History Bowdlerise / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/YoGabbaGabba'' sometimes did this to the names of the bands featured on the show if their names were too innappropiate for the show's preschool target audience. For example, Music/MyChemicalRomance was shortened to "[=MCR=]", Shiny Toy Guns was changed to "The Shinys" and Music/TheKillers was changed to "Brandon, Dave, Ronnie and Mark".

* Downplayed with the Creator/{{G4}} airings of ''WebVideo/ScottTheWoz''. The original show already bleeps out extreme curses like "fuck" and "shit," but the TV airings elongate the censor bleeps so it's harder to make out the words.

* The syndicated version of ''Series/TheSopranos'' survives relatively unscathed sex and violence-wise, as Creator/DavidChase filmed alternate scenes (the scenes at the Bada Bing Strip Club have scantily-clad dancers who don't take off their clothes and the violent deaths are often replaced with shots of someone's face or shown at an angle so the violence won't be as severe). However, all of the profanity and explicit sexual lines are redubbed with toned-down versions that either weaken the dramatic impact or are just plain {{Narm}}y. One particularly notorious instance of editing came when the line "...sucking on a Cub Scout's ass" became "...chewing on a Cub Scout's ear" [[note]]which still implies sexual molestation to a Boy Scout, no matter how you slice it[[/note]].

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' frequently gets Bowdlerized when compared to its Japanese source material ''Franchise/SuperSentai''. Most edits are done to make Power Rangers appear less violent compared to Super Sentai. This is mostly done by, among other things, cutting kicks and punches to someone's head, make the characters imply that a building that's being destroyed was in fact empty and by making enemies less threatening overall.

** Zigzagged in ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy''. While the series has some Bowdlerization, it can also get a lot darker compared to its source material ''Series/SeijuuSentaiGingaman''. The only really notable Bowdlerization done was the replacement of ''Gingaman'' villain Shelinda, who was dressed in nothing more than an armored bikini, with the more modestly designed Trakeena. But the inverse comes from the fact that ''Gingaman'' felt like a light hearted fantasy series, while ''Lost Galaxy'' was more a DarkerAndEdgier space opera, with a much higher body count Gingaman ever had.

** ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' was heavily censored following 9/11 to remove much of the franchise's staple of StuffBlowingUp, and to re-record some of Ransik's dialogue to remove analogues to terrorism. At least one post-9/11 airing of "Ransik Lives", instead of using the actual edit seen on the home video releases, instead used a placeholder edit where his speech was dubbed over with the ''Time Force'' theme song, complete with Ransik moving his lips with nothing coming out.
** In ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai'' most scenes referencing death from ''Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger'' are altered. In "Deal with a Nighlok" the boy wishes his father back from Afghanistan where as in ''Shinkenger'' the boy wanted his dead grandfather back. In "The Blue and The Gold" the Nighlok were going to butcher toys; in ''Shinkenger'' it's young women instead. In "The Bullzord" Cody lives with his father; in ''Shinkenger'' the boy Hiro lived with his Grandfather since his parents were killed in a rockslide likely caused by The Ushi Origami. On the villainous side of things, in ''Samurai'', Master Xandred regularly drinks medicine instead of sake (rice wine) as in ''Shinkenger''. See FrothyMugsOfWater.

* UK broadcasts of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E24Conspiracy Conspiracy]]" edit the scene where Remmick is shot by Picard and Riker. Remmick's head is not seen exploding (his flesh just gets burnt off) and we don't really see the mother creature emerging from his body. (That said, the head-exploding scene is left intact when BBC Two screens the ClipShow episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E18ShadesOfGrey Shades Of Grey]]", which includes it.)

* [[Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} Nick UK]]'s editing of ''Series/GilmoreGirls'' was considered so odious (the episode where Paris is rejected from Harvard and talks about losing her virginity wasn't even seen on it) that fans of the show completely refused to watch it, and the network let it go; other British networks that picked it up after did no editing to the series whatsoever outside of commercial cuts. interestingly Nick UK has never shown an hour-long drama since.

* UK broadcasts of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E24Conspiracy Conspiracy]]" edit the scene where Remmick is shot by Picard and Riker. Remmick's head is not seen exploding (his flesh just gets burnt off) and we don't really see the mother creature emerging from his body. (That said, the head-exploding scene is left intact when BBC Two screens the ClipShow episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E18ShadesOfGrey Shades Of Grey]]", which includes it.)

* UK broadcasts of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E24Conspiracy Conspiracy]]" edit the scene where Remmick is shot by Picard and Riker. Remmick's head is not seen exploding (his flesh just gets burnt off) and we don't really see the mother creature emerging from his body. (That said, the head-exploding scene is left intact when BBC Two screens the ClipShow episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E22ShadesOfGrey Shades Of Grey]]", which includes it.)

* UK broadcasts of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E25Conspiracy Conspiracy]]" edit the scene where Remmick is shot by Picard and Riker. Remmick's head is not seen exploding (his flesh just gets burnt off) and we don't really see the mother creature emerging from his body. (That said, the head-exploding scene is left intact when BBC Two screens the ClipShow episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E22ShadesOfGrey Shades Of Grey]]", which includes it.)

** The final scene in "[=#OscarTheOuch=]" where Oscar is struck by lightning while holding a golf club and basically [[RunningGag shrugs it off with a cry of "Predicament!"]] has the RunningGag and the shot of the lightning hitting him removed (although as with the ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' example above, the latter still appears in Nickelodeon UK's airings of "[=#BlooperEpisode=]").

* The Mainland Chinese broadcast of ''Series/SomedayOrOneDay'' excised all scenes related to sexuality [[spoiler: such as the real Wang Quan Sheng's [[{{Gayngst}} entire backstory]]]], a [[ADateWithRosiePalms scene of a character taking off his belt while looking at pictures]] of [[StalkerWithACrush the person he's obsessed with]], and censored elements that showed Taiwan as an independent country (like flags and identification documents).

* ''Series/{{Mash}}'' had an interesting one in one episode, "The Young and the Restless". At the end, the episode's B-Plot [[note]]where Klinger is trying another Section 8 dodge by pretending he believes he's in Toledo[[/note]] is resolved by Potter catching Klinger out by orally filling out discharge papers for him [[note]] the punchline is that [[DamnYouMuscleMemory when Potter asks Klinger for his rank, he automatically responds "corporal", giving the scam (that Potter knew was one anyway) away]][[/note]]. During the questions on the form, he asks for Klinger's Social Security Number. During the original filming and broadcasts up to the '90s, Klinger's response is a full, possibly genuine, number[[note]]in the '70s, the social security number had not yet become the keys to the personal information kingdom it would become, and was merely the number for the holder's Social Security account.[[/note]] Later broadcasts would mute out part or all of the number, on the rationale that it could have possibly been a real number attached to a real person, making identity theft a possibility.

* Downplayed with the Creator/{{G4}} airings of ''WebVideo/ScottTheWoz''. The original show already bleeps out extreme curses like "fuck" and "shit," but the TV airings elongate the SoundEffectBleep so it's harder to make out the words.

* Reruns of fellow CBS series ''Series/CriminalMinds'' on A&E similarly censors mid-tier language like like "bitch" and "bastard"--the major problem is that this is a cable rerun of a series that was aired on ''broadcast television'' with such language intact, and there's [[CensorDecoy worse things going on in this series from a thematic standpoint]] that ''aren't censored.''

* Nick UK's editing of ''Series/GilmoreGirls'' was considered so odious (the episode where Paris is rejected from Harvard and talks about losing her virginity wasn't even seen on it) that fans of the show completely refused to watch it, and the network let it go; other British networks that picked it up after did no editing to the series whatsoever outside of commercial cuts.

** On BBC Two in the United Kingdom, "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E21TheWeightOfTheWorld The Weight of the World]]" is screened without the part where Buffy smothers Dawn with a pillow, even in its post-watershed slot. So when Buffy goes into a catatonic state and admits to Willow that she 'killed Dawn', even if it was just in her thoughts, it makes hardly any sense at all.

* ''Franchise/{Buffyverse}'':

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' is severely cut by Channel 4 in the UK for its screenings at 6pm in the first season (one episode began at 6pm and ended at around quarter to seven. And it ran ''with'' commercial breaks).

* The UK version of Creator/{{Syfy}} airs daytime repeats of ''Series/{{Buffy|the Vampire Slayer}}'' and ''Series/{{Angel}}'', both of which have large portions of violence removed. The censors seem to take particular offense to violence against women and anything that could be construed as an "imitable, dangerous action or stunt," which when it comes to ''Series/{{Buffy|the Vampire Slayer}}'' is less than rational.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':

* When the premiere of ''Series/DegrassiHigh'', where Erica Farrell chooses to have an abortion, debuted on Creator/{{PBS}} in the United States (two months after it's Canadian debut) in January 1990, the network removed the episode's final scene, where Erica and her twin sister Heather fight through a group of anti-abortion protesters to reach the steps of the abortion clinic, and look back as one of them holds up a plastic fetus. PBS claimed they did this to make the ending "more powerful" and "poignant", but it was done without the consent of the producers, not to mention the scene they removed was going to be heavily referenced in a later episode. Co-creator and director Kit Hood denounced the change, accused the network of bias, and had his name removed from the credits of the US airing in protest. The American DVD release of the show retains this edit.

* ''Series/PerfectStrangers'' had an episode where a controversial bit of dialogue was Bowlderized. Oddly, it was the episode in which Carl Winslow [[Series/FamilyMatters (yes, THAT Carl Winslow)]] made his debut appearance. Harriette, after kissing Carl, noted that his lips tasted sweet and asked him if he had powdered sugar on them. To cover up the fact that he had just eaten nine donuts, Carl quickly fabricates a lie that it was actually cocaine. He elaborates further by saying that they had a big bust and [[FingertipDrugAnalysis he needed to taste it to make sure that it was real.]] He then remarks about [[DrugsAreBad “The fools that use that junk.”]] The scene was aired with these lines, and remained as it was for years in it’s (sadly, limited) syndication run. But when the series was remastered in HD and resurfaced on DVD, Hulu, and other streaming releases, though Harriette’s line about powdered sugar was intact, Carl’s lines about tasting cocaine were removed entirely. It is likely that they won’t ever be put back in.

* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' was a Showtime series that started in 2006. In 2007, CBS decided to air Season 1. This required extensive editing, to the point that the dialog of some characters (esp. Debra, who averages an F-Bomb every 15-20 seconds along with other curses) was effectively gibberish. Season 1 was the only season aired by CBS.

** And that was only the tip of the iceberg. The series had a very bad history of Bowdlerization in Germany. It started when public station ZDF for whatever reason showed an interest in the series. The question of the why this series of all things arises, since at that time it was filled to the brim with self-proclaimed ultra-conservative moral guardians. They first cherry-picked 39 of the 79 episodes, then cut out tons of material they didn't like and put everything though a dubbing process that today would just be seen as a GagDub. Amok Time was the worst example of this. The rest of the episodes was finally dubbed in 1988 by private station Sat.1 and while it generally had a more faithful dub and only few cuts, some episodes were still hackjobs. One episode, "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E21PatternsOfForce Patterns of Force]]", was still avoided (for understandable reasons, as it deals with a fascist alien culture who are explicitly copying the Third Reich rather than just being [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazis By Another Name]]), until finally Paramount themselves dubbed it in 1995. Of course it fell onto everyones feet ''hard'' once the DVD editions were in the planning stage. Paramount was absolutely livid at this CutAndPasteTranslation and it took pains and lots of money to put the episodes back into uncut state, dub the missing scenes and re-dub many scenes that were completely unusable due to censorship or a shoddy dub script.

* When the premiere of ''Series/DegrassiHigh'', where Erica Farrell chooses to have an abortion, debuted on Creator/{{PBS}} in the United States (two months after it's Canadian debut) in January 1990, the network removed the episode's final scene, where Erica and her twin sister Heather fight through a group of anti-abortion protesters to reach the steps of the abortion clinic, and look back as one of them holds up a plastic fetus. PBS claimed they did this to make the ending "more powerful" and "poignant", but it was done without the consent of the producers, including director Kit Hood, who denounced the change, accused the network of bias, and had his name removed from the credits of the US airing.

* When the premiere of ''Series/DegrassiHigh'', where Erica Farrell chooses to have an abortion, debuted on Creator/{{PBS}' in the United States (two months after it's Canadian debut) in January 1990, the network removed the episode's final scene, where Erica and her twin sister Heather fight through a group of anti-abortion protesters to reach the steps of the abortion clinic, and look back as one of them holds up a plastic fetus. PBS claimed they did this to make the ending "more powerful" and "poignant", but it was done without the consent of the producers, including director Kit Hood, who denounced the change, accused the network of bias, and had his name removed from the credits of the US airing.

* When the premiere of ''Series/DegrassiHigh'', where Erica Farrell chooses to have an abortion, debuted on ''Creator/PBS'' in the United States (two months after it's Canadian debut) in January 1990, the network removed the episode's final scene, where Erica and her twin sister Heather fight through a group of anti-abortion protesters to reach the steps of the abortion clinic, and look back as one of them holds up a plastic fetus. PBS claimed they did this to make the ending "more powerful" and "poignant", but it was done without the consent of the producers, including director Kit Hood, who denounced the change, accused the network of bias, and had his name removed from the credits of the US airing.

* ''Series/ColdCase'' airings on ION Television have edited out several words heard on the original CBS airing, such as "bitch", "bastard", "spic"[[note]]racial slur for a Hispanic person[[/note]], "polack"[[note]]racial slur for someone from Poland[[/note]], and the ever-popular homophobic slurs "fag" and "faggot", even though the last two words were thrown around ''endlessly'' in the season one episode "A Time Of Hate".

* ''Series/{{The Office|US}}'': The episode "Koi Pond" was edited in reruns and on the DVD version to remove the cold opening where Michael pretends to hang himself to scare a group of children during Dunder-Mifflin's annual Halloween haunted house after the American Society for Suicide Prevention criticized the sequence for [[SuicideAsComedy making light of suicide]] [[DontTryThisAtHome (and, possibly, condoning this kind of act to more vulnerable/idiotic viewers)]]. Despite being cut from the DVD set, this scene is available on on the iTunes release of the episode.

* The LiveActionAdaptation of ''Manga/{{Life}}'' completely removed Ayumu [[SelfHarm cutting herself]] despite the fact it's heavily related to her character and a driving force of the manga. It instead only focused on the bullying aspect on the series. It also revealed Manami was in a relationship with a delinquent by showing them in bed together afterwards (and having Manami covered up) instead of using the [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids rather graphic]] scene the manga had.

* ''Series/{{The Office|US}}'': The episode "Koi Pond" was edited in reruns and on the DVD version to remove the cold opening where Michael pretends to hang himself to scare a group of children during Dunder-Mifflin's annual Halloween haunted house after the American Society for Suicide Prevention criticized the sequence for [[SuicideAsComedy making light of suicide]] [[DontTryThisAtHome (and, possibly, condoning this kind of act to more vulnerable/idiotic viewers)]]. Despite being cut from the DVD set, this scene is availible on [[http://www.nbc.com/the-office/video/haunted-warehouse/1170902 NBC's official site]] and on the iTunes release of the episode.