[[VisualPun http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ptcdog.jpg]]
[[caption-width:184:[[FridgeBrilliance Don't these kinds of dogs usually hurt more children than violence on TV does?]]]]

-->''Here in the US, we are so schizoid and deeply opposed to government censorship that we insist on having unaccountable private parties to do it instead.''
-->--Bill Cole

There are rules of taste and decency on TV. There are also [[CensorshipBureau legal requirements to be followed]].

In order to enforce these, governments set up media watchdogs. People (more often than not MoralGuardians) complain about a programme, the body looks at it and rules whether their complaints are justified.

The current UK record for most complaints (over 39,000) about a TV programme is held by ''Celebrity Big Brother'', due to the bullying and possible racial abuse of eventual winner Shilpa Shetty.

The US version is the Federal Communications Commission, while the latest name for the UK television one is Ofcom (in addition there is the ASA for adverts and the voluntary PCC for print media). Many stations (in the US, at least) also have their own self-regulating "Standards and Practices" department (commonly known as "the network censors"). In Japan, the relevant body is the Eiga Rinri Kanri Iinkai, or Motion Picture Code of Ethics Committee (colloquially abbreviated as "Eirin;" [[TouhouProject don't ask it for help]]).

Whilst these authorities will crack down hard on depictions of any kind of behaviour of which they disapprove, many observers note that an interesting DoubleStandard frequently comes into play; material that includes or depictions of sex or nudity will often be treated in a harsher fashion than material featuring violence. As a result, many have reported the often absurd situation wherein a MediaWatchdog has cracked down heavily on any nude / sexual content a text may contain, even that which is relatively minor, whilst often leaving scenes of quite graphic or over-the-top violence comparatively untouched.

GettingCrapPastTheRadar is the art of outsmarting the Media Watchdogs. See also ExecutiveMeddling.

American stand-up comedian and social commentator GeorgeCarlin famously dealt with the situation soon after its inception in the U.S. by making it part of one of his concerts.

-->''How about this? The FCC, an appointed body, not elected, answerable '''only''' to the President, decided all on its own that radio and TV were the only two parts of American media not protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. I'd like to repeat that because it sounds '''vaguely important'''. The FCC, an appointed body, not elected, answerable '''only''' to the President, decided all on its own that radio and TV were the only two parts of American media not protected by the free speech Amendment of the Constitution. '''Why''' did they do that? Because they got a '''letter''' from a '''minister''' in '''Mississippi!''' A Reverend Donald Wildmon heard something on the radio he didn't like. Well hey, Reverend, didn't anybody ever tell you that there are two '''knobs''' on the radio? '''Two! Knobs! On the radio!''' However, I'm sure the Reverend isn't too comfortable with anything that has two knobs on it anyway. Anyway, Reverend, there are two knobs on the radio. One of them turns the radio off, and the other one, '''changes the station'''! Imagine that, Reverend! You can actually change the station! It's called freedom of choice, and it's one of the principles this country was founded upon. Look it up at the library, Reverend, if you have any left when you finish burning all the books!''

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!!Examples:
*Painfully obvious in ''{{NCIS}}'' which depicts borderline realistic, and often gruesome, autopsy scenes. But the corpse's genitals are always conveniently blotched out by what looks like glare from a high-powered lamp. To this editor it points out perfectly just how ridiculous this behaviour can get.
** Especially as, in one episode, [[LovableSexManiac DiNozzo]] tests a theory by asking the coroner, Ducky, to see a deceased man's member.
*BBC SketchShow ''TheMaryWhitehouseExperience'' took its name from an infamous self-appointed British [[MoralGuardians moral guardian]].
** Mrs Whitehouse is also satirized as one of the three "Pigs" in PinkFloyd's song of that name.
** She was also satirized in an episode of ''TheGoodies''. It seems she wrote to the show to complement them as being one of the few "clean" shows on TV. They didn't like that.
*Ever subversive, American cartoons are rife with jabs at their resident network's MediaWatchdog. A few examples:
**During the first two seasons of ''{{Reboot}}'' (which is actually a Canadian show, but the concept is the same), several jokes were made at the expense of ABC's Broadcast Standards and Practices Department (BS&P). These include a weapon that fires life rafts being labeled "[=BSnP=] Approved", and a [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed thinly-disguised parody]] of the VillagePeople singing a song to the tune of "YMCA" about the BS&P.
***And during the third season, once they had cut ties with ABC and moved to syndication (giving them much more control over their own show), one can see a tombstone in a game that reads "Here lies the Mainframe Joint Venture, an unholy alliance."
**When ''BeavisAndButthead'' did away with Beavis' pyromania-induced CatchPhrase of "Fire! Fire! Fire!" they replaced it with him shouting "Water! Water! Water!" whenever he saw a large body of it as a not-too-subtle jab at the censors. When Senator Fritz Hollings (D- S.C.) tried to cite the pair as a bad influence on kids, but misidentified them as "Beaver and Buffcoat", the animators used it as an in-joke, coming from the mouth of a ''prison inmate'' .
***In an episode involving Burger World, Beavis can be heard screaming "Fryer! Fryer! Fryer!" after he dumps all the patties on the grill.
***Similarly, while they were watching the video for Rollins Band's "Liar", Beavis began to chant: "Liar, liar! Liar, liar, pants on -- whoa."
***In another Video Segment, they watch a Video that has a ManOnFire. Beavis is totally overwhelmed with delight that he couldn't say anything intelligible, and when Butthead questions him, he didn't even remember what happened.
**The ''{{Beetlejuice}}'' cartoon also spoofed ABC's Broadcast Standards and Practices in one episode, where a bossy fairy-godmother figure named Goody Two-Shoes, sent from the Bureau of Sweetness and Prissiness (BS&P), ordered the gang to clean up their act, and eventually used her magic to briefly turn the show into a syrupy SitCom a la ''LeaveItToBeaver''.
** The ''TinyToons'' episode "Washingtoon" dealt with a media watchdog destroying Acme Acres to prevent the further existence of funny cartoons. Of course, this is a show that openly mentions network censors in the theme song, so...
** One episode of ''TheFairlyOddParents'' featured a character being abducted by the FCC's {{MIB}} squad for using the word "moron" on the radio. (Apparently it's okay to use that word on TV, but not on the radio)
** The {{Attack of the Killer Tomatoes}} series features a regular character known as The Censor Lady who constantly butts in to demand the characters behave in a more kid-friendly fashion.
** In an episode of ''{{Animaniacs}}'' two network censors objected to every violent act the Warner siblings did and showed them a parody of {{The Smurfs}} as how they want them to act; later on Attila the Hun attacks them, and the censors try to win him over with kindness. It doesn't work.
*** Another episode had a B-plot in which the show's characters are berated for being too violent, and Slappy Squirrel had to build an IKEA constructed machine to remove on-screen violence by making it offscreen - only Slappy made it even more violent than it was originally planned and used it against the lawyer/attorney/whatever who forced her to use it. (Incidentally, the A-plot was Skippy Squirrel trying to stop bullying through nonviolent means and utterly failing at it.)
*** One mainstay of the show was the Wheel of Morality, spoofing AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle. When Wakko and Dot complain about it and ask whose stupid idea it was to include morals, Yakko informs them that it was the Fox Kids execs.
** In ''{{Histeria}}'' there was recurring character much like The Censor Lady named Lydia Karaoke who showed up ever time some one said or did something unacceptable.
*The {{anime}} series ''OruchubanEbichu'' was designed to push the boundaries of the Japanese broadcast code, trying to get away with as much as possible without being censored. However, certain parts did end up getting censored, though a lot of edgy material made it in.
*In ''FushigiYuugi'', Miaka is told to remove her clothes as part of a test to see if she is worthy to receive an object of power; she starts stripping, but stops while still wearing a one-piece undergarment and says "This is the limit of what the broadcast code allows."
* Notoriously, the final episode of ''ExcelSaga'' was designed specifically to violate the standards of Tokyo Air Check (the Japanese version of the BS&P). Everything down to the length of the episode (one minute longer than normal) was designed to make it impossible to air. The episode was titled, appropriately, "Going Too Far". (And indeed, it didn't air.)
* The original LooneyTunes shorts would often make fun of the HaysCode, the restrictive regime of self-regulation that defined what could and couldn't be done in films until the early 1960s. Furthermore, the writers and animators would often [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar put material into the cartoons specifically to be cut]], the idea being that the censors would cut the obviously over-the-top stuff and leave the borderline material that the animators really wanted in. Sometimes, though, the sacrificial material was unexpectedly left alone. In one example, a dog suffering from flea-bites starts dragging his rump around Porky Pig's house. The animators threw in a line where the dog breaks the {{fourth wall}} to tell the audience, "I'd better stop this, I might get to like it!" That line was meant to be sacrificed but the whole sequence was left in.
** A direct jab at the code was made in a Tweety Bird WartimeCartoon involving two cats, Babbit and Catsello ([[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed transparent pastiches]] of the comedy team Abbott and Costello). Catsello goes up a ladder to get Tweety, and his partner tells him "Give me the bird!" The exasperated Catsello makes an aside, saying "If the Hays Office would only let me, I'd give him the bird alright!"
** The {{Animaniacs}} would later respond to this same question with "We'd love to, really, but the Fox censors won't allow it."
* Similar to the ''LooneyTunes'' example above, Chuck Barris, producer and host of ''TheGongShow'', tired of network censors nixing acts which he thought were fairly innocuous, so he began throwing deliberately outrageous ones at them so as to distract the Watchdogs from the acts he really wanted to broadcast. Naturally enough, in accordance with FinaglesLaw several of these intentionally over-the-top acts were allowed on the air, including [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxX7NXeXy-o the infamous Popsicle Twins]], a pair of women made up as teenaged girls who sat on stage and provocatively sucked popsicles while the song "I'm In The Mood For Love" played.
** It was allowed on the East Coast broadcast of the episode, but after the quick and predictable outcry it generated, NBC removed it from the West Coast broadcast that aired a few hours later.
* The ''SouthPark'' episode "It Hits the Fan" was meant to push the limits of censorship, since the characters utter the word "shit" ''162 times'', even using a counter at the bottom of the screen to indicate exactly how many times it was said. The plot of the episode itself spoofed the hooplah over the use of the phrase "Shit happens" on ''NYPDBlue'': overuse of the word "shit" following its appearance on the ShowWithinAShow ''Cop Drama'' ends up spreading a horrible plague and letting loose a dragon, which is battled by the ancient Knights of Standards and Practices.
* Similar to the above example, but thrown against the MPAA, ''SouthPark: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut'' was originally designed to test just how far they could take an R rated movie before it became NC-17. The answer was made clear in the film: "Remember what the MPAA says; Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words! That's what this war is all about!"
** The MPAA also made them change the original title, "South Park: All Hell Breaks Loose" because of the word 'hell'. The implications of "Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" were hilariously lost on them.
** Also, Parker and Stone followed the examples set by ''Looney Tunes'' and ''The Gong Show'' -- every time the MPAA would mark a scene as unacceptable, they would replace it with something even ''worse''. If their accounts of making the movie are to be believed, the MPAA would nearly always approve the more offensive revision. Apparently they don't care what you replace the scenes they don't like with, just that they're replaced. Maybe they were afraid that if they complained about the "improved" version, the result would be ''even worse than that''.
** According to interviews, Matt Stone and other writers spent hours bickering back and forth on the phone with excecutives during the production of "Cow Days" to determine just how many times they could get away with having Cartman say "Sucky sucky five dolla!" (thinking he is a Vietnamese prostitute) without the episode being censored.
* In the ''AquaTeenHungerForce'' episode "Gee Whiz" Meatwad and Frylock watch a mock PSA about network censorship that ends with the line "By following standards and practices you're guaranteed to make a mediocre product that no one can relate to." In fact, gags aimed at censorship liberally sprinkle the episode, ending with a NoFourthWall moment at the end where Frylock and Master Shake angrily ask the camera if the censors liked it. The answer: "ACCEPTABLE!" This take on the episode emerged after a previous version was rejected for being too offensive. The plot circles around Meatwad believing that a mysterious image on a billboard, which he thinks looks like Jesus, has gotten him pregnant; in the episode as aired, the characters circle the JesusTaboo by using the term "Gee Whiz", thus the episode title.
** Later, ATHF would have an episode called the "Dickisode". Prior to censoring the word "dick" was said 53 times, and there were 4,437 visible "dicks" (4.93 a second). All of the offending objects were covered with NTSC test bars.
* Fear of the MediaWatchdogs was one of the contributing factors as to why ''BeakmansWorld'' saved answering the most popular question sent into the show, "Why do we fart?", for the very last segment, after the show was canned for good. After all, they couldn't cancel the show twice...[[UnCanceled or could they?]]
* The video game ''AtelierIris ~Eternal Mana~'' [[PlayingWithATrope has a little fun with this]]: In one dialogue exchange, [[VerbalTic Verbally Ticked]] CatGirl Norn is afraid of monsters, so she asks the hero, Klein, to sleep with her. She thinks what she's saying is [[InnocentInnuendo totally innocuous]], but a flustered Klein responds by saying: "[[NoFourthWall I can't! The ESRB would go nuts!]]"
** This line is actually missing in the PAL version (though the game retains its fourth-wall wonders), and Klein simply answers with a flustered "...you're joking..."
*** "The PEGI and both OFLCs would go nuts!" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
* This is spoofed in ''DrawnTogether'' when Wooldoor, Xandir, Spanky Ham, and Captain Hero celebrate Wooldoor's questionable show being aired despite censorship. They toast to the show being aired and to freedom of speech, each chiming in random vulgarity. The conversation ends with Captain Hero giving a long and detailed description of him mutilating, disemboweling, and molesting a pig while the others watch in awe and horror.
* The ''FamilyGuy'' episode "PTV" revolves around and spoofs this concept.
** In the episode, the FCC went so far as to try to censor real life. "His chin kinda looks like balls. Should I censor that, too?"
*** And they strapped an automatic censor to Peter that turns farts into Stephen Wright jokes. Watch as Peter strains, only to hear: "I spilled spot remover on my dog, now he's gone."
** In the commentary for the episode "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater", it is mentioned the original skit for the DeBeers commercial parody involved the woman going all the way down off screen, followed by the slogan "She'll pretty much have to". When the FCC wanted to censor it but the writers wanted to keep it, they argued about how far down she can go for it to still be appropriate, even down to which EXACT FRAME does "too far" begin.
* Parodied in one of the earlier Halloween episodes of ''TheSimpsons'', where the cartoon figure of a network censor is stabbed to death while crossing out parts of the script, with the episode rating going up with each stabbing, eventually reaching "TV-666". Whilst his demise is bloody, the sentiments he utters during his murder ("Oh what the fudge! Oh Jiminy Christmas! Darn it!") are far from offensive.
** Taken to greater [[StrawmanPolitical Strawman]] levels than usual in the episode "You Kent Always Say What You Want".
* Parodied in an old ''SmothersBrothers'' sketch where the Smothers Brothers hand their new script to a team of censors. Each one reads a page and laughs even harder than the last one, before throwing the page away and saying "no." Only the last page remained because it wasn't funny at all.
* {{Webcomic}} example: In [[http://bukucomics.com/loserz/index.php?comicID=325 this]] ''{{Loserz}}'' strip.
* Head of the British Board of Film Censors at the time, John Trevelyan, didn't like the early JamesBond movies, making cuts to them. EON named a Bond villain after him.
* In ''Wes Craven's New Nightmare'' there is a psychiatrist who blames violent movies to be the cause of the (pre-teen) protagonists mental condition. Her name is Doctor Heffner, a hint at the MPAA´s former chairman Richard Heffner, who gave Wes Craven a hard time repeatedly.
** An extra TakeThat was in just how out-of-touch the psychiatrist was. She tells the actress who was in the ''NightmareOnElmStreet'' movies that her son apparently knows who Freddy Kruger is, and from this assumes the mother has been showing her child her old movies (all of this in a disapproving tone). The actress snaps back, in exasperation, "Every kid knows who Freddy Kruger is! He's like Santa Claus!"
* In an episode of ''MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch'', the show's hosts, Johnny Gomez and Nick Diamond, were arrested by the '''B'''roadcasters '''O'''pposing '''O'''ffensive '''B'''ehavior (B.O.O.B.) for showing offensive content on the show, namely airing an illegal "cockfight" fight between Tommy Lee and Ron Jeremy (both of which were in their chicken suits).
* This troper remembers a friend telling him that ''NoMoreHeroes'' parodied the censorship issue by joking that putting anything more extreme into the game would get the game an AO rating. (An Adults-Only rating is suicide for a game, because [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_63/370-Wal-Mart-Rules a certain large retailer]] refuses to stock games with the AO rating.)
** This actually happened, [[BreakingTheFourthWall in the dialogue before the final battle, no less]]. There's also the implication that the game would have to be re-edited if the plot point referenced was actually uttered, thereby delaying the game. To top it off, this is all followed by the line, "You don't want this game to become ''NoMoreHeroes [[DukeNukemForever Forever]]'', do you?" This line is in the original Japanese version as well, since CERO (Japan's equivalent of the ESRB) is similar in how they act.
** They also went for broke in the dialogue that they skip through. It's a REALLY, REALLY bad story!
** said dialog describes [[spoiler:that Travis and Jeane are half siblings, and are [[{{Squick}} implied to have done it]]]]
** You can slow down the speed so you can [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A22Nkt_fDBc hear what is really being said]].
* Many fans of ''VeronicaMars'' joke that the [[HurricaneOfPuns storm of double-entendres]] present in the dialogue simply overloaded the censors' filthometers and they gave up.
* A moment that should have been dramatic was turned almost [[{{Narm}} Narmy]] in a recent episode of ''BattlestarGalactica'' when Starbuck started dropping [[ClusterFBomb fraks like nobody's business]]. We ''know exactly what she's saying''. Why do we have to have drama ruined by [[UnusualEuphemism good but ultimately fruitless tries at alternate swearing]]?
** ''Brilliantly'' parodied in [[http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/66708/detail/ this]] RobotChicken sketch, with most of the actual BattlestarGalactica cast.
*** "Frak" is the last remnant of the Original BSGs habit of having alternate names for almost everything: seconds became centons, years became yahrns, fuck became frak. While the alternate time system was dropped, frak was specifically included as an homage to the original. Originally, there was some bowdlerization involved, but that's not the only reason its there.
*In early episodes of ''{{Lost}}'', ABC's Standards and Practices insisted that Charlie's heroin use could not be shown. Instead, it had to be implied with cutaway shots.
* In a ''Dilbert'' comic, the syndicate made Adams remove a police officer's gun, which he replaced with a doughnut. This would be pretty standard, except for the fact that the punchline was the officer shooting an unarmed suspect, which he still does...with the doughnut. Someone get Dunkin' to start selling ''those''.
* In one episode of [[ScoobyDoo The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo]] a watchdog stops the show, insisting that the flame attacks from a dragon are too violent. Scrappy turns it around, however, insisting she [[FantasticRacism has something personal against dragons.]]
* Ironicaly, While France has some "classical" media watchdogs, some of them actually complain because they believe that French TV and movies are not bold enough.
* Let's not forget ''TheGoonShow'', which opted to take the piss by putting in [[OrphanedPunchline completely out of context punchlines]] [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar to dirty jokes]], then pointing out that anyone who got the joke had no right to be offended. And let's not even get started on the brandy.
** Similarly, the radio comedy {{Round the Horne}} (itself a victim of overzealous censorship) aimed a number of {{Take That}}s including one where a team of censors object to the title of a then popular TV Show 'Have A Go With Wilfred Pickles' (The joke being that it's not the obvious innuendo in 'have a go' but the name 'Pickles' was promoting alcohol abuse).
* ThisFilmIsNotYetRated is all about how this works for movies in the US.
* Les pieds dans la Marge, a Québéçois tv show that collect various stunts for teenagers(in the large understanding that teenage extans at leats to the mid-twentys)give a meta example of media watchdogs and executive meddling. The show prensentator and narrator is often showed during an executive meeting where he intterupt the sequence asking if the show is sending the right message to the teenagers. The funny part being that the actor that plays the complaining part is also taking parts in all of the stunts ( Such as trusting your friends blindly to choose a tatoo that will end on your bum, Skydiving, Forest survival and so on.)
* After being repeatedly badgered by the Parents Television Council (PTC) for it's raunchy programming, WWE(WWF at the time) lampooned the organization with a wrestling stable known as Right to Censor (RTC). Clad in business suits, the RTC would openly harass any wrestlers who acted too profane, sexy, etc. Of course, they weren't above using violence to get their point across.
* Parodied in the ''PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Raging Bully", where school bully Buford van Stromm challenges Phineas to a fight. Phineas and Ferb even build a boxing ring outside the Googleplex Mall... and then the ringside announcer tells Phineas and Buford "In no way should this ensuing fight contain the image of potentially harmful, hurtful, or psychologically disturbing physical acts that could be found imitable by an impressionable child viewer", to the disappointment of Buford, who has to settle for a thumb-wrestling match.
* Parodied in ''SamAndMax Season 2: What's New, Beelzebub?'', where we find that the FCC is run by the forces of Hell.
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