Here a wick check is being performed for Clumsy Copyright Censorship.
Why? This trope is supposed to be for when something is very poorly censored out of a work. However, the trope is suspected of being misused for any time something is censored in a work, even when it isn't done poorly.
Wicks checked: 30/50
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Correct use (13/50)
- Series.Lost In Austen: The first DVD release of the series had to cut the part where Amanda sings "Downtown" for the Bingleys and Darcy because the rights hadn't been acquired. The joke that Bingley makes about "going downtown" immediately after made no sense without the song. Later releases reinstated the song. Censorship clumsily used, making a joke not work as a result.
- Series.Wheel Of Fortune (1): Almost every episode in Season 30 began with a retro clip. In nearly all cases, the older music beds (prize cues, Toss-Up bed, puzzle-solve cue, theme song) were dubbed over with their modern counterparts. This led to particularly jarring dubs, such as the current Toss-Up solve cue on a clip obviously from the late 1980s. The pre-1983 Theme Tune "Big Wheels" remained untouched, as did all but one instance of the 1994-97 solve cue (They showed a clip from 1994 twice: the first airing had the original cue, but the second airing had the current cue dubbed in). This was also the case for most retro clips replayed in subsequent seasons, especially during the week leading up the 7,000th episode in May 2019. Copyright censorship is used clumsily and jarringly.
- Series.All That (1): NickRewind airs this show without the musical guest performances. Since this necessitates the additional removal of sketches leading into the performances, and the cast saying goodbye after the song, several episodes end abruptly. Censorship is used clumsily.
- Series.All That (2): Sharp-eyed viewers will note clothing icons (like Adidas) poorly blurred out from shot to shot, save cases where Nick forgot about them. Censorship is used clumsily.
- Manga.Skull Face Bookseller Honda San: Played for laughs. Book titles have only one or two letters censored in the subtitles, and the titles are covered by a scratching sound. It's still easy enough to guess what they're talking about, especially since in at least one case, the title had different letters censored each time it was spoken, so viewers could just fill in the blank letters with the ones from the other instance. Legit In-Universe example.
- Trivia.Nick Rewind: When the KaBlam! episode "Not Just For People Anymore!" aired on the block, the Lava short was edited out of the episode, along with the Henry and June wraparound leading into it, as Nick no longer has the rights to the short (they however forgot to edit it out of the credits of the episode, though). Pothole used correctly.
- Series.The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson: The reruns on Antenna TV omit any instance where "Tea For Two" is played by the band, replacing it with generic piano music. It's weird to see Johnny dance along to what's obviously a different song. Censorship used clumsily.
- Ride.Disney Theme Parks: Sponsors will sometimes not renew their contract, which requires the ride to remove all references to the sponsor. The success of this can range from a seamless removal of all corporate references to a slapdash covering up of the former logos. Some rides may gain a sponsor or change sponsors.
- Recap.Barney Miller S 6 E 01: In syndication and home video, whenever a character says "Muzak"—that being the name of a specific company, not a generic term—it's muted.
- Funny.Dingo Pictures: Not to mention that they mess up and call him "Tarzan" a few times anyways!, such as the scene right before the above when the younger monkey ("Raja"?) informs Sheena that "Tarzan" is crying. These moments are silenced awkwardly on the video game versions of the movie.
- VideoGame.Star Revenge: Parodied. The message you get after activating the Wing Cap Switch gives you the start of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme... and explains that the following part was blocked by Viacom.
- Series.Only Fools And Horses: To music licensing issues, on the DVD release some songs had to be removed, but in some cases, entire scenes have been cut because a particular song is being played in the background.
Censorship not used poorly (12/50)
- Trivia.Zara And Erika A Tale Of Annabelle: A handful of songs, mainly from The Weeknd, had to be replaced before the movie was released. No mention of the censorship being "clumsy".
- Series.Spooks: One episode was temporarily pulled because visible Apple logos on the back of the computers had to be digitally airbrushed out, advertising not being allowed on The BBC.
- Series.Iron Chef: A more depressing case: by the time the show started airing in reruns on Fine Living, the right to use the borrowed Backdraft soundtracks had apparently expired. They replaced it with cheesy synth music, robbing much of the awesome factor from it. (ICA has its own soundtrack but that at least has decent production values.)
- VideoGame.Yokai Watch Blasters: Yo-kai Watch Busters had to be changed to Yo-kai Watch Blasters in the localized version in order to avoid copyright issues with the Ghostbusters franchise. Whismellowman was also redesigned to avoid looking too similar to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, as well as having his name changed to Whisped Cream. The Blaster forms of Jibanyan and Komasan were also altered, looking less like jumpsuits.
- WesternAnimation.The Oblongs: This show (and the other two) failed (mostly due to Executive Meddling and low ratings), but have since attained cult classic status, thanks to [adult swim] airing the episodes and the entire series being released on DVD (though Mission Hill was edited to remove the copyrighted music on its soundtrack and Baby Blues hasn't been released on home media due to rights issues and general audience apathy).
- WesternAnimation.Gumby: The 1950s and 1960s episodes got this, when they were rerun as part of the 1988 revival series. All of the old episodes had their soundtracks redubbed with new music, voice tracks and sound effects to sound consistent with the new episodes of the time. Many Gumby fans did not like this change, and were very disappointed when the initial DVD releases of the series from Rhino used the redubbed soundtracks (due to legal rights involving the John Seely/Capitol stock music utilized in the originals.) Current DVD and digital releases of the 1950s and 1960s shorts utilize the original soundtracks, while the redubbed versions have become harder to find in recent years (thankfully).
- Characters.Felix The Cat: When the above image of him appeared in the book "Mickey and the Gang: Classic Stories in Verse", Julius' fur color was digitally altered from black fur to green due to Disney fearing legal trouble if the image was added as is.
- Film.Space Jam A New Legacy: During the prologue scene, 'Bron plays with Malik's Game Boy because his dad bought the Color one. Though the Game Boy used still displays the Nintendo and Game Boy logos upon it unaltered, when ‘Bron turns it on, the iconic startup sound is replaced with a soundalike, indicating a line drawn by Nintendo on the soundbyte. Also, while he plays The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 there, the game music was changed to an 8-bit remix of the Looney Tunes theme, due to issues with the original composer of the Crazy Castle games.
- Series.Baywatch: The American DVD releases removed many of the licensed songs and replaced them with other songs, including the iconic theme song "I'm Always Here" (the DVD sets used "Strong Enough" instead).
- Pinball.No Fear Dangerous Sports: Due to licensing issues, the Pinball Arcade version mutes out the names of the athletes and the name NASCAR, as well as redesigning some parts of the artwork that involves the stock car with Valvoline and Ford logos. The edits are inconsistently applied, though - the unedited artwork can still be seen on the main menu and flyer image, the flyer image also lists the names of the athletes, and the Valvoline logo can still be seen in the dot-matrix animation for completing the asphalt challenge.
- Creator.Cooking Channel: Their re-runs of the original Iron Chef have replaced the theme song, originally part of the Backdraft score.
- VideoGame.No More Heroes III: Frequently used to make shout-outs, though names are bleeped out with a deep tone and asterisks.
- VideoGame.Sven Cooper: A Super Mario Bros.-themed section of Toonrun had do be edited for the game to be added on Steam. It was done by having the bricks look like they were covered by blankets, and the backdrop was turned into a crude drawing - perfectly in line with Toonrun's aesthetics and flippant gameplay.
ZCEs, unclear, and other (3/50)
- Clumsy Copyright Censorship: Some segments from the show were included on the first volume of The Brak Show, but since most of the clips during the skits/musical numbers were copyrighted footage, they were replaced with squiggly drawings. It just wasn't the same. Hard to tell if the censorship was used clumsily since the only listed side effect was it "not being the same."
- YMMV.Sam And Mickey: Sequel Displacement: "Baby Shower" is exponentially more popular than "The Wedding", to the extent that the former remains Sam & Mickey's most-viewed video by a long shot. The copyright claim on "The Wedding" helped widen the margin, since Sam & Mickey's Clumsy Copyright Censorship reset the view count. Pothole isn't clear about if the example counts.
- Wrestling.Madusa: Aside from a few guest appearances, the girls (big or otherwise) Did Not Play™ in WCW, so she sat at home for a month... until they inserted her into a romance angle between two non-wrestling managers. It wouldn't even be fair to call the women's division a failure, since they never really tried to create one.
It is notable only for the lawsuits it created. (However, on the Nitro airing after the historic Bash at the Beach, we got Madusa vs. Malia Hosaka, and it's a pretty good match.)
Unsorted (2/50)
- AlliterativeName.Tropes A To E Index
- WesternAnimation.Off The Air: Averted. One of the shorts in "Patterns" blatently contains a sound effect from Super Mario 64. Aversion.
