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Getting Crap Past The Radar
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alt title(s): Getting Crap Past The Censors
I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it. — Mae West
The practice — usually found on but not limited to comedies — of attempting to sneak some manner of profanity or other forbidden material past the network censors. The trope name is a somewhat milder version of comedian Robin Williams' term for his attempts along these lines while he was on the air in Mork And Mindy; Williams has probably made the greatest (known) effort along these lines in television history, allegedly researching and exhausting several different languages in an attempt to find genuinely dirty words the censors would not recognize, and coming up with sequences that would seem utterly innocent on paper, but which would carry vast quantities of implied prurience — often hilarious — when executed.
He was hardly the first, however. Films have flirted with the line for decades, often through the use of Double Entendre (as demonstrated, for example, by Lauren Bacall's famous line from To Have and Have Not: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow."). And, of course, the above-quoted Mae West pretty much made her career out of finding ways to get her bawdy comedy under the censors of Hollywood back in the 1930s and 1940s.)
A specific type is Hide Your Lesbians. See also Frothy Mugs Of Water, Something Else Also Rises and Head Tiltingly Kinky; the original item is often quite obvious.
Bolder and less camouflaged efforts frequently take Refuge In Audacity. A combination of these two is when creators deliberately fill their work with an over-the-top amount of something that they freely expect the censor to take objection to and demand that they cut... in order to distract them from a lesser item that the creators want to keep in, but without the distraction the censors would immediately demand be excised.
It should be noted this is where Western Animation shines — one folder wasn't enough to hold it all and even then we had to split the freakin' page!!!
See Censor Decoy for one specific method.
Bowel Breaking Bricks is another way of getting "crap" past the radar.
The polar opposite of Innocent Innuendo.
Examples
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Newspaper Comics
- Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, took this literally: He actually spent a good chunk of his career working to allow the word "crap" in his comic. Additionally, he has inserted many a Double Entendre (and one Triple Entendre) into the strip.
- One strip in particular had the distinction of having gotten crap past certain radars: Dogbert tries to come up with a new name for the company via a computer program that randomly pairs astronomy and technology terms. The first result is "Uranus Hertz" (which the Pointy Haired Boss aproves). The commented edition claims "This strip was banned from at least one newspaper".
- Get Fuzzy infamously had a bit of fun with a list of holiday-themed animals: Thanksgiving turkey, Easter bunny, Valentine's Day beaver...
Rob: Wait, Valentine's Day what?
- In one story arc of Calvin And Hobbes, Calvin is upset about having to play baseball and has this exchange with his father:
Calvin: What's wrong with just having fun by yourself, huh!?
Calvin's Dad: When you're grown up, it's not allowed.
- In another one, Calvin says that he wants a baby brother to beat up. The next panel is Calvin's mother phoning her husband at work, with him saying "Listen, honey, could we talk about that operation some other time?"
- Zits has one scene that parents just loved: Walt & Connie in bed, bare shoulders above the sheets ("You know, where Jeremy moves away, I think my 'Empty Nest Syndrome' will be a very mild case." "Is it really only 7:30!?!"). The censors were nervous.
Print Media
- The September 2008 issue of Nintendo Power (The One With Sonic the Hedgehog on the front) is chock-full of this. First, their review of Fatal Fury 2 refers to "bouncy ninja girl" Mai Shiranui. They also had the guts to show a picture of Walter Peck with the caption, "Yes, it's true. This man has no Wii." Guess they didn't know what that meant.
- And the picture they used to show the Judge from the Ace Attorney games in one issue, they showed him imagining a pair of panties. (It was in the January 2008 Ninja Gaiden DS issue though)
- But the crowning moment of getting crap past the radar was this, in their Sonic and the Black Knight coverage (9/08 issue, of course).
Steve Thomason: [With Sonic's new sword skills], he'd probably make a good guest fighter in the next Soulcalibur game. Hey, it'd be less absurd than Ivy's... um... "enhancements".
- Oh, stop trying to sugar coat it as "Getting Crap Past The Radar" — Nintendo Power has been actively ramping up the Fanservice for over a year now. You were expecting maybe the "family-friendly" company that lost the previous two rounds of the Console Wars to Sony? Nuh-uh. They've learned how to cater to a more mature audience (while still putting out plenty of stuff for everyone else to enjoy).
- One Year? Hrmmm, that would be right around the time Nintendo of America stopped publishing Nintendo Power. It's now published by Future Publishing. Coincidence?
- No, Future Publishing allows crude humor and sexual references in their magazines. One issue of PC Gamer even used a Precision F Strike.
Radio
- British Radio comedy has a long standing tradition of sneaking stuff past the censors. Round the Horne and I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again are especially good examples.
- Many Running Gags on The BBC radio comedy The Goon Show were the punchlines of dirty jokes, entirely meaningless out of context. Such as spy-themed story called 'The Pink Oboe'. When the BBC finally twigged, the Goons took the entirely reasonable position that if the people complaining already knew the jokes, they had no business being offended by them. There was also a regular character named Captain Hugh Jampton. They didn't always get away with it — in an episode about the Roman Empire a reference to "the lays of ancient Rome" was cut, although the joke later came to light when the uncut script was published.
- "Iiii'd like to apologise for these terrible attacks, Andrew Sachs." I have no idea why nobody stopped and thought "this might not be suitable for Radio 2," but it got past the radar and was broadcast. Unfortunately, it didn't slip under the newspaper radar, and a tonne of terminally boring Daily Mail readers kicked off about it, leading to Russell Brand losing his job.
- When Mark and Lard did their afternoon show on Radio One from 1997-2004, a regular feature was a kind of budget soul singer named Fat Harry White, who would tell "anecdotal" stories laden with unsubtle and usually filthy double entendres. A memorable example was when he was talking about camping with one of his "beautiful ladyfriends" who opened the tent to allow him access following a downpour — "when she parted her wet flaps, I was keen to get stuck in!". On one memorable occasion they had the "controller of Radio One" telephone the studio in protest when the boys chose to "axe" Fat Harry and demand Harry's return in "unintended" Fat Harry-style innuendo: "I've a good mind to call you into my office and give you a dressing down, and we all know how you're left spluttering when you've had a mouthful from me! If you don't put Harry back right this instant I'm coming down there to pull you both off!". I'm still amazed they got away with that stuff on an early afternoon show.
- Then there was their cruder but just as audacious feature "Lard's Classic Cuts", where they would play a damaged vinyl record which jumped and skipped and just happened to turn the air blue, just as if they'd been edited for innuendo or swearing. How did they get away with it on national radio at lunchtime?
- How did they get away with it on national radio at lunchtime? Firstly, because it was radio (where you can get much more crap past the radar than on TV, at least in the UK) and secondly, because it was lunchtime. The kiddiewinks were all at school then, and there isn't that much crossover between the adult listenership of Radio 1 and the people who complain to the BBC about double-entendres on the radio. I simply don't think there was anyone listening to the show who was inclined to complain.
Tabletop Games
- In the 2nd-edition days of Dungeons And Dragons, a large number of Forgotten Realms guidebooks (particularly the "Volo's Guides" series of in-universe travelogues) made reference to "festhalls" scattered across the Realms in just about every city and town. And by "festhalls" I mean "brothels".
- I seem to remember that Ed Greenwood himself once actually made a statement to the effect of "TSR won't let us *say* 'brothel,' so if you see the word 'festhall'..."
- Made even more blatant by 3rd Edition, when Sharess, goddess of sexual pleasure, also became goddess of festhalls.
- In the game Pirates and Plunder, in the rules for port cities, it is explained that when sailors come ashore from the uncultured environment of shipboard, what they most want is to enjoy polite conversation over a cup of tea with a genteel young lady. It then gives a detailed list of the tariffs of the houses providing this service, from your basic cup of tea, up to such pricey luxuries as tea, iced cake, spicey biscuits and extremely refined conversation with two young ladies.
Toys
- There was a toy in the late 1980s that consisted of plastic rings with fighter jets on them. It, as well as the cartoon series it spawned, was entitled Ring Raiders. I can just imagine the dialogue that occurred at Matchbox R&D:
Executive: So, um, we need a new toy line or something.
Developer: How about a series of disembodied pair of legs that have a parrot perched on the pelvis and an eyepatch on the left arse cheek? We could call them Butt Pirates.
Executive: Maybe. Any other ideas?
Developer: How about Anal Invaders? I can't think of what they'd be, but the name's pretty good, right?
Executive: (nods approvingly)
Developer: OH! How about a set of plastic rings with fighter jets on them? We could call them Ring Raiders.
Executive: Perfect! And we can make it into a cartoon series somehow!
Developer: For fuck's sake, Gary, stop agreeing with me. I'm trying to lose my job before Mattel buys us out.
Executive: So am I.
- Jeepers Media spotlights toys that fall under this trope. Some say they're Innocent Innuendo, but I mean, really.
Video Games
- Scribblenauts is a game where you can summon almost anything. It eliminated, however, anything extremely vulgar, but several torture/exectution devices ("guillotine" and "gallows") exist in it. Also, its ESRB rating summary is awesome.
- It also accepts the term "flunitrazepam", which is the generic form of the infamous drug Rohypnol.
- Both played straight and subverted in Final Fantasy Tactics. In Gustav's Brave Story, it says that he was initially a member of the Hokuten, before he ran into trouble because of "robberies and rapes" of conquered cities, I believe the quote is. Yes, they literally said the word "rape". Didn't see that coming. As for the "played straight" part, during the Riovanes Rooftop battle, Barinten taunts Rafa saying something along the lines of "The mind can forget, but the flesh cannot!" The apparently popular theory was that Barinten raped Rafa in the past, and that Rafa couldn't attack him because of the memory it left. This theory is supported more in the PSP version, where it is implied much more heavily, using an analogy with "flowers" and whatnot. "Your fear will become another flower, and I will take that one too!", or something. Now, I'm not sure if this is a good example of this trope without seeing whether this is a censored version of the original, but this definitely looks like a good example of getting crap past the radar.
- Resident Evil 5. Excella trying to seduce Wesker, with her touching him and telling him that she "has her eyes set on something much... bigger." Her eyes look down a bit too low on his body, and she eventually starts moving her hands from his chest to his... lower area. Wesker, being more obsessed with Foe Yay than women, grabs her face and stops her from going further.
- In retrospect, Knights of the Old Republic 2 has Kreia talking about sex relatively often, though always in her mysterious and detached wise-old-mentor way. Atton's mind, she reports, is clouded by "certain...base lusts". To say nothing of the curious word choice she uses to ask if a male PC has ever imagined Handmaiden "defeated utterly, completely at your mercy".
- When a male Exile says he wants to build a lightsaber, Kreia tells him that there is great significance attached to lightsabers, "especially for the male."
- Mira, one of the Exile's party members, implies (not very subtly, I might add) that Atton likes to... shake hands with the bishop.
Web Comics
- The Comics I Don't Understand site has an entire page devoted to this. They call it the "Arlo page".
- Erfworld apparently has a profanity filter built into the rules of the universe (causing cusswords to come out as "boop"), but clever phrasing can get the point across anyway.
- The word "crap" doesn't trigger the profanity filter, making it a literal example of the trope title.
- And then "Fuck... You!!" at the end of Book 1 in defiance of the world/game's working.
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