) finally got justice in ''KamenRiderDecade'', where [[spoiler:he himself becomes Hibiki after his mentor passes on his powers to the boy.]]
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' may have had ExecutiveMeddling declare that the characters can't wear superhero costumes, which may be another example of good executive meddling. (Alas, it's pretty much impossible to Google "Heroes" and confirm this.)
* Heavily subverted by Kenny Everett; when he devised for his show a new character called Mary Hinge, he was ordered by Thames TV executives to change the name because the {{Spoonerism}} was "too blatant". So change it he did — to Cupid Stunt, which is far '''more''' blatant.
* Comedy Central turning ''BattleBots'' [a show about remote control robots fighting in an arena for a crowd of cheering fans] into nothing but shots of Carmen Electra in revealing outfits and crappy filler. It is disgraceful when the filler takes up more time during the show that what the game is supposed to be about!
* Something's rather fishy about the recent season of ''{{Survivor}}''. For some odd reason, Russell (The ratings machine) managed to get the hidden immunity idol...with no clue. Then, Russell played the hidden immunity idol, and another person with another hidden immunity idol was voted out. Then in the most recent episode (as of this writing), he somehow found ''another'' one with ''no clue'' whatsoever. Now wait a minute...With only ''one'' exception (Because it was never played and there was ''always'' exile island in Micronesia), whenever someone was voted out without using the Hidden Immunity idol, it was never put back in the game. There was no exile island in Samoa, so ''why'' was the hidden immunity idol put back ''this'' season, when there were ''two'' hidden immunity idols voted out of ''China'' and not put back? (China also had no "Exile Island" equivalent.) What made this season an exception for that rule? Even without it...he knew ''exactly'' where to go to find it, he received ''no'' clue once again. If there is another hidden immunity idol placed into the game when ''both were played'' and Russel somehow knows about it, It's proof that this season of Survivor was ''fixed'' and that CBS deserves ''every'' lawsuit of fixing a game show that they receive from the 19 people who are going to be screwed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* ''Seventh Star'' was supposed to be BlackSabbath guitarist Tony Iommi's first solo album, but pressure from his record label forced him to bill it as an album by "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi."
* Similarly, Black Sabbath's album "Paranoid" was supposed to be named "War Pigs". It was changed by studio execs at the last minute because they didn't want to offend supporters of the Vietnam War. ''Vol. 4'' was going to be titled ''Snowblind'', but also was changed at the last moment due to the title being a cocaine reference -- on the back cover they managed to [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar sneak by a thank you to "the great COKE-cola company" though]].
* Frank Zappa suffered this during his early Mothers of Invention days. First of all, their name was changed from "The Mothers" because it was a slang term for "motherfuckers". ''We're Only in It for the Money'' suffered the most: the ''Sgt. Pepper''-parodying cover was relegated to the inner sleeve. "Harry You're a Beast" had the verse "don't come in me" censored, as was the line "I will love the police as they kick the shit out of me" from "Who Needs the Peace Corps?". "Hot Poop" was their way of GettingCrapPastTheRadar: taking the verse "Better look around before you say you don't care/Shut your fucking mouth 'bout the length of my hair/how would you survive/if you were alive/shitty little person?" from "Mother People" and backmasking it.
* Berry Gordy and Motown were infamous for denying artistic freedom to their acts and interfering every step of the way. Two well-known defiance stories: Stevie Wonder threatened to leave Motown when his contract expired unless he got artistic freedom and improved royalties. Gordy initially rejected MarvinGaye's song "What's Going On" as a single, but Marvin went on strike until Gordy agreed to release it. It was a #2 hit and led to demand for a similar album.
* Like many musicians, Trent Reznor (NineInchNails) has had his share of disagreements with his record label, but the release of ''Year Zero'' brought with it new and exciting forms of ExecutiveMeddling. Trent's viral marketing/Alternate Reality Game promoting the album was largely an independent effort between him and 42 Entertainment, where he purposely leaked tracks to the public; the RIAA reacted by prosecuting some of the people who posted these online. Additionally, Trent wanted to surprise the fans by pressing the CD with special thermal material that would make the disc a different color when it was removed from a heat-producing CD player; unfortunately, the marketing team got word of this and decided to advertise it as a special feature of the album, which spoiled the surprise. "Thermally reactive disc that changes color when you touch it!"
** The thermal material has a bit more executive meddling to it, as they also hiked up the overseas price of the album $10 because of it, despite the fact that it cost almost nothing, and Trent paid the money for it out of his own pocket. This is commonly accepted to have been the final straw leading up to his going independent.
* Tony Wilson's Factory label became known for a complete lack of Meddling, or sometimes Meddling that made things ''more'' bizarre than the artists would have liked. Take Vini Reilly's ''Return of the Durutti Column'' album sleeve being made out of sandpaper, "to destroy all your other records from the inside". Or releasing Joy Division's ''Closer'' with the planned tombstone cover, despite the whole lead singer suicide thing.
* Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson recorded a solo album in 1980, which featured Tull guitarist Martin Barre, new Tull bassist David Pegg, an unknown American drummer named Mark Craney, and "special guest" keyboardist/electric violinist Eddie Jobson (Roxy Music, U.K., Frank Zappa). Tull's label, Chrysalis Records, was going through financial troubles at the time, so they asked Ian to release it as a new Tull album to raise sales. The album was called ''A'', [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as the tape boxes for Ian's album were marked "A" for "Anderson"]], and it led inadvertently to the sacking of three longtime Tull members. [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks Some Tull fans were not pleased]] with the synthesizer sounds on the album, meant to be a break from Tull's folk-rock sound, nor the line-up changes, and a [[SnapBack slightly more traditional sound]] was used for the band's follow-up, ''The Broadsword And The Beast''. Anderson's true solo debut, the very electronic ''Walk Into Light'', came out in 1983.
* An almost certainly positive example comes from an RCA executive to replace the cover of "Round and Round" on ''[[DavidBowie Ziggy Stardust]]''. Is this where "It Ain't Easy" comes from? No, that was already going to be on there...in fact, the two were going to play back-to-back between "Moonage Daydream" and "Lady Stardust." That's right. ExecutiveMeddling is is responsible for "Starman."
* The Chad Mitchell Trio encountered this when attempting to release their version of BobDylan's ''Blowin' In The Wind'' as a single. An executive at their record company balked at this, saying that there had [[NeverSayDie never been a hit song with the word 'deaths' in it]]. The song could remain on the album, but a single release was out of the question. Of course, later on, Peter, Paul and Mary's recording of the song became a huge hit. The Chad Mitchell Trio, meanwhile, changed record companies, and their only mainstream hit after this was ''The Marvelous Toy'', which still receives airplay on radio during the Christmas season.
* Upon hearing TheClash's debut self-titled album, the suits at their American record label decided it had too much filler, and decided to remove 5 songs and replace them with some of the band's British singles like "Complete Control" and "White Man in Hammersmith Palias". It is almost universally agreed by critics that this actually vastly improved the album, though some also note that adding in the mostly mid-tempo and more polished singles dilutes the UK version's ThreeChordsAndTheTruth feel a bit.
* Blur's single "Popscene" -- now recognized as one of the first true Britpop singles -- failed so poorly on the UK single charts that their label told the band to scrap their entire second album and write new songs including one surefire hit single. Upon hearing ''this'' version, the label told them to go back ''again'' and write another single-worthy song, this time targetted to American audience. The resulting album was the critcally adored ''Modern Life Is Rubbish'' and the two singles were "For Tomorrow" and "Chemical World", which remain two of their most critcally acclaimed and popular songs.
* In yet another example of Executive Meddling winding up to have positive endpoint, James Blunt gave [[WeirdAlYankovic 'Weird' Al]] permission to do a parody of ''You're Beautiful''. But after ''You're Pitiful'' was recorded, the executives at Atlantic Records -- Blunt's label -- told Al he couldn't release the song on his next album because they feared it would turn Blunt into "a one hit wonder" (Ironically, he has not had a Billboard Top 40 appearence in the US since). So instead he released it for free online, and performs it in concert. Part of said performance is wearing an "Atlantic Records Sucks" t-shirt. Yet, this still left his next record a bit short. Al went back to the recording studio and recorded "Do I Creep You Out" and "White and Nerdy". When released as a single, the latter song became the biggest hit in Al's three-decade-long career.
** A less positive example of Executive Meddling in Weird Al's career was his label's insistence that ''Dare to be Stupid'' have a Cyndi Lauper parody. Al disliked the resulting song ("Girls Just Want to Have Lunch"), and decided against including it on ''The Food Album''.
*** ''The Food Album'' (along with ''The TV Album'') were also both the result of executives wanting compilation albums. Although Weird Al didn't like the idea of ''The Food Album'', he preferred it to the executive's original idea, ''Al Unplugged'', which would have been a compilation of his songs, remixed to remove the electric instruments.
*After the success of their 1999 pop-crossover megahit ballad "Amazed", Country music band Lonestar had big hits in the early 2000s with family-friendly, TastesLikeDiabetes songs such as "I'm Already There", and were (according to keyboardist Dean Sams) forced to record more of the same. Whenever they tried something different, such as "Class Reunion", it tanked. When their last two albums for the label both failed to produce a hit, the band finally got kicked from the label, and lead singer Richie [=McDonald=] went solo -- only to record the same diabetes-tasting material.
* K-Mart and Walmart refused to sell the Nirvana album ''In Utero'' until new packaging that listed the track "Rape Me" as "Waif Me" was created.
*Eels were forced by their record label into licensing "Mr E's Beautiful Blues" for ''Road Trip'', as well as doing a video for it that alternated between [[VideoFullOfFilmClips clips from the movie]] and scenes of vocalist E driving a van with most of the main cast as passengers. In his autobiography ''Things The Grandchlidren Should Know'', E stated that he was none too happy to have the song associated with a "college movie", and that the only enjoyable part of making the video was a brief scene where he pretended to beat up the cast members.
*Electric Six ended up reluctantly covering Queen's "Radio Ga Ga" on ''Señor Smoke'' because the record company wanted them to use it as a single. Perhaps not coincidentally, it's the only cover song the band has ever released.
*{{Devo}}'s record label insisted that the "Post-Post Modern Man" video feature a playboy model. Band member and director Jerry Casale found a tongue in cheek way to work her into the video concept he already had in mind - instead of just Devo getting lost driving through the desert, it became Devo getting lost driving through the desert while an increasingly miffed model waited all day for their return. Then, when the video didn't get picked up by mtv, the label decided the song itself was too electronic-based to appeal to a 90's audience. Thus, an entirely different video, parodying home shopping channel programming, was made for a different mix of the song without the band's involvement.
* No mention of TheBeatles yet? Surely they're one of the most notorious and sustained examples of this trope yet; it's said that the infamous "butcher" cover they did for ''Yesterday...and Today'' was because they (particularly John) objected to the way Capitol Records (their U.S. label) "butchered" their albums. On a more positive note, Capitol's treatment of the ''MagicalMysteryTour'' double-EP (expanding it into an album) was so successful that it has replaced the double-EP version, even in the British market.
** Actually, the butcher cover was actually part of a photo shoot for the single cover of "Paperback Writer" in the UK and had nothing to do with Capitol. But the "butchering" did affect the Beatles very much, making them sign a contract with Capitol which said that all albums (excluding special cases, like ''Magical Mystery Tour'' and ''Hey Jude'') should be exactly the same as the UK versions.
* A case from the 18th century: Mozart's ''Don Giovanni'' contains a deeply sad and lyrical soprano aria, which out of the blue ends in 9½ bars of the most spectacular virtuoso ''coloratura'' imaginable. It seems like a hastily-tacked on display of virtuosity, and was condemned by critics as early as Berlioz as a crime against art. The reason is probably that the [[ExecutiveMeddling opera director demanded a virtuoso cadenza]] for his ''prima donna''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* Stephan Pastis of ''PearlsBeforeSwine'' has talked about several strips over the years that his syndicate has asked him to change for one reason or another, and he has usually agreed(with the strips in question usually being so edgy that the risk outweighs the reward). In the latest treasury ''Pearls Sells Out'', Pastis writes about a particular strip that his syndicate wanted changed because it showed the characters drinking beer. Pastis flat-out refused to do so, arguing that he wasn't "gonna keep looking over...[his]...shoulder" every time he submitted a strip and worrying about their attitude. With the exception of a few minor edits, Pastis says that the syndicate has since left him alone and that he understands most other syndicates wouldn't have even published ''Pearls'' to begin with.
* In the early days of ''{{Dilbert}}'', Scott Adams was planning on adding Satan to the strip's cast. The syndicate wouldn't let him, so he ended up creating the character of Phil, the ruler of "Heck". An example of ExecutiveMeddling having good results since even Adams agrees that this was much funnier than his original plan.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Soon after {{Kayfabe}}![=Vince McMahon=] was blown up in a fiery limo explosion, confirmation came that USANetwork executives told the {{WWE}} to perform a murder storyline, much to the consternation of the writing staff, Vince himself, and [[WallBanger half the fanbase]]. This made them look like idiots, morons, and every other epithet in the book when news of [[RealLifeWritesThePlot Chris Benoit's murder-suicide]] hit the airwaves a few weeks later.
** Among other things USA has been pressuring WWE into: more celebrity involvement and 3-hour ''MondayNightRAW'' broadcasts.
*** The 'E did however work the celebrity involvement into some genuinely amusing moments (such as JohnCena being beaten by Kevin ''flippin''' Federline, [=Steve-O=] being legitimately beaten for laughing during his match, and Donald Trump causing [=Vince McMahon=]'s infamous "bald moment").
** Of course, Vince himself is the source of much ExecutiveMeddling in the {{WWE}}, such as when he canceled "The Blonde Bytch Project", a Blair Witch parody that was to star Stevie Richards and the Blue Meanie, on the grounds that ''he'' had never seen the movie, and therefore assumed nobody else had either.
*** He did the same thing to Paul Burchill because he had never seen ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' and assumed that a pirate should be a {{Heel}}. Later, he placed him into an incest gimmick character. That went about as well as could be expected -- the storyline never really developed, and Burchill vanished fairly quickly.
**** The storyline was done in by yet more ExecutiveMeddling. [=WWE=] embraced the PG rating for all their television programming around the time Burchill and Katie Lea started appearing on-screen. The incest storyline was one of the first things to be nixed, leaving both with nothing to do before being moved over to the [=ECW=] brand.
*** [[{{Squick}} Katie Vick]]. (Vince's own DVD has other members of the [=WWE=] saying how unfunny it was.)
** Soon before [=WWE=]'s [=ECW=] brand got underway, there were Internet reports that the Sci-Fi Channel had been trying to shoehorn sci-fi elements into this wrestling show. Cue "The Zombie" and other characters being soundly beaten by the Sandman upon the show's airing.
** And of course, there was Muhammed Hassan. This could be looked at as Executive Meddling on both sides, as Vince chose to still air Hassan's "terrorist attack" on the Undertaker the same day that real terrorists bombed [[TheLondonUnderground London's subway.]] {{UPN}}'s subsequent edict that Hassan would never appear on the network again forced Vince to not only remove the character, but possibly re-book the main events at two pay-per-views.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* HenrikIbsen's ''[[ADollsHouse A Doll's House]]'' created enormous controversy for its time with its story of a housewife who realizes her husband has no real respect for her and eventually works up the strength to leave him. For its production in Germany Ibsen was forced to write a new ending where the husband drags her to see her children, and she realizes she can't leave them. Reading it, one gets the idea Ibsen deliberately made it as last-minute and unbelievable as possible.
* Stan Freberg ran into a crazy example of this when he tried to adapt his successful comedy album ''Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America'' to the stage. The legendary (and infamous in theatre circles, at least partly for providing several examples of this trope) producer David Merrick became interested after hearing just the first third of Volume One. However, first he told Freberg NOT to record Volume II for a while, so that it wouldn't compete with the Original Cast Recording. And then there were arguments over the size of the orchestra; Merrick said the orchestra should be bigger, and then changed his mind and said it was fine as Freberg had originally conceived it. Merrick continued to play mind games with Freberg for a while, culminating in meddling with the script. Infamously, he told Stan Freberg to "Take Lincoln out of the Civil War. He doesn't work!". He also told Freberg to move Barbra Frietzche (of the Civil War poem of the same name) from the Civil War to the Revolutionary War. This was more or less the last straw, and Freberg (under advice from his wife) abandoned the project while he still had his sanity and integrity intact. The adaptation was cancelled, Freberg then devoted his energies to advertising, and Volume II of ''The United States of America'' would not be completed and released until 35 years later.
** As stated above, David Merrick was quite infamous for this. According to anecdote, he tried to cut "Meadowlark" from ''The Baker's Wife'' by going into the orchestra pit and tearing up the parts. "Meadowlark" became the show's best-known song after Merrick canceled what would have been the original Broadway production out of town.
* The musical ''City of Angels'' is all about this trope. It involves the struggles of a crime novel writer named Stine, as he attempts to adapt one of his crime novels as a movie. Unfortunately, the film's producer [[MeaningfulName Buddy Fiddler]] insists that he make all sorts of crazy changes to the script.
* The authorities made Giuseppe Verdi completely rewrite ''AMaskedBall'' several times, because the original version was about the assassination of a king.
* GilbertAndSullivan were quick to shoot down demands that they rename their operetta ''Ruddigore'' something less offensive to Victorian ears.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* The ''{{Transformers}}'' Binaltech and Alternators line were notorious for Executive Meddling in the form of the car companies whose car models they tried acquiring the rights to make figures out of; a good deal of these demanded that the guns that came with the figures were either modified or completely removed, or just flat out refused to hand over the rights period, in order to prevent them from being associated with "war toys". That doesn't mean that there wasn't plenty of in-company Meddling, though; in one memorable instance, Takara demanded that a new Dodge Ram figure Hasbro was making be turned into Optimus Prime, so they could sell it more readily in Japan. Since Takara was needed to front part of the cost, Hasbro agreed... only for Takara to market the figure as Ginrai, not Optimus. Then the figure was delayed for a number of months, prompting rumors that it had been canceled. The rumors turned out to be partially true; the Ginrai figure was canceled, but it got a release as Optimus Prime in the Binaltech line's Kiss Play sub-line, as well as a black repaint release as Black Convoy.
** The new ''TransformersAnimated'' cartoon premiered on December 26th, 2007, with regular episodes starting in January. However, Hasbro executives decided against releasing the related toyline on the same date and instead released them in June, since the toyline of [[Film/{{Transformers}} the 2007 film]] was still selling strong. [[http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20071130.html This]] ''{{Shortpacked}}!'' strip (and [[http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20080606.html this one]] too) comments on the delay.
* In an example of ''distributor'' meddling, Upper Deck Entertainment has pressured Konami into letting them rearrange the rarities, severely alter the construction of the Structure Decks brought over, and create their own cards for the newest ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}'' collectible card game sets. Why would they make such a drastic move? Simple: the head of the ''YGO'' branch of UDE thought he could make the game better than Konami could, and demanded the chance to prove it, thus separating a game that had just begun to be unified.
** Honestly, Konami is just as bad. Chaos, the new "Psychic" monsters, introducing new concepts with weak backup, neglecting the Thunder, Fish, and Plant types although they are getting better at supporting those. That doesn't go into the rulings of the cards themselves, targeting and non-targeting, and a whole bunch of complicated rules. A popular phrase to describe a justification of a ruling that makes no sense? BKSS, because Konami said so.
*** Unfortunately, this has recently exploded into a legal shitstorm between the two, with Konami attempting to take back the distribution rights of the TCG and Upper Deck suing them for breech of contract. The battle is still ongoing, and already the distribution schedule for North America has become the first casualty.
* The original 1960s metal Thunderbirds toys had a ''blue'' Thunderbird 2 -- to Gerry Anderson's dismay -- because the marketing drones said that "children don't buy green toys". Wait; what?
** [[TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles What, indeed.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''[[SonicTheHedgehog Sonic X-Treme]]'' is notorious for its ExecutiveMeddling. First, the main game and boss levels were broken up and given to two different teams, which ended up building them into essentially two completely different games. Then, the team making the boss levels were shown a demo of the then-in production ''{{Nights into Dreams}}'' game, further inspiring the team to deviate the levels from the main game and causing ''Nights'' creator Yuji Naka to threaten to leave on grounds of plagiarism. Then, when Sega of Japan came over to check up on progress, they loved the engine for the boss levels so much, they demanded that the entire game be made with it, despite the fact that the team was dangerously close to deadline and short on men due to arguments about the game's direction. It finally took the game's director coming down with pneumonia before the plug was finally pulled. Oh, let's not forget how Sega replaced the entire voice cast of the ''SonicTheHedgehog'' games with their ''SonicX'' counterparts... ''without telling the original cast''. Reportedly, Sonic's original voice actor actually had to call Sega to find out when he needed to be back in for recording before he found out about the switch.
** Or the fact that Sega decided that it was a good idea to release ''Sonic The Hedgehog 2006'' without thoroughly bug-testing it and not editing the manual to remove mentions of half-finished game mechanics they had taken out so that the game could be released around Christmas and make a profit. (Not that there weren't [[InterspeciesRomance other]] [[LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading problems]] with the game. But making it ''work right'' when you made the characters do something could have taken the sting off a little.) Say, didn't ''Sonic X-Treme'' have the same deadline problem?
** Really, at this point Sonic Team have pretty much lost the passion for their titual franchise, with Sega of Japan hellbent on making sure they keep the new games comic regardless. But Sega's control over the team extends beyond just Sonic: Case in point, the ''NightsIntoDreams'' sequel ''Journey of Dreams'', which Sonic Team originally wanted to develop on the Xbox360, until Sega came butting in and decided that the game would be shoehorned onto the Wii with its brand-new motion controls. And the results show too...
*** YourMileageMayVary on that, and I'm pretty sure the above was just a rumor (unless I'm wrong), some people regard Journey of Dreams as an actually decent game, and others think that Takashi Iizuka can't make a good game to save his life anyway.
* In an example of Executive Meddling backfiring, ''BMX XXX'' was originally intended to be yet another Dave Mirra product, until Acclaim decided to go for risque and controversial by adding nudity and crude sexual humor, which instantly put Mirra off of the project with a demand that his name not be used to merchandise the game. Acclaim did it anyway, and was forced to stop via a court order. Just to add insult to injury, Toys 'R Us and Wal-Mart refused to carry it, combining with the game's already poor quality to render sales ineffectual.
** There are [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/10/18/ other theories]] about how this game came to be...
* There've been way too many [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames movie-based games reduced in quality]] due to a rush to release them in synch with the release of the actual movie, not to mention video games in general being rushed to meet the holiday shopping crunch. The most memorable has to be ''[=~E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ~=]'', whose final fate in a New Mexico landfill and subsequent contribution to TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 resulted from such a push. To be fair, they also produced several times too many cartridges even for a successful game. Did they honestly think everyone that owned the console would buy ''ET'' thrice?
* Video games in general, and especially PC-based titles, also suffer from this. Obsidian's ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic 2'' was nearly eviscerated as a result of Lucasarts forcing Obsidian to rush it for the Christmas sales. It still ended up being a great game, but it only makes you sad about WhatCouldHaveBeen.
** The [[http://www.deadlystream.com/showthread.php?t=339 TSL Restored Content Mod]] restores much of the Cut Content which was produced, but Obsidian didn't have the time to properly put it into the game. (This is not the infamous [[http://www.team-gizka.org/ project by Team Gizka]] which seems to have stalled). While it helps a lot, it can't entirely rescue the ending, however, because some of the intended content never got produced in time and couldn't be restored.
* ''MegaManX'' had its share of Meddling. First, Keiji Inafune was forced to redesign the character of X because it was feared the drastic changes to the original MegaMan's looks would prevent fans from relating to him (the original concept would later evolve into Zero), and then the series was continued beyond ''X5'', which Mr. Inafune had intended to be the definitive end to the X series, causing a bunch of irreconcilable {{Plot Hole}}s as a result.
** ''MegaManZero'' also suffered. Inafune planned for X to be Neo Arcadia's KnightTemplar tyrant. Executive meddling had Neo Arcadia ruled by a imperfect copy of X instead.
* It is believed that the American branch of Sony's videogame business had a policy of rejecting licenses for 2D-based titles on grounds of "low quality", as the head executive there wanted ''only'' 3D titles. This was, in fact, the case in the PS1 era, and is part of the reason that Capcom made ''MegaMan Legends''; Sony would only let them make the 2D ''Mega Man'' games they wanted if they made a 3D installment.
** In addition to the "3D titles only" rule, Sony also has a standing rule that requires all games released in the United States to have an English voice track. Because of this, many popular low-budget games like half the ''SuperRobotWars'' franchise [[NoExportForYou will never see the light of day in America]]. Sony seems to have lightened up on this recently though, with ''Yakuza 2'' being in Japanese with subtitles, and no English voice work in sight.
***Not really. Sony only allowed it two years after its Japanese release - in 2007, after the PS3 had become Sony's main system and the PS2 was relegated to secondary status. Sony now requires ''PS3'' games have an English track instead, which is one of the reasons Yakuza 3 is [[NoExportForYou not getting released outside of Japan]].
** Sony of America had this policy due to the antics of Bernie Stolar, a colossal jackass who refused to publish Japanese [=RPGs=] at all until ''FinalFantasyVII'' came out and made a lot of money. Then he was fired and went to Sega, and we know how well that turned out.
* Developers for ''TheSims 2'' complained about how executives pressured the team to use more particle effects in the game so they could ''put that as a bullet point on the box''. So, we got people walking around with green smoke coming out of their arms when low on hygiene, green smoke coming out of food that had gone bad, and so forth. Unrealistic it may be, it at least came in handy as a visual aid.
** Ironically, many users find such effects "annoying" and there are multiple user-made hacks available to eliminate them.
* ''StarFox Adventures'' is the result of this trope. Originally, the game was to be called ''Dinosaur Planet'' and had no ties whatsoever with the ''Star Fox'' franchise. Krystal and a male fox were the main characters. But since Nintendo was behind schedule with a ''Star Fox'' sequel, they forced Rare into changing the plot and characters around. The male fox was axed, Krystal was aged up and became the DistressedDamsel, and Fox [=McCloud=] became the hero of a game that had little to do with what he does best: flying around in space and blasting bad guys. Suffice to say many fans of the franchise still hate this game -- even though it's not a bad game per se.
** Well, Sabre, the character Fox replaced, is a reference to Sabrewulf (so he's a wolf) and Krystal was originally an orphaned cat back then. It was also supposed to be a Nintendo 64 game.
* The end result from ''InheritTheEarth'' was ''defined'' by Executive Meddling. Originally intended to be a mature game, the publishers saw that the main character was a fox and forced the developers to cater to the 8-12 market at every turn (Because every FunnyAnimal story is kid-friendly, [[{{Ptitlerax1116nu5ji}} right?]]). Then refused to let the developers create a sequel.
* The Sony Playstation game ''Comicbook/{{Spider-Man}} 2: Enter Electro'' had the final level originally take place [[http://www.game-rave.com/psx/playstation_perfect_guide/features/feature_spiderman3/index.html on the top of the World Trade Center]]. This is confirmed by the original level title, "Top Of The World", and dialogue spoken by Peter during the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUrXPnIDkC8 original cinematic]] prior to the final level. After the events of September 11th, 2001, the game was pulled from manufacturing, and the level designers placed a bridge between the two towers to make the comparison to its real-life counterpart less obvious. Given the fact that Activision and Vicarious Games feared the content might be "insensitive" for families after the event, their meddling was obvious.
* The story goes that one of the designers of ''FullThrottle'', a game about a biker who kicked the crap out of people and was investigating the brutal bludgeoning murder of an old man by a ruthless CorruptCorporateExecutive who had also ordered the old man's daughter killed, and had further framed him and his gang for the foul deed, had an idea where the lead goes on a peyote-fueled quasi-dream sequence that took place inside his own head. The executives at LucasArts said no, as that would be inappropriate material. That designer nonetheless held onto the seed of the idea, and eventually created ''{{Psychonauts}}''.
* Whether it was a more executive decision or not is unknown, but apparently the 'Meat Flag' muliplayer game mode for ''GearsOfWar 2'' by Epic Games was renamed 'Submission' at the behest of the PR team at Microsoft.
* The [[SoBadItsHorrible notorious]] ''LegendOfZelda'' and ''SuperMarioBros'' games on the Phillips CD-i system were a result of several years' worth of Executive Meddling. During the early nineties, just as Sega was coming out with the Sega CD/Mega CD, Nintendo decided to develop a CD-based addon of their own for the Super Nintendo with Sony, one that would be able to play new, 32-bit CD-based games in addition to the original SNES library. A while into their co-operation, however, Nintendo realized that letting just anyone develop games for the CD addon meant that Nintendo would lose their absolute control over the games released on their systems, so they decided to give Sony the cold shoulder and, completely by surprise, announced that they were going to work with Phillips on the CD-addon from there on. Nintendo's CD addon never saw the light of day, and to compensate for their hard work, they gave Phillips the right to publish games based on four or five Nintendo characters. The worst part for Nintendo? Sony continued the project by themselves, creating the Sony [=PlayStation=], which pushed Nintendo into a slump from which they didn't recover until the Wii.
* For its American release, the European game ''{{Fahrenheit}}'' had its name changed to ''Indigo Prophecy'' to avoid [[ViewersAreMorons confusion]] with the Michael Moore film ''Fahrenheit 911'', and to avoid the dreaded "Adults Only" rating, they excised the game's two sex scenes. Apparently, the cinematic, subdued sex is adults-only material, but opening the game with the main character hiding his tracks after unwittingly commiting murder is just RatedMForMoney!
** Interestingly, the game's director has said on occasion that he actually likes "Indigo Prophecy" better as a title, and wishes every region carried it (not to mention the fact that the game continuously uses ''centigrade'' to signify temperature). As for the sex scenes compared to the violence, well, welcome to America.
** The apparent reason for the game's story [[XenSyndrome taking a nosedive into]] [[GainaxEnding Crazyland]] is that the developers ran out of time and money before the could finish it the way they wanted.
* ''SuperMarioBros 2'' came into being because Nintendo of America didn't think the original Japanese game of that name was different enough to the first one.
** Which it wasn't. It was a frigging level pack.
** Wasn't that because Nintendo of America thought that the real Super Mario Bros 2 was "too hard" for American gamers?
*** Might be both. Either way, the decision ended up being for the better in the future if we look at all the things imported from that game.
*** Of course, thanks to the fans discovering what was the real Mario 2, now they [[FanDumb argue over what is considered to be the true sequel to Super Mario Bros.]]
* When the trailers for ''ResidentEvil 5'' featured a white man mowing down a sea of black Majini (zombies), cries of [[UnfortunateImplications racism]] ensued, led by ''{{Newsweek}}'' game reviewer N'Gai Croal. Producer Jun Takeuchi and Capcom claimed not to be influenced by the moral panic, but the following trailer depicted racially diverse zombies, including Arab (if it's North Africa, fine) Majini, and later a new female African sidekick was unveiled.
** In the actual game, you fight spear throwing savages, so at least you can't fault them for being overly sensitive.
* ''{{Tetris}}: The Grand Master: ACE'', as well as the ''TGM'' series in general, was a major victim of Executive Meddling. Since mid-2005, Henk Rogers of The Tetris Company mandated that to be licensed, all Tetris games must have certain gameplay aspects, including [[GameBreaker infinite rotation]] and the (extremely complex and unwieldy) "Super Rotation System". As a result, what was supposed to be a console port of the [[NintendoHard most challenging commercial Tetris game ever made]] ended up in a PortingDisaster that required developers to completely rewrite the engine to accomodate the Super Rotation System, resulting in a much easier, watered-down game that lacked virtually all the staples of the TGM series, including the famed difficulty that made it so popular in the first place. Since then, Arika has yet to make another Tetris game.
** And despite all of this, Arika is very stingy about fans making clones of their games to counteract the lack of a proper console ''TGM'' port. If you decide to upload a video of yourself playing the clones ''Heboris'' or ''Texmaster'' on {{YouTube}}, prepare to remove all references to TGM and either game's title unless you want Arika to have your video taken down. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDJQP1xg5EY&fmt=18 This video]] sums up Arika's and the TTC's meddling, and, as a TakeThat to said meddling, showcases a variety of ''Tetris'' clones in a [[EarWorm catchy]] music video. Ironically, people playing ''Tetris'' clones have since then put [[http://tinyurl.com/tgmFLAGGED "this fan game video will be flagged"]] in their videos' tags as a ShoutOut to that video and as a secret handshake to other fans looking for ''TGM'' videos.
*** ItGetsWorse in May of 2009: Arika is now asking {{YouTube}} to wipe out videos of ''Lockjaw'', another ''Tetris'' clone. Even if said videos are of people playing the "40 Lines" mode, which has almost NOTHING to do with Arika or TGM. Cue the [[WallBanger Wall Banging]]!
* ''TombRaider'' had some meddling in its early life. After the huge success of the first ''Tomb Raider'' game, producers wanted to make Lara Croft [[MostGamersAreMale more appealing to the male demographic.]] Toby Gard, the game and character's creator, hated the idea of changing Lara just to [[PanderingToTheBase appeal to the fans]] and he felt like he had less control over his creative ideas. He wound up leaving Core in disgust, which may explain the series' decline over the Playstation and early Playstation 2 era.
* Microsoft requires all Xbox 360 games to have a list of achievements for the players to unlock. This may explain on why some achievements are a waste of time or are super easy to get. In addition, any out-of-the-box game has to have exactly 1000 gamer points. Add-on content can up this.
** Ostensibly, this is a way for Microsoft to give gamers a permanent sense of achievement (no pun intended) in playing the games, though it's also become like leaderboards, where they matter mostly for bragging rights. Some games have well thought out Achievements that are unlocked when you complete a certain section of the game or reach a certain story event, some... don't. And then some games have intentionally ludicrous ones, such as the Achievement you get in ''TheSimpsons Game''... for pressing the 'Start' button (Though the game itself is an AffectionateParody of the entire video game genre and industry, SoYeah.).
** Or the game of ''{{Avatar The Last Airbender}},'' in which all of the achievements (worth 1000 gamepoints) can be completed in the first 15 minutes in the tutorial mission.
*** When Sony announced Trophy support for the PS3, there were cries that they'd be just like Achievements. Not so, cried Sony: trophies were entirely optional for the developer. Fast forward eight months, and Trophies are now required in all new PS3 games. Although they lack gamer points, games that are released on the Xbox and PS3 at the same time (or on the Xbox first) are exactly the same, requirements and all.
**This is arguably for the better, as achievements give players "tangible" results for what they do, breathing new life into a game they'd have put down otherwise. Also, requirements for achievements sometimes reveal things that are rather clever/interesting that a player wouldn't have thought to do otherwise.
*** On the other side of the coin, most people do achievements just for the sake of getting them and then never play in the new style again or put the game back down.
* ''{{Xenosaga}}'' had heavy meddling done to the series. Of note: ''Xenosaga II'' where Ziggy's back story was removed and made into a cell phone game that was only available in Japan. Not to mention the strange decision on Namco/Bandai of America's part to remove blood in ''Xenosaga III'' despite the previous games having had blood with the same T rating.
* As many gamers and reviewers have noted, the title of ''BeyondGoodAndEvil'' has little to do with the actual game (in which good and evil are pretty obviously defined, and there's nary a [[NietzscheWannabe dying god or abyss gazing also]] in sight). The title, however, was a result of meddling. The game was originally announced as "Project BG&E," with the "BG&E" standing for "''Between'' Good and Evil." The title was originally meant to be a reference to the way a [[AmateurPhotographer photograph]] can fall anywhere on the sliding scale of CharacterAlignments. The higher-ups didn't like it, and the Nietchze reference was shoehorned in.
** The actual gameplay got meddled, too. The game was trapped in a mild DevelopmentHell, and was originally intended to be ''much'' longer. It was intended to stretch to cover other planets, instead of the one (and the moon) in the final game. Concerns over development time cut the whole game short, so that [[ScrewedByTheNetwork the brand-new IP that no one knew how to handle could be released right alongside the highly-anticipated return of the]] ''PrinceOfPersia'' series.
* ''[[PerfectDark Perfect Dark Zero]]'' started out on the GameCube, then {{Microsoft}} bought Rareware from {{Nintendo}} in 2002 so they had to restart the development of the game for the {{Xbox}}. When they were almost done, Microsoft asked them to transfer Development to the {{Xbox 360}}, and they wanted it to be a launch title. So, Rare was rushed while they were making the game, and they had to have 700,000 discs ready before the Microsoft certification was complete, to meet the Xbox 360 launch date. Rare also did not have the full Development Kits for the 360, and the one they had was only capable of around 1/3rd of the 360's graphical capabilities. Overall, because of all of this it took Rare 5 years to make this game.
* ''{{DJMAX}}'' games from ''DJMAX Portable Black Square'' onwards (save for ''DJMAX Technika'') have an "auto-correct" feature that will hit the correct note for you if you hit the wrong button. [[OrSoIHeard It's speculated]] that Pentavision implemented this feature to avoid legal issues with [[{{Beatmania}} Konami]].
* At some point after releasing ''TalesOfEternia'', Namco (and after the merge, Bandai Namco) decided not to localize any other 2D Tales game. For that reason, many great [[TalesSeries Tales]] games never got to America (except for ''TalesOfPhantasia'' due to special reasons), such as ''TalesOfDestiny2'', ''TalesOfRebirth'', and ''TalesOfHearts''. ''TalesOfEternia'' even got a PSP port in 2005, but despite the fact that said port was released in Europe no American version is in sight.
**Of course Europe has never seen 80% of tales games, all they have had is Tales of Phantasia on the GBA (very slow compared to the PS1), ''TalesofSymphonia'' and ''TalesofVesperia''. Those "cameo" battles must leave alot of people thinking "What the hell are they cameoing from?".
*** Tales of Vesperia itself is likely a major source of alot of meddling, when the PS3 version was announced, even BEFORE the European version for the 360 was released, with ABNORMALLY high ammounts of new content, alot of japanese fans decided to poke about the DVD and discovered traces of these "added" contents were present in the code already. Then there is the ingame remarks like [[http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/09/21/bandai-namco-shamelessly-lied-to-xbox-testers/ this]]....and the new character having identifying marks all over the 360 source code. All fingers are pointing at Sony and Namco for this one.
* For a game that was ''born'' from ExecutiveMeddling, we have the ''SpyroTheDragon'' franchise in all it's glory. In order to compete with the companies of [[SuperMarioBros Mario]] and [[SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]], Sony realized that they needed to appeal to the "kids market" in gaming, considering most of the games in the late 90s for the {{Playstation}} were [[RatedMForMoney teen and adult oriented]]. So with the aid of Universal Games and Insomniac, they created a game that was basically [[RecycledinSPACE Sonic as a dragon]]. Funny thing is, Insomniac never had full rights to the franchise (and apparently, didn't want anything to do with it, as seen in ''Year Of the Dragon''), in which it was sold off to Universal only and it became a FranchiseZombie. Well, after the release of ''A Hero's Tail'', long runner {{Sierra}} bought the franchise, in gave it a severe ContinuityReboot (The whole Legend of Spyro series), which due to insufficient man power and funds, created a [[FanDumb controversy of the quality of the games]]. Needless to say, Activision bought out Sierra and let them keep the franchise in hopes "to have promising results," which of course, costs Sierra its better, older franchises like KingsQuest and SpaceQuest.
* Sony America has a bad history of refusing to localize {{Video Game Remake}}s and {{Updated Rerelease}}s unless they have a certain amount of new content added. Such was the case of the PSP version of ''BreathOfFire 3''.
* Back in 2001, there were Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish, and Spy Fox remakes in development which looked promising. You know what the Humongous Entertainment executives did with them? The games were cancelled. The rights to the three series were sold off to Majesco, which eventually published them to commercial acclaim (dont' know about critical, as I have never seen critic's reviews of the games). In fact, Humongous wanted to sell all the franchises...but the MLB, MLS, NHL, NBA, and NFL did not let the BackyardSports series get away.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Spoofed in the ''LeagueOfIntergalacticCosmicChampions'' with the Evil K-NIT TV-47 Executive.
* Parodied in the series ''Revisioned: Activision'', which has an executive trying to force two writers to remake the Atari game ''Kaboom'' for modern audiences. At one point, he even flips through a guide of "Screenwriting for Meddlers".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Disney has had a few cases of this:
** One of the most notorious victims was ''TheBlackCauldron''. [[{{Satan}} Michael Eisner]] axed nearly twenty minutes off the ''finished film'' before it hit theaters. The film certainly has other problems -- movies in DevelopmentHell for twelve years tend to accumulate them. But anyone with even a vague knowledge of animation production can see how insane this decision was.
** RobinWilliams signed with Disney to do the character Genie in ''{{Disney/Aladdin}}'', even receiving lower paychecks, demanding that his name wasn't used in advertisements, and that the ads didn't feature the Genie alone, or not feature him in over 25% of the space. (He had a prior commitment premiering around the same time and didn't want to screw the minds behind it.) As Disney executives realized the Genie was the soul of the movie, the second condition was promptly discarded, and by the time of Academy Award nominations, the first as well. Williams got angry and refused to work with the studio again, with the ''Aladdin'' sequel and TV series [[ThePoorMansSubstitute featuring Dan Castellaneta as Genie]]. Disney's change of president made Williams rethink, and he returned as the voice of Genie in the final ''Aladdin'' sequel.
** 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 [[DisContinuity disregard its existence]]...save for the first episode of the season, which is legitimately canon thanks to the Weisman-helmed ''Gargoyles'' comic.
** TheDisneyChannel's recent practice of ending production on any show that has reached 65 episodes. ''KimPossible'' was popular for three seasons and ''still'' got ended. 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 ''BeakmansWorld'' more episodes.
*** Recent!? It's been more or less standard procedure for ''twenty years''.
*** In the 4th season of ''KimPossible'', the animators were informed by Studio Executives that they absolutely had to do [[{{an Aesop}} 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."
*** Here's another one. At the end of So the Drama Kim, without provocation, kicks Shego into an electrical tower, which then collapses. Let me just say that again, the Disney hero kills the villian in cold blood. When test audiances thought Kim did kill Shego the scene was ordered to be changed to show that she was not only alive but reletively unhurt.
** During the making of ''WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', which features cameo appearances from characters from both the Disney and Warner Brothers animation studios, it was mandated by executives of both companies that their characters could only be used as long as they received the ''exact'' amount of screen time as their competitors. For this reason, every time that Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, the two figurehead representatives of WB and Disney respectively, appear on screen they are together -- originally, Bugs had a solo scene, but for the reasons above, Disney raised a stink and it was cut. Fortunately, the writers were imaginative enough that viewers tend not to notice this unless it is pointed out to them. It is also rumoured that the question mark that should logically form a part of the title was removed after the results of a market survey indicated that movies with question marks in the titles were more frequently failures at the box office. Evidently someone at the meeting table concluded, 'Correlation may not equal causation, but why take chances?'
** In a case of the meddling actually working out for the ''better'', ''TheEmperorsNewGroove'' started out as a PrinceAndPauper movie called ''The Kingdom in the Sun,'' heavy on the [[AnAesop aesoping]]. Due to [[DevelopmentHell heavy production issues]] and poor reception from test audiences, the plot of the entire movie was ordered to undergo an overhaul. The whole film was retooled in the space of about six months, becoming a zany buddy comedy with more in common with LooneyTunes than typical Disney fare. The only thing it really lost in the {{retool}} was a [[EarWorm rockin']] VillainSong sung by Eartha Kitt, though the curious can still find it on the official soundtrack.
*** That said, many fans are still rather curious about the original version of the film. Sting, who had written all the songs -- which were later trashed in the new version, had made a documentary entitled "The Sweat Box" about all the Executive Meddling during the making of the film, and it's one of the few chances one would have to see cuts from the original version. Thing is, Disney ''owns the rights'' to that documentary, and you can imagine how well it went over with them...
** There's also a lot of rules imposed by Standards and Practices 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 [[AmericanDragonJakeLong Jake Long]] whenever he ''flew''. '''In dragon form!''' (What other planet was this executive born, where turning into a dragon and flying around is an imitable act?)
** In the case of ''LiloAndStitchTheAnimatedSeries'', 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.
** ''AmericanDragonJakeLong'' 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. It was also originally a two part episode where Sun Kim was to be KilledOffForReal and it would reveal Chang as [[IAmYourFather 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 [[spoiler: after losing her memory,]] 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.
* The [[{{Diniverse}} DC Animated Universe]] also has a few odd cases:
** A peculiar case of executive meddling existed in the ''JusticeLeague'' 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 RoguesGallery on the show, in order to protect them for another animated series that was running at the same time, ''TheBatman''. A silver lining in this and other legal entanglements was that it prompted the producers to dig deeper into TheDCU and gave other interesting characters the {{Diniverse}} 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.
*** Note that in turn, ''TheBatman'' was forbidden the use of Robin as long as ''TeenTitans'' 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 ChristopherNolan [[TheDarkKnightSaga films]].
*** And ''TeenTitans'' had to go out of its way to avoid using the name "Batman", though "Gotham City" was still acceptable.
** And because of TheCW'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 CaptainErsatz 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?
** Plastic Man and the BlueBeetle were also forbidden from appearing do to media adaptation rights conflicts. Those conflicts have seen been resolved, so both now appear along with Aquaman and Black Manta in ''BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold''.
** ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' 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. [[spoiler:Originally, when Batgirl/Barbara was to fall to her death while hitting her father's police car on the way down, the camera angle stayed outside of the car, looking head-on at Gordon and Bullock as Barbara hits the hood. The network censors objected to the blatant on-screen violence and flagged the shot. The sinister bastards at WB Animation then set the shot of Barbara landing on the hood from ''inside'' the police car, using the conventional "back seat" shot seen in so many movies. This, of course, is a much more startling and frightening shot, as the camera angle is so common and generic that the violence is ten times more unexpected. However, the censors, in a remarkable show of GenreBlindness, only paid attention to the fact that Barbara's landing was technically further away from the camera and signed off on the more vicious shot.]] [[{{HSQ}} Those suckers.]]
**** I remember an interview with Dini where he said 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 NightmareFuel if they followed the words to the letter.
** Similarly, when asked to do a show about [[SpinoffBabies Batman in High School]], creative interpretation of that concept gave us the {{Cyberpunk}} dark future of ''BatmanBeyond''.
*** So, ''{{Spider-Girl}}'' is "Comicbook/{{Spider-Man}} in high school after a sex change"?
** ''SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' 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 ([[UnCancelled first]]) GrandFinale that Superman (not Clark) took Lois on a date.
* "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 ''{{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.
* On the Marvel side of things, Human Torch was '''[[{{Misblamed}} not]]''' left out of the 1978 ''{{Series/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.
* Similar to the ''[[TheBlackCauldron Black Cauldron]]'' example above, somewhere out there in cutting-room floor land are the legendary million dollars' worth of finished animation cut mainly for time from ''TheLandBeforeTime''. Except for a few tantalizing clues, and edits that are awkward and obvious if you pay close attention, few fans have any idea what these scenes might have included.
* The show ''InvaderZim'' was created when {{Nickelodeon}} asked Jhonen Vasquez to create a program to capture the edgier, older crowd's attention. When they got ''exactly what they asked for'', they canceled the show for being [[NightmareFuel too dark for little children]].
** On a more humorous and depressingly ironic note, Vasquez originally planned to kill off Zim once it became clear the series was going to be canceled. Nickelodeon, however, forced him to change the ending and then canceled the series before the episode could air. The reasoning behind this was so the series could be picked up again in case Nickelodeon changed their minds. They didn't. They ultimately had [[NicktoonsUnite other uses]] for keeping Zim alive.
*** Though Vasquez said that even if they did change their minds, he wouldn't come back anyway.
* ''{{Transformers}}: BeastWars'' story editors Bob Forward and Larry [=DiTillio=] stated, after the conclusion of the series, that they had no interest in working on [[MerchandiseDriven 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 [[spoiler:and was promptly killed off in the finale]]. As it turns out, they both eventually ''did'' work on such series again, as [=DiTillio=] ended up writing for ''[[HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse He Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'', and Bob Forward for the ''Hot Wheels Alien Racers'' series.
** Speaking of which, the 2003 ''He-Man'' remake was criticized as having failed due to [[ScrewedByTheNetwork 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, Hasbro only agreed if the new merchandise were immobile statues instead of the action figures Four Horsemen wanted.
* When ''FamilyGuy'' first aired in 1999, it was not extremely popular. As such, its schedule got shifted on an almost weekly basis. When it weren't moved around, it was [[ScrewedByTheNetwork put on right after football]], which is considered to be the worst spot for a show since football can run on far longer than scheduled. After three seasons of this the show was canceled, only to be [[UnCancelled bought out by Cartoon Network]].
** Pretty much the exact same thing happened to ''{{Futurama}}'' -- except they came back on a different network, since CN's rights ran out.
* ''{{Reboot}}'' was the near-constant target of ExecutiveMeddling from {{ABC}}. It got so bad that in one episode the network demanded that a shot of Dot [[NoHuggingNoKissing kissing her younger brother on the cheek]] and saying she loved him be cut out for broadcast because it "promoted [[BrotherSisterIncest incest]]." One side-effect of this was the inclusion of numerous jabs at the [[MediaWatchdog Broadcasting Standards and Practices office]] at ABC in the show.
** In Argentina, MediaWatchdogs 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 ''MortalKombat''-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 [[EyeScream 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=] ('''A'''rmored '''B'''inome '''C'''arrier) being Megabyte's fleet.
** At one point Enzo aimed a ridiculously large bazooka at Megabyte's troops, only to discover, to his disgust, that it fired a life raft labeled "[=BS=] Approved".
** How about the episode about Enzo's birthday? For much of the episode, 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.
* A positive example of executive meddling is with the creation of ''{{Thunderbirds}}''. The production company exec, Lew Grade, liked the show so much that he demanded that the half-hour show have hour-long episodes. As a result, Gerry Anderson's company had to, at least initially, pad the time with additional plot twists and character development, which gave the series a sophistication that made the show a cult classic.
** Further executive decisions resulted in the cancellation of ''Thunderbirds'' after TheFilmOfTheSeries failed to perform. This did, however, allow Anderson to develop his next show, ''[[CaptainScarlet Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons]]'', which gathered a significant cult following of its own, if not as big as that of ''Thunderbirds''. Grade made a less positive decision concerning Anderson's final Supermarionation show ''The Secret Service''. Each episode featured Father Unwin, voiced by Stanley Unwin, bamboozling people with Unwin's trademark "Unwinese" doubletalk. Unfortunately, when Grade first heard this, he cancelled the show with only 13 episodes in the can, on the grounds that viewers wouldn't understand Unwinese -- despite the fact that they weren't ''meant'' to.
* NBC adopted the Christian video series ''VeggieTales'' to air on their new children's programming block ''qubo'', but not before [[{{Bowdlerise}} 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 [[MoralGuardians parents' groups]] forced the producers of ''[[Series/DungeonsAndDragons Dungeons & Dragons]]'' to end every episode with an odd, FamilyUnfriendlyAesop that "The group is always right, {{the complainer is always wrong}}", which resulted in presenting TheLancer Eric the Cavalier as a constant whiner, who does everything in opposition to the group and, thus, always gets into trouble.
* According to the scriptwriter Michael Edens, the DisneyDeath of [[spoiler:Alec Deleon]] in ''{{Exosquad}}'' was caused by ExecutiveMeddling. Originally, he was supposed to be KilledOffForReal as early as in the destruction of [[spoiler:Mars]], as foreshadowed in in a DreamSequence six episodes before that.
* This gained a combined TakeThat and LampshadeHanging upon the ReTool of ''PinkyAndTheBrain'' into ''Pinky, [[TinyToonAdventures Elmyra]], and the Brain'', in the form of the retool-explaining ExpositoryThemeTune: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_-KBvO8Ek '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 ''PinkyAndTheBrain'' in the episode "You'll Never Eat Food Pellets in This Town Again", where the titular characters are actually ''[[AnimatedActors 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 [[AllJustADream 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 ''ThreeStooges'' {{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 [[TheScrappy hates him]], and by the end of the episode he gets kicked out, only to be replaced by... Zeppo.
* Aardman Animation's ''FlushedAway'' suffered from meddling from the get-go; Aardman originally pitched it to {{DreamWorks}} as being about pirates, but they claimed that there was no market for pirate films and were forced to modernize the idea. The movie was postponed for work to be done on TheMovie ''[[WallaceAndGromit Wallace & Gromit]]: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit''. Ironically, when ''Flushed Away'' was finally released, ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' already had its first sequel under its belt.
** [=DreamWorks=] weren't done with their meddling there; the singing/whistling slugs that recur regularly in the movie were originally just in one scene, but the producers apparently thought it was comedy gold and insisted that if a significant amount of time had passed without any big laughs, [[RunningGag they were to slot in the slugs in some way]]. This becomes an OverusedRunningGag by the end of the film. The experience working with [=DreamWorks=] was enough to make Aardman Animation break off from them completely.
** It wasn't just ''Flushed Away'' they meddled with; ''Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit'' had many attempts at meddling made towards it. [=DreamWorks=] wanted Wallace's voice actor to be changed to a well-known American, which Aardman quite rightly fought against. Luckily, [=DreamWorks=] dropped the issue.
* Perhaps the most extreme case of meddling in an animated film happened to Richard Williams' masterpiece, ''TheThiefAndTheCobbler''. There is no nice word for how this film was treated. It was ''butchered''. Shelved for years, altered to make it look more like Disney's ''{{Disney/Aladdin}},'' redrawn by different animators... the film has never gotten the respect it deserves. The only way people know of these injustices are through the effort of film editor Garrett Gilchrist, who compiled multiple versions of the film into a "Recobbled Cut", which he distributes freely online.
* Not even ''JemAndTheHolograms'' was safe from ExecutiveMeddling. 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).
** Anyway you slice it, it's still counts.
* ''{{X-Men Evolution}}'' had an example of ExecutiveMeddling 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 9/11''. 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.
** TheWB was '''horrible''' about jumping to ridiculous conclusions like this (see the ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' example). Anyway, Lance and Kitty didn't fare well with ExecutiveMeddling at all. They were broken up in season 3 due to KidsWB complaining about too much romance on the show. [[OfficialCouple Scott and Jean]]'s relationship was spared though.
* During his tenure as head writer on ''TheRealGhostbusters'', JMichaelStraczynski constantly battled with {{ABC}} execs. His tribute to HPLovecraft, ''The Collect Call of Cthulhu'', nearly ended up being unaired over fears that it glorified the occult. This '''one''' episode out of ''a horror/comedy-themed show''!
** 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 [[GirlsNeedRoleModels "feminine"]], instead. The consultant also expressed concerns that her sharp, angular glasses might [[ViewersAreMorons scare children]] -- and yet, all the [[GrotesqueGallery 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 an opportunity to do so.
** Other additions the executives wanted were more Slimer-centric episodes, and junior Ghostbusters, a [[FiveTokenBand group of children]] that [[TheLoad 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, LampshadeHanging the changes made to Janine in the episode "Janine You've Changed". However, CreativeDifferences would soon drive him off the show for good.
*** In ''ExtremeGhostbusters'', Janine is back to her original personality, Slimer is back as a minor supporting character, and no mention is made of the Junior Ghostbusters... Although the show does feature a token handicapped character.
* The [[ArtShift "puppet mode"]] [[TheStinger Stinger]] segments that play during the credit sequence of ''{{Chowder}}'' were completely removed from their first run due to the current practice of CartoonNetwork appropriating a show's credit sequence for additional show promotion and advertising with their blatant CreditsPushback (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, TheStinger sequences for ''CampLazlo'' were sacrificed via CreditsPushback 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 CreditsPushback. Anytime anything happens during the End Credits you might as well write it off. Try watching ''TheBreakfastClub'' 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 [[NeverSayDie 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." Also, realistic guns were out, so even petty thieves were armed with [[WhereDidTheyGetLasers 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 {{squick}}tastic that they made the character even [[NightmareFuel creepier]], whereas his declarations of "I hunger for PLASMA!" were often {{Narm}}.
*** There's a joke about "making it a [[IncrediblyLamePun Blood Lite]] in there somewhere...
**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.
** Sandman was never seen because rights were tied up with the (unmade) original movie plans and instead Hydro-Man was used in their place.
* Vlad Masters, {{Danny Phantom}}'s ArchEnemy and EvilCounterpart, 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 [[{{Dracula}} 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" ([[SarcasmMode Never mind that the show is about ghosts....]]) and had him changed into the bitter yet [[EvilIsSexy still somehow appealing]] half-ghost villain we all know and love.
** One could argue its third season was a result of ExecutiveMeddling; the main writer for the first two seasons was fired and Season Three resulted in heavy alterations that caused severe {{Discontinuity}} for some fans.
* An example with a big upside: [[NeverSayDie the renaming of Deathstroke]] in ''TeenTitans''. Using his actual first name, Slade, he sounds a) more enigmatic b) more unpredictable and c) far, far more [[BadassNormal badass]].
* One episode of the ''{{Beetlejuice}}'' cartoon show is basically a huge TakeThat 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'' SickeninglySweet 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.
* Given the three different companies responsible for the production of the ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' (2003) -- toymaker Playmates, Mirage, and [[FourKidsEntertainment 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 [[{{Chaotic}} card game-based series]], a series with the Turtles caring for their [[SpinoffBabies infant past selves]], and a completely fresh ContinuityReboot.
* 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 UnusuallyUninterestingSight 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 ExecutiveMeddling 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 [[CurseCutShort "whoa!"]]
* Several aspects of the DarkerAndEdgier second season of ''Series/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' 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:
-->'''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 bad ass. For me, I didn't want to alter our existing Superman that much. So along with Michael Jelenic, we came up with [[SendInTheClones the clone from the future]]. (More [[http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=117 here]].)
** More depressingly, Saturn Girl's season-long ConvenientComa 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}}:
-->'''Stan Berkowitz:''' ... the network focus-grouped ''TheBatman'' (and ''Series/{{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... [[http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/batman/tnba/backstage/interviews/berkowitz.php]]
* After ''Devil May Hare,'' the first LooneyTunes short staring the Tasmanian Devil was made, executive Eddie Selzer made it extremly 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.
* What about ''SWATKats''? 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 (cough, DBZ, cough). 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 ''CaptainPlanet'' 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 EntertainmentWeekly not four months after the show had been canceled blatantly implies this is the case:
--> '''Ted Turner''': "We have more cartoons than anybody: TheFlintstones, TheJetsons, TheSmurfs, {{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."

*** Which is HILARIOUS given the level of comedic (and imitatable, most kids don't have jets with missiles to shoot at each other but can easily find heavy objects to drop on one another's little heads) violence in some of those cartoons he listed.
* A positive example: originally, the ''KidsNextDoor'' were to use high tech equipment to fight adult tyranny. The folks at CartoonNetwork, however, asked this to be changed since ''DextersLaboratory'' had already done this. This resulted in [[BambooTechnology 2x4 technology]], which Mr. Warburton has called one of the coolest things about the show.
* ''RenAndStimpy'' was another animated show that benefited from ExecutiveMeddling. The Nickelodeon suits made creator John Kricfalusi do some cartoons that were traditional and heartwarming, to help offset the extreme grossness of the show. Some of these mandated cartoons turned out to be the best in the series ("Untamed World", "Son of Stimpy"). Then they fired him... but in all fairness, if you're willing to see [[ProtectionFromEditors how horrible John K. could go without Nick's intervention]], watch the Adult Party Cartoon episodes.
* This trope was parodied in ''TheSimpsons'' when too much meddling caused Krusty to retire for the umpteenth time.
** It was also parodied when executives came up with ThePoochie.
--->'''Meyers''': No, no, no! He was supposed to have attitude.\\
'''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.
* And parodied again in ''DarkwingDuck'' when executives try to mess with the show itself onscreen, such as trying to change the focus to villain Bushroot. If memory serves (when will they release the last of these on DVD?), the execs at least figured that killing Darkwing off should be vetoed.
* ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'' creators Mike and Brian have implied this as the reason for their inability to resolve the Ursa subplot ([[AssPull among other things]]). 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.
* A positive example from ''PhineasAndFerb:'' When Disney Channel executives heard the song "Gitchie Gitchie Goo," they asked the creators to make a song for each episode. [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome This worked out REALLY well.]]
** Also notable is a TakeThat 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''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Apparently, the Olbermann/O'Reilly "truce" is [[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/business/media/01feud.html?_r=3&src=twt&twt=nytimes also the result of executive meddling]]
** Olbermann denied this [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEAQEiO4NWc on the air]] and has frequently said his decision to stop talking about O'Reilly was because he believes Billo's rants against abortionist doctor George Tiller indirectly led to Tiller's murder and Billo could therefore no longer be considered funny. Say what you want about Olbermann, but given his confrontational history with executives (he nearly quit ''Countdown'' weeks after it debuted when they tried to put Michael Savage on the show), it's highly unlikely he would stand for such meddling.
* It is said that the Greek sculptor Polykleitos was making a statue once, and people constantly instructed him about how it should look (in some variations, it was an official commitee). He made such a statue, while in secret, making another the way he wanted. In the end, he showed the people both statues, and explained the difference between his creation and theirs...
[[/folder]]

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