History Main / ThinkOfTheCensors

** On one episode, a '''''pastor's wife''''' guessed "sperm" as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHnhbEzJAS8 something you put in your mouth but don't swallow]], leading Steve to give an entire TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to the contestant and producers in anticipation of the possibility that it was on the board. Thankfully, it wasn't.

** For a more specific case, in a Thanksgiving episode, a pilgrim hunting a turkey orders Yakko, Wakko, and Dot to "Give me the bird!" Yakko responds with "We'd love to, really, but the Creator/{{Fox}} censors won't allow it." (in a possible nod to "A Tale of Two Kitties")

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': In general, whenever something off-color was implied, Yakko would tell the audience "Goodnight, everybody!" as if they were going to be pulled off the air any minute. It's one of his {{Catch Phrase}}s, which says a lot about the show's kind of humour.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* One episode of WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}, "Shape Ahoy," ends with a Music/FrankSinatra [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed look-alike]] sailing away with Olive Oyl on a raft. Popeye and Bluto look on, flabbergasted, and then say "Well I'll be a --", and at that moment two real-life hands cover their mouths. They finish the sentence silently with a gigantic "CENSORED" over each of their mouths.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' has "The Safety", an episode dedicated to satirising {{Moral Guardians}} and over-diligent cartoon censorship. In the episode, Darwin becomes so paranoid that he practically becomes the censors, placing child filters on his home, blanking out curse words (even [[GoshDangItToHeck "the mom-sanctioned versions"]]), and removing comedic violence, jokes and music from cartoons. He then forms a dictatorship that's so concerned with safety that it can't effectively enforce its own laws. When the rest of his family storm City Hall to stop him, they crash into a screen warning the audience [[DoNotTryThisAtHome not to repeat stunts they see in cartoons]].
** The plot of "The Bus" involves a time bomb in a brief case, but Principal Brown acknowledges that everyone is "legally obliged" not to refer to it as such. Throughout the episode, characters are cut off before they can say it, get drowned out by loud noises or use euphemisms, but the word "bomb" is never fully uttered.[[note]]This didn't apply to the earlier episode "The Bet" where Darwin uses the word, but there was no actual bomb involved in that episode.[[/note]]

-->'''Conductor:''' Somebody get this little [[GoshDarnItToHeck monster trucker]] off of me!!\\

* In the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode [[Recap/GravityFallsS1E12Summerween "Summerween"]], the flyer for the party Wendy and Robbie are going to was originally supposed to say "Bottles will be spun", but after Creator/AlexHirsch couldn't get that past Creator/DisneyChannel's Standards and Practices, he changed it to "Not S&P approved".

** A previously lost gag from "Farm Frolics" (found by animation historians in 2022) has a similar gag, with a spitting grasshopper (Hopalong Casserole) informing the audience that the Hays Office won't let him spit on-screen.

** A previously lost gag from "A Hop, a Skip and a Chump" (found by animation historians in 2022) has a similar gag, with a spitting grasshopper (Hopalong Casserole) informing the audience that the Hays Office won't let him spit on-screen.

* ''{{Anime/Pokemon}}'': Meowth does this a couple of times:

Supertrope of YouWannaGetSued (where the characters realize that mentioning something copyrighted or protected by law will get them in trouble). Compare TooHotForTV, OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope, NarrativeProfanityFilter.

** Cee Lo ultimately agrees to replace "''Fuck you''" with the far-more positive "''[[Creator/FoxNewsChannel Fox]] [[TakeThat News]]''".
** The radio edit replaces the Fuck You with "Forget You". It could ''also'' be an example of this trope, an artist preferring to change his song himself before the real censors can leave it a mass of bleeps or blank space.

* During Makoto's gag reel in ''VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift Extend'', [[MsFanservice Makoto]] attempts to tell [[CuteClumsyGirl Noel]] how to imitate daddy's "abs and gun show" routine. She refuses to demonstrate herself or have the act depicted because "we're already on thin ice with the ratings board as it is..." [[HypocriticalHumor Hello pot, meet kettle.]]
* In Ragna's ''Chronophantasma'' gag reel, Makoto and Bullet (both enchanted by the Spectacles of Eros Mk.II) try to vie for Ragna's attention with a sort of striptease. Noel stops it by warning that going any further might invoke the dreaded AO rating.

-->'''Monokuma:''' So warm and wet, so wet and warm... I bet you guys-- [[BreakingTheFourthWall [REMOVED TO CONFORM WITH LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL CENSORSHIP LAWS]]] --all over her, didn't you!?

-->'''Luan''': Getting frustrated? ''(Replicate sneaks up and suddenly grabs her by the arm)'' Shit!\\
'''Lori''': Ms. Appear! Language!\\
'''Lincoln''': We're rated T, it's fine.

* Played with in the ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12459102/1/Loud-heroes Loud Heroes]]'', which has a T rating unlike the original show's TV-Y7 one. At the beginning of the Loud siblings' fight with the original villain Replicate in Chapter 60 (the fic's first chapter with prominent swearing), Luan says "[[OhCrap Shit!]]" when Replicate grasps her. Lori tells Luan to watch her language as if she followed the canon series' rating, only to be told by Lincoln that it isn't necessary because the fic's rating allows them to curse.

* Played with in the ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12459102/1/Loud-heroes Loud Heroes]]'', which has a T rating unlike the original show's TV-Y7 one. At the beginning of the Loud siblings' fight with the original villain Replicate in Chapter 60 (the fic's first chapter with prominent swearing), Luan says "[[OhCrap Shit!]]" when Replicate grasps her. Lori tells Luan to watch her language as in following the canon series' rating, only to be told by Lincoln that it isn't necessary because the fic's rating allows them to curse.

* ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'': On one episode, Darnell explains that a ShowWithinAShow in the episode had to censor profanity because the FCC doesn't allow curse words [[{{Watershed}} until after 10PM]]. Joy looks at her watch, then says "Douchebags."

--->'''Stewie:''' Looks like somebody's getting a little [[OedipusComplex Oedipussy]].\\

* In the first episode of ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'', Mahiro interrupts Nyarko's MotorMouth rambling and gets her attention by stabbing a fork into the table next to her hand. Her response is a panicked "What are you doing?! Are you trying to get us cancelled?!" Note that in the original light novels, Mahiro's fork-stabs produce fountains of HighPressureBlood, while in the TV anime they only cause {{Cranial Eruption}}s.

* From 1971, ''The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour'' featured an operatic take on ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' with an entirely different cast. The situation dealt with the CBS censor being invited to the Bunkers' for dinner. And playing the CBS censor: Carroll O'Connor.