Banned Episode / Western Animation

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Banned Episodes in Western Animation.

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• Certain Disney cartoons are never shown on TV, almost all of them War Time Cartoon material like Education for Death, Commando Duck, and Der Fuehrer's Face.
• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies:
  • The "Censored Eleven", a group of eleven Warner Bros. cartoons withheld from all syndication and network rerun packages since 1968 for heavy black stereotyping.^note Three of these shorts – Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land, Jungle Jitters, and All This and Rabbit Stew – are known to have fallen into the Public Domain, meaning that, despite the ban, they can be found on video sites and some gray-market home media releases. The list includes the following cartoons…
    • Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land (1931) [probably the least offensive of the 11] – The only black & white short on the list.
    • Sunday Go to Meetin' Time (1936)
    • Clean Pastures (1937)
    • Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937)
    • Jungle Jitters (1938)
    • The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938)
    • All This and Rabbit Stew (1941) – the only Bugs Bunny cartoon on the list.
    • Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943)
    • Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943)
    • Angel Puss (1944)
    • Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears (1944)
  • Additionally, several other WB shorts have been phased out due to Values Dissonance, like Injun Trouble^note This could refer to either a Bob Clampett cartoon from 1938 starring Porky Pig, or the last Looney Tunes cartoon made in the original studio by Robert McKimson starring Cool Cat, both of which rarely air on TV due to numerous Native American stereotypes as the title of both shorts alone indicate, Tom Tom Tomcat^note Hasn't aired on TV since 1999 for the same reason as the previous short due to featuring multiple stereotypical Native American versions of Sylvester, China Jones^note an obscure Daffy Duck cartoon where Daffy is a Cockney detective trying to solve a mystery in Shanghai, although this one is available on the Warner Bros. Discovery RIDE streaming service, Wise Quackers,^note  Daffy ends up becoming Elmer Fudd's slave after crashing on his farm, and The Oily American^note a one-shot cartoon about an American Indian millionaire who hires a moose to hunt.
  • In addition to All This and Rabbit Stew above, 11 other Bugs Bunny cartoons were skipped during Cartoon Network's 2001 June Bugs marathon that promised a chronological airing of all of the rabbit's shorts^note though Any Bonds Today?, Herr Meets Hare, and clips from Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips were shown on two special episodes of ToonHeads (Any Bonds Today was shown on the ToonHeads special about lost, rare, and obscure works from Warner Bros. studios, while Herr Meets Hare and clips from Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips were shown on the ToonHeads special about World War II shorts); Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt aired on The Acme Hour on Thanksgiving 2002; A Feather in His Hare aired in Cartoon Network's early days and on some international feeds; What's Cookin', Doc? aired on The Bob Clampett Show, Frigid Hare aired in 2002 following Chuck Jones' death (initially cutting the line about Bugs not going back to work until July of 1953, then later editing the "What an Eskimo piehead!" line), and Cartoon Network's Japanese channel aired Witch is Which, albeit edited to remove Bugs getting trapped in the pressure cooker and not the part with Bugs posing as an African native to escape Dr. I.C. Spots, meaning that the only 12 banned Bugs cartoons that have never aired on Cartoon Network are Mississippi Hare, All This and Rabbit Stew, Horse Hare, and "Bushy Hare", though Mississippi Hare, Bushy Hare, and Horse Hare did air on other networks [mostly Nickelodeon, The WB, FOX, and first-run syndication], with some cuts due to violence and minor politically incorrect content.
  • Despite his immense popularity among Latin Americans and prominently appearing in Space Jam: A New Legacy, Speedy Gonzales is nowhere to be seen on HBO Max because Warner Bros. is still concerned about him being an ethnic stereotype. His shorts do air on international networks and on MeTV.
  • In some cases, certain Looney Tunes shorts were also banned from airing on television for various unrelated reasons, with The Bee-Deviled Bruin^note  a 1949 Chuck Jones-directed short featuring the Three Bears notably having been removed from airing on Kids' WB! when its Animated Anthology program That's Warner Bros.! was retitled Bugs 'n' Daffy in its second season due to excessive violence and imitatable behavior throughout (namely, the scenes with Junyer electrocuting Papa Bear on a power line while tightroping and the latter getting repeatedly stung by bees). However, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and MeTV airings all otherwise avert this trope as the cartoon aired completely uncut on all three networks.
• Less official than the Looney Tunes and Disney examples above, several Golden-Age cartoon shorts from multiple other studios have been dropped from rotation in recent decades due to ethnic stereotyping of various races. A large number of these are, naturally, from World War II, though there are some post-WWII shorts as well:
  • Paramount: Some Popeye cartoons produced during the War are banned (though some have fallen into the Public Domain and are easy to find via streaming or bootleg), including You're A Sap, Mr. Jap, Scrap the Japs, and Seein' Red, White, & Blue. Also banned from television were two cartoons containing African cannibal stereotypes, Pop-Pie a la Mode” and Popeye’s Pappy''. Many of these shorts have since been released on DVD and/or Blu-ray.
  • MGM: A few of Tex Avery's post-WB shorts are banned, like Uncle Tom's Cabana and Half-Pint Pygmy. There are also two Tom and Jerry shorts that aren't on DVD: Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat. Edited versions of these two are allegedly still aired occasionally. Additionally, various cartoons by Harman and Ising have been banned, notably the Happy Harmonies featuring Bosko and Honey in their original and redesigned looks.
  • Universal: Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat is particularly notable in that it was considered offensive even back then, to the point that it was banned in 1949 after being re-released, only eight years after its release. It also prompted Walter Lantz to avoid any further racial/ethnic stereotyping in his cartoons and promised to never allow it to air on television. Though it has since fallen into the public domain and can be found online and on many bargain bin DVDs.
  • Columbia: It Happened to Crusoe (1941) is the only Screen Gems cartoon short that has never been seen again after its release, and it won't be released on home video or featured in network syndication due to its offensive racial stereotypes.
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • "Mass Transit Trouble" had Dr. Robotnik plotting to disrupt the Mobius transportation system by planting time bombs in several transit hubs around the planet. Its unusually terroristic undertones led to it being pulled twice from circulation, the first time by USA Network and local stations following the Oklahoma City bombing, and the second time by Toon Disney following 9/11. Since the episode was also blacklisted from VHS releases, it could only be uncovered through home video recordings of the episode, until it was finally released on DVD.
  • Similarly, Toon Disney pulled the episode "Magnificent Sonic" after the Columbine massacre due to repeated wielding of guns throughout the episode.
  • "Robo-Ninjas" was skipped over by Toon Disney during their run of the show for seemingly unknown reasons, though it can be assumed that it was because of stereotypical depictions of East Asians. Like "Mass Transit Trouble", it only returned to circulation when it was released on DVD (it did air on USA Network, though).
• The Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Shake Like Me" was pulled from HBO Max in the wake of George Floyd's murder and the ensuing "Black Lives Matter" protests against police brutality, making the racial humor of the episode seem a little too inappropriate. In September 2020, it was officially banned for good by [adult swim]. However, it remains available on Google Play, and it can also be found on the standalone Volume 6 DVD release. Also, a series of clips that feature most, if not all, of the episode remain viewable on Adult Swim's YouTube channel, and have been compiled into a playlist.
• The Arthur episodes "The Great MacGrady" and "Room to Ride/The Frensky Family Fiasco", got pulled due to the Lance Armstrong doping incident (Armstrong guest starred as himself in both episodes). The former episode was remade for season 24, replacing Lance Armstrong with a fictional wrestler named Uncle Slam Wilson. However, the official PBS Kids YouTube channel uploaded the original version for some reason.
  • The Arthur spinoff Postcards from Buster had an episode titled "Sugartime!" that some PBS affiliates refused to screen as it involves Buster visiting a child in Vermont with lesbian parents^note  Which, by the way, was only barely stated in a brief scene of the episode where the child describes her family, this being a time of less acceptance for same-sex marriage on the U.S.. The controversy surrounding the episode might also have compelled then-CEO of PBS Pat Mitchell to resign the following year. Ironically, 14 years later, Arthur itself would feature an actual same-sex marriage....and then that episode ("Mr. Ratburn And The Special Someone") got banned by Alabama Public Television, along with its sister episode, "The Feud" due to concerns over showing gay marriage to conservative families. It was pre-empted by a rerun on the day of its premiere. Because of this, the First United Methodist Church in Birmingham got permission from WGBH to host a free screening of the episode on June 15, 2019.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The episode "The Mask of Matches Malone" was banned in the US for an innuendo-laden song sung by the Birds of Prey^note  Black Canary, Huntress and Catwoman. The episode eventually did air in the U.S. with part of the sequence removed (Black Canary wiggling her finger while singing about Aquaman's "little fish") and it also aired in Australia, and the infamous part has appeared on YouTube.
• The Beavis and Butt-Head third-season opener "Comedians" featured Beavis trying to juggle flaming newspapers and burning down a comedy club. Because it aired only a month before the Ohio mobile home fire that claimed the life of a two-year-old girl that Beavis and Butt-Head were blamed for, this episode was swiftly pulled out of rotation and later heavily censored.
  • Other Beavis and Butt-Head episodes that were banned (some of which did return from being banned with content cuts made) for instances of Beavis saying "Fire! Fire!" or flicking a lighter ("Stewart's House", "Kidnapped"), animal cruelty ("Frog Baseball", "Washing the Dog"), inhalant and drug abuse ("Home Improvement", "Way Down Mexico Way"^note this, despite that both episodes had warnings clearly stating that inhaling paint thinner and swallowing a rubber full of drugs, respectively, was considered dangerous unless you were a cartoon character) or anything that these days would be considered in extremely poor taste in the aftermath of Columbine and September 11th ("Heroes", "Incognito"). Many of these episodes have aired on Viacom CBS-owned networks overseas unedited. And this isn't even getting into the episodes that are banned due to music licensing issues or Mike Judge just hating them so much that he doesn't want anyone else to see them ever again.
• Bob the Builder: "Travis and the Tropical Fruits" from season 12 was skipped over by PBS, due to horse poop being a major part of the episode. Consequently, its sister episode "Scoop the Teacher" was also initially skipped, but was later aired on Sprout.
• Bluey: The episode "Dad Baby" has never aired in North America, likely due to its theme of play-pregnancy. The episode is also absent from Disney Junior in Latin America and Brazil, and it is unknown if it was even dubbed due to Disney managing the series' dub for those regions.
• The Boondocks has four episodes that have been removed from reruns on [adult swim] and streaming on Hulu in the United States, although they can still be found on the DVD sets and Netflix in Canada, while HBO Max has three out of the four banned episodes ("The Hunger Strike", "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show", and "Pause") and the fourth season:
  • The two-part Season 2 finale, "The Hunger Strike" and "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show", which openly and viciously lampooned BET, were removed due to legal threats from BET and its parent company Paramount Global. These two episodes finally premiered on [adult swim] on May 29, 2020, during a Boondocks marathon (while Canadian cartoon channel, Teletoon, merely aired the episodes with a warning that stated that the jokes about BET are not the views and opinions of anyone who works at Teletoon, making one wonder why Adult Swim couldn't have done the same thing). They are now available on HBO Max completely uncut.
  • The Season 3 episodes "The Story of Jimmy Rebel" and "Pause" were removed, the former because it was deemed too racist / politically incorrect (which is odd for a show that's already packed with a lot of racial humor), and the latter because Tyler Perry complained about how the character Winston Jerome was a mockery of him. "Pause" finally reran again on [adult swim] for the first time since 2010, following the BET 2-parter's premiere on the same night, and is now on HBO Max (sadly, "The Story of Jimmy Rebel" isn't on there, though this is more because the streaming service premiered around the time of major "Black Lives Matter" protests over George Floyd's murder from police brutality).
  • The entirety of Season 4 was not rerun on Adult Swim for years, due to its overwhelmingly negative reception by fans and critics. In 2020, Adult Swim finally started rerunning Season 4 at a 4:00am graveyard slot on Saturdays. The season is also available for viewing on DVD, Netflix Canada, Hulu, and HBO Max.
• Buzz Lightyear of Star Command had "Super Nova", a Very Special Episode that aired exactly twice before being removed from circulation in America, though it has been aired overseas. It used superpowers caused by phasing through radiation as metaphor for drugs, complete with ensuing withdrawal.
  • "Conspiracy" and "Inside Job" were also removed from rotation on Disney after 9/11 due to both episodes revolving around terrorist plots.
• Following Dale Earnhardt's fatal crash, MTV pulled a scheduled rerun of the Celebrity Deathmatch episode "Sex, Lugs and Rock 'n' Roll" in 2001, as the third segment of the episode showed scenes of car crashes and made light of fatal accidents. ^note In the segment itself, Earnhardt wins a deathmatch against Jeff Gordon by crushing Gordon's body with his car, and crushing him to a pulp with his back tire. However, MTV actually brought this episode back from being banned by airing it uncut on March 22, 2003, at 11:00 pm.
• The Clarence episode "Straight Illin" only aired once on Cartoon Network and was pulled due to complaints over disgusting content. The episode is available to see on HBO Max.
• The Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "The Mask" is banned in France due to its higher-than-usual level of Nightmare Fuel and the implication that two characters are lesbian lovers.
• Cow and Chicken: The infamous second-season episode "Buffalo Gals" was quickly pulled after its original broadcast, after a mother wrote in to Cartoon Network complaining about the obvious lesbian stereotypes (involving really butch-looking female bikers who break into people's houses and literally munch on the carpets) and innuendo (mostly focused on lesbian sex, like the carpet-munching pun and the "pitch and catch" pun). As a result, rerun versions of this particular episode replace the segment with a repeat of the first-season episode "Orthodontic Police"^note  the episode where The Red Guy is a motorcycle cop who forces everyone in town to wear large, dangerous, elaborate braces. When Cow and Chicken was on Netflix, the episode was removed there as well.
• Dexter's Laboratory:
  • From the first season, a "Dial 'M' for Monkey" segment called "Barbequor" was pulled as it depicted a Camp Gay version of the Silver Surfer called "The Silver Spooner". While the fact that he was a Camp Gay stereotype (right down to the effeminate voice and the love for Judy Garland) would be grounds for having the segment cut (as many Moral Guardians do believe that having a homosexual character on a children's show is a sign that the show is corrupt and immoral), rights issues with Marvel and references to/jokes about the Infragible Crunk being drunk during the barbecue didn't help matters. It is presently available on the Amazon PrimeVideo service, but nowhere else, not even on DVD releases.
  • "Rude Removal" was thought to be an urban legend until it premiered at a comic book convention and then was shown on [adult swim].
• The Dudley Do-Right short "Stokey the Bear" was banned after the U.S. Forest Service complained about the titular Stokey the Bear, who is essentially a version of Smokey Bear that is hynotically turned into a pyromaniac by the villain Snidley Whiplash, ^note  (yet Brickleberry got away with an alcoholic, hedonistic version of Smokey Bear called Flamey the Bear in "My Favorite Bear" and, in the pilot episode, they got away with killing a Smokey the Bear-looking mascot...twice) and all prints were ordered to be destroyed. However, a print was found by Classic Media and is now included on the Rocky and Bullwinkle DVD sets.
• The Fairly OddParents!: "Hail to the Chief / Twistory" These episodes were withdrawn from broadcast on Nickelodeon in the U.S. after their premiere due to inappropriate violent mockeries of the past US Presidents, particularly in the latter episode^note though the caricatures of the founding fathers returned in "Escape From Wish Island" with no issue; it's often thought the heavy British stereotyping was more of an issue, but other episodes featured that as well, though they started airing on television again in December 2016. These episodes can be found on the Nick Picks Vol. 3 DVD, Season 2 DVD and Paramount+.
• Family Guy:
  • "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" was originally a DVD-only release, and was shown on TV for the first time (three years after it was produced) on Cartoon Network's [adult swim]. The episode was pulled by FOX due to fears that the episode would be offensive to Jews^note  (despite that Seth MacFarlane brought in an actual rabbi to make sure the episode was kosher. It was, despite what the FOX Broadcast Standards and Practices people say) and Catholics. In the end, only a single line had to be altered for the episode to air on Adult Swim^note  (Peter's line near the end of "I Need A Jew" was changed from "Even though they [the Jews] killed my Lord" to "I don't think they killed my Lord"). After it was announced that Family Guy was going to be brought back with new episodes, FOX themselves showed the once-banned episode^note  (with the same line edited as in the Cartoon Network version, and another cut: Quagmire "looking for his keys" in front of Lois was drastically shortened so it wouldn't look like he was masturbating... which was the whole joke in the first place.).
  • FOX banned the eighth season episode "Partial Terms of Endearment" because it dealt with abortion. Even Adult Swim refused to air the episode. The episode was later released as a DVD-exclusive episode (like "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" did before actually airing on TV) and has aired on most international channels like the UK's BBC3 (though the international versions are the edited versions that have scenes cut for content and/or time reasons).
  • "Turban Cowboy" (which centered on a terrorist attack and had a cutaway of Peter killing Boston Marathon runners by driving his car through the race) was removed from both Hulu and the official FOX website after the Boston Marathon bombing. Seth MacFarlane has mentioned he regrets making that episode, but only because some nutter on YouTube made a video that served as "evidence" that MacFarlane predicted the marathon bombing by piecing together the cutaway of Peter plowing through marathon runners with his car and the climax where Peter is being used by his Muslim friend in a plot to blow up the bridge. The episode has returned to rotation, but mostly airs in cable reruns (TBS and CN), on DVD, and on Netflix streaming.
  • Following Robin Williams' death (and the revelation that it was suicide), the episode "Family Guy Viewer Mail #2" has been pulled from [adult swim] airings due to the second story "Fatman and Robin" (centered on Peter trying to commit suicide after being cursed to turn everything he touches into Robin Williams). Over in the UK, the BBC banned the episode after they got complaints about airing it on the same day it was revealed that Robin Williams was dead (similar to what happened when they aired the Simpsons episode "A Streetcar Named Marge" around the time that Hurricane Katrina's destruction of New Orleans made the news). Like Turban Cowboy, the episode has since returned to [adult swim]'s Rotation.
  • The Season 10 episode "Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q." was only broadcast once before it was pulled by FOX in 2011 due to its heavy references to domestic violence landed the episode to be criticized by viewers and critics. However, the episode can be seen on DVD and in syndication.
  • When Freeform picked up the rerun rights to the series (following Disney's buyout of 20th Century Fox) starting with season 16, they skipped over "Nanny Goats" due to a scene where Mickey Mouse murders Fievel Mousekewitz in an anti-semitic hate crime. Starting with the show's move to midnights in June 2019, Freeform has aired the episode in its entirety.
• Fireman Sam: In July 2016, HiT Entertainment temporarily withdrew the episode "Troubled Waters", after it was discovered that in a scene where Elvis slips over a piece of paper while carrying a tray of tea, a page from◊ The Qur'an can briefly be seen flying afterwards. For context, willfully or negligently damaging any physical copy of the Qur'an is considered an act of sacrilege in Islam, so having a page from it just lying around to be trodden on like that would be taken as a major insult. After mass complaints to Channel 5 following the discovery, HiT announced that they would terminate Xing Xing Digital Corporation's contract to animate the show, after they had unknowingly inserted the controversial image into the episode. The episode was also briefly pulled from broadcast and on-demand services, before being re-instated with the offending paper left blank.
• When re-run on MeTV, The Flintstones episode "The Prowler" is skipped due to the episode featuring heavy Japanese racial stereotyping.
• Full English: The episode "My Big Fat Gypsy Knightmare" was moved to become the last episode in the series before being removed altogether due to fears that the episode's portrayal of the Roma community would be considered offensive. It eventually emerged alongside the rest of the series when it was released on DVD.
• The Gargoyles episode "Deadly Force" was removed from rotation for a while, then re-aired with the scene of Broadway accidentally shooting Elisa with her own gun edited to remove the blood around Eliza's body. As of 2020, the uncensored version is available on Disney+.
• High School U.S.A.: Two episodes, "Sexting" and "Best Friends Forever", are banned from syndication; "Sexting" for the frequent use of strong sexual slang and the nudity (though most of it is censored), and "Best Friends Forever" for the ending scene in which the gang make a porn film together (though you don't see anything too risque, the cast are all underage). While "Sexting" did get two airings on American TV with a TV-MA rating and was made available on the official website, "Best Friends Forever" was only available for Hulu subscribers, but has since expired, leaving the only way to see the episode being through illegal downloading.
• The Invader Zim episode "Door to Door" (and its companion episode "FBI Warning of Doom") was originally scheduled to air on September 14, 2001, but was removed from the schedule following the 9/11 attacks. The episode included a scene where alien spaceships are destroying a city resembling New York City with the Statue of Liberty sinking in the background. A new scene was made to replace this one and remove any New York imagery (although the new scene is arguably even more violent), and the episode finally premiered on March 29, 2002. However, the uncut version of the episode was broadcast by mistake instead of the new version. All reruns of the episode have featured the new scene instead, as do all home video and online releases.
• The Jimmy Two-Shoes episode "The Big Drip" never aired in America, because Disney found the content (which centered around Jimmy having a Potty Emergency) "inappropriate".
• The rerun of KaBlam! episode "I Just Don't Get It'" was banned on Nicktoons TV in the early 2000s, due to the Action League Now! short Caged Thunder^note  The Mayor wanted to destroy the Capitol Building in Washington DC. This episode was banned from airing on Nicktoons after the 9/11 attacks.
• "The New Mr. Franklin" and "Fire Starter", the eighth and ninth episodes of the first season of Canadian cartoon Kevin Spencer were only broadcast once, after a viewer wrote an angry letter to the CRTC (the Canadian equivalent of the FCC) over the content featured in both, including Kevin and his dad robbing a church and hurling snowballs at the congregation, and the latter featuring scenes such as Kevin using a severed head as a pet.
• The King of the Hill episode "Leanne's Saga" was banned from Sky Television in the U.K. due to its depictions of domestic violence.
  • Additionally, the episodes "Propane Boom" and "Death of A Propane Salesman" were temporarily banned after 9/11, due to their plots revolving around Megalo-Mart blowing up, both episodes later returned to syndication in October 2001.
• The Little Princess episode "I Want to be a Baby" is not available on DVD, even on the so-called complete series boxsets, probably due to the titular Princess's brattiness being taken to the extreme. This is weird as the episode is still available over Channel 5's On-Demand site.
• The Loud House:
  • A number of episodes such as "Overnight Success" and "L is For Love" were banned in countries like Greece and Russia for featuring Clyde's adoptive fathers and Luna's crush on another girl respectively. Poland used to air episodes featuring Clyde's dads, but they eventually pulled them as well. Given that both Clyde's parents and Luna's now-girlfriend have gotten main roles in later seasons, it's likely several episodes per season are also withheld in said countries.
  • "One Flu Over the Loud House" stopped airing on TV worldwide due to the theme of sickness mirroring the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the episode is still available for purchase via iTunes and the It Gets Louder DVD set, and can also be streamed on Paramount+.
• When the animated adaptation of The Mask aired on FOX Family (before it was changed to ABC Family and then Freeform, but after it was known as simply The Family Channel), the season two episode "Flight as a Feather" was skipped over due to the infamous sequence in which the mayor's psycho stripper ex-girlfriend Cookie BaBoom crashes an outdoor ceremony and threatens to kill herself and the mayor with dynamite strapped to her naked body, only for The Mask to strip her and use her nudity to distract Kellaway and Doyle.
  • Taken to extremes on CBS, which only aired seasons one and three of The Mask while season two (the season that has "Flight as a Feather") was put in syndication (mostly on affiliate stations that once ran The WB or UPN) and some Cartoon Network and Boomerang channels overseas (some of which also banned "Flight as a Feather" due to content).
• The Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart episode "Sick Mao", in which Mao Mao refused to accept that he was sick with a cold, was pulled from reruns in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Netflix had to pull the Maya the Bee episode “King Willy” after a mother caught what appeared to be a phallic shape carved on a log and openly railed against it. That image she caught spread all over the internet, and in a strange way, it may have garnered the series more attention than ever.
  • The episode in question aired back in 2012, meaning that it took five years for someone to notice the wiener that slipped by. The series is also a France/Germany co-production, and those countries are more relaxed with sexual images than America, though that didn't stop the producers from having to do damage control. Oh, and Maya is not a Netflix original contrary to what some news outlets claim.
• The Mickey Mouse Works short "Minnie Takes Care of Pluto" was banned and pulled from reruns because it involved the disturbing premise of Pluto having the paranoid belief that Minnie planned to kill him and also had a scene where Pluto dreamed that he was in Hell. As a result, it is one of the only MouseWorks shorts to never be recycled as part of House of Mouse, alongside "Pluto Gets the Paper: Vending Machine", which was presumed that this short sparked concern for the health and safety of young viewers.
• The Moral Orel episode "God's Image" is nowhere to be seen on the Channel 4 streaming service.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The episode "The Last Roundup" was briefly removed from iTunes and reruns after a scene involving Memetic Bystander Derpy Hooves was criticized for being a stereotype of those with mental disabilities - which she wasn't intended to be, but which she unfortunately resembled. The episode was eventually re-instated, but the scene was edited to remove the character's Simpleton Voice^note which was a mistake on the part of her VA; Derpy's first voice actress thought she was a stallion, and tried to give her a masculine voice, which made her sound odd, her Fish Eyes, and any mention of her name^note which was thought to be a slur; it was an Ascended Fan Nickname intended to mean something closer to "wacky". After backlash from fans, the original is available once again, and Derpy has since been re-included in the series albeit with some changes: she has the Fish Eyes once more but is written as The Ditz and The Klutz, there is no mention of the name^note even on merchandise, which typically includes a picture of a muffin where the character name would normally go, and she now plays a much more significant role in the show (even starring in Slice of Life) much to the joy of the fans.
  • The next episode, “Super Cider Squeezy 6000”, was not aired in some areas because it centered on making apple cider. Apple cider is usually alcoholic in some areas, with the non-alcoholic variant not being as well known outside the U.S.. Some dubs just changed the drink to apple juice, but U.K. countries didn’t air it.
• In Australia, a Peppa Pig episode of all things was banned, because it taught that spiders are harmless, which isn't something you want to teach Australian children, as the spiders in that country are among the most venomous on the planet. It did accidentally air on the feed of Nick Jr. Australia gets (which is the same as the Asian feed) before a parent complained about it.
• When Pet Alien aired on Qubo, the episode "Day of the Naked Aliens" was cut and replaced with another airing of "Race with the Clinton". This is speculated to be a result of all the nudity-themed jokes, such as Gumpers' song about being naked and the ending where the entire human cast gets stripped nude.
• The Phineas and Ferb episode "Ready for the Bettys" was pulled from reruns between 2009 and 2015 due to legal issues with a real-life band called The Bettys that the writers were unaware of at the time. As a side effect, "Phineas and Ferb Musical Cliptastic Countdown" was pulled due to featuring that episode's song in the #10 spot, and "The Flying Fishmonger" was pulled due to being paired with "Ready for the Bettys". Both episodes were finally aired again in the United States on the Disney Channel on May 22, 2015, and the episodes are available on iTunes, Netflix, and Disney+.
• Pingu:
  • "Little Accidents" was banned in multiple countries after its original Swiss broadcast resulted in multiple viewer complaints about the characters urinating on the floor on-screen, as well as references to alcohol addiction. It wasn't even aired at all in the United States until Amazon Prime picked up the series, which showed the original show in its entirety. It was because of the complaints that "Pingu at the Doctor's" became a second season episode, rather than a first season one.
  • "Pingu at the Doctor's" was itself banned in some countries due to Pingu's beak bleeding. It did air in the US, where it was released on a rare VHS/DVD called Antarctic Antics.
  • The pilot episode was taken off rotation on the BBC in 2003 due to the scene where Pingg violently smacks Pingu in the head, which was censored in most home video releases there. It was also a reason why the Sprout channel in the US didn't pick up the episode (though it aired on Cartoon Network's Small World block almost a decade earlier, with the scene intact).
  • "Pingu Quarrels With His Mother" was rejected by Sprout due to the scene where Pingu's mother slaps him in the face for insubordination, though Cartoon Network aired it uncut. In the UK, the BBC shows the episode with the slap removed. Like the rest of the original series, it's available on Amazon Prime Video uncensored.
  • "Pingu Runs Away" was banned in the United Kingdom after complaints that the frightening monster-shaped ice formations Pingu encounters in the episode scared young children (the episode also had a rather upsetting tone).
  • "Pingu's Dream" aired only once on the BBC before being quickly pulled from the channel due to the horrifyingly ugly appearance of the walrus in Pingu's dream sequence. It was later banned from Sprout years later for the same reason.
  • "Pingu and the Doll" is the only episode from season four to be banned in North America due to Pingu exhibiting stereotypical Native American mannerisms throughout the episode.
• The Postman Pat episode "Postman Pat and the Thunderstorm" was pulled from airing on CBeebies due to having some frightening scenes. In the episode, Mrs Goggins' puppy Bonnie runs off during a thunderstorm, leaving Mrs Goggins to wander through the storm alone, screaming Bonnie's name in a scared tone. Later in the episode, a flash flood forces Pat and his son Julian to abandon the van to search for Bonnie on foot; they are also alone for extended periods of time.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998) pseudo-series finale "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey" was banned, allegedly due to being about Communism, or the heavy use of strobe effects (which could have triggered epileptic seizures in more sensitive viewers, much like the notorious Pokemon episode "Electric Soldier Porygon"). However, series creator Craig McCracken revealed on his Tumblr account that the real reason the episode got banned was because of what the network perceived as religious imagery — they claimed the metal beams in the destroyed buildings looked too much like crosses, and one of the hippies looked like Jesus. However, the episode can be seen on the complete series DVD set for the show, as well as on digital download and some streaming services (HBO Max doesn't have the episode).
• The Ren & Stimpy Show had the 1992 episode "Man's Best Friend", which was not aired on Nickelodeon due to the use of the character George Liquor, along with a scene where Ren violently whacks George with an oar repeatedly. This was partly the reason John Kricfalusi and Spumco were fired from the series, and Nickelodeon Animation Studios took over. It finally did air on TNN/Spike TV as part of Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" in 2003, and was also included on the first and second-season DVD set from Paramount Home Video in 2004.
  • The final-season episodes "Sammy and Me" and "The Last Temptation of Ren" originally did not air on Nickelodeon. The former was because the jokes about Sammy Davis, Jr.'s glass eye caught heat with Davis, Jr.'s estate, and the latter was withheld due to alleged religious content. Both eventually aired together on MTV in 1996, and "Sammy and Me" eventually was aired on Nickelodeon in the summer of 2000. "The Last Temptation of Ren" not only never aired on Nickelodeon but never aired on Nicktoons either. It eventually aired 22 years later on NickRewind.
• After 9/11, Kids' WB! pulled the Rescue Heroes episode "Terror in the Tower" from reruns as the plot dealt with the team rescuing people trapped in burning tower floors. Teletoon, the show's Canadian network, began showing the episode again a year later, but it was re-titled "High Anxiety" and all subsequent broadcasts worldwide, including Qubo, air the episode in that title.
• Rocko's Modern Life: Despite the myriad of adult jokes that slipped through the cracks – some of which did end up getting edited in reruns, the show only banned two episodes for content:
  • "Leap Frogs" was banned on the grounds of very risque content. The episode centered on Bev Bighead trying to seduce Rocko while her husband is at work, as she feels that she's not being loved by Ed. It did see some airtime at least twice before Nickelodeon realized the risqué content and demanded it to be cut.
  • "Heff in a Handbasket" was pulled after the show's initial run, due to all the references to Hell and Satanism, in an even more extreme case than "To Heck and Back" did^note The episode involved Heffer trading his soul to Peaches to be on a game show. The episodes that were paired up with these two, "Wallaby on Wheels" and "Bedfellows", were aired together in reruns to still allow for an even number. Oddly, when the show initially began airing on Nicktoons TV, "Leap Frogs" was shown for a while before being pulled again, but "Heff in a Handbasket" remained in circulation until the show was removed from the network. This meant there were two half-hours that included "Wallaby on Wheels" (one with the original "Heff in a Handbasket", and one with "Bedfellows").
  • "Jet Scream" didn't have any problems back in the 1990s and is in fact clean by the show's standards, but it was one of the many TV episodes temporarily yanked from reruns following the 9/11 attacks. The plot revolved around Rocko and Heffer getting into hijinks on a plane trip. It went back into rotation the following year on Nicktoons, though.
• The Simpsons:
  • "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson", which mostly takes place in and around the World Trade Center, was withdrawn from syndication after the attacks on September 11th, 2001. However, in a reversal of Distanced from Current Events, fans protested its removal (since it's one of the most popular episodes of the series) and it was quickly reinstated, albeit with the jokes and scenes centered around the Twin Towers either heavily edited or cut entirely on some local affiliates. Other affiliates (which often retain the tapes for years and air them in any order besides that suggested by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, the syndicator) have shown the episode uncut and uncensored, save for some time cuts and a man's line about how "They stick all the jerks in Tower One." The original uncut episode is on the season nine DVD (with commentary from the writers on how the episode is now in bad taste thanks to 9/11, but it still has its moments that haven't aged, like the Betty Ford rehab musical).
  • "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" was banned in Japan due to scenes considered offensive to Japanese culture, and also in South Korea because the entire episode revolves around Japanese culture. It was later released in the latter country on the Season 10 DVD boxset, while it still remains banned in the former.
  • The later episode "New Kids On The Blecch", which aired seven months before the 9/11 attacks, was also temporarily pulled, and later edited to remove a scene involving the destruction of a tower (in this case, it was MAD headquarters).
  • The episode "A Streetcar Named Marge" was also pulled from syndication after Hurricane Katrina because of its references to New Orleans being a horrid, run-down hellhole. The episode also angered residents of New Orleans on original airing, prompting an apology in Bart's chalkboard punishment the following episode.
  • The episode "Cape Feare" was not aired in Germany in a few years, probably due to the "Up Late with McBain" sequence featuring the show announcer (Obergruppenfuhrer^note which is the equivalent to a "lieutenant general" Wolfcastle) dressed in S.S. gear, complete with a swastika armband (display of Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany, unless it's for educational reasons, but even that's iffy). The episode was finally aired in 1999 in an edited form.
  • The episode "E Pluribus Wiggum" caused controversy in Argentina prior to its broadcast there. The controversy is over an exchange between Lenny and Carl. Carl says "I could really go for some kind of military dictator, like Juan Perón. When he 'disappeared' you, you stayed 'disappeared'!". Fox decided not to air the episode in Latin America, except in Brazil. Some national TV networks in the region, Caracol in Colombia, Canal 13 in Chile, Televen in Venezuela, and TV Azteca in Mexico have aired the episode. FOX Latin America finally aired the episode for the first time on September 6, 2016, after 8 years of censorship.
  • "Looking For Mr. Goodbart" was banned in Russia for depicting Homer playing a stand-in for Pokémon GO in church. Due to the unintentional parallel to a real-life incident where a Russian blogger got in trouble for playing the game in a church in St. Petersburg, the Orthodox Church suspected the episode of being "Hollywood propaganda" seeking to defame their country's society.
  • "Stark Raving Dad", which featured Michael Jackson as a guest star, was voluntarily removed from streaming, syndication and digital purchase in March 2019 by the show's producers after the release of the controversial HBO / Channel Four documentary ''Leaving Neverland'', which documented a third round of high-profile child molestation accusations against Jackson. Aside from turning up once on FXX that October, it hasn't been rerun anywhere since. The ban apparently extends to Disney-owned international networks (the Latin American channel skipped it when doing a season-per-day marathon of the entire series in May 2019) and also applies to Disney+. Printings of the third season DVD set made after 2019 also no longer include the episode.
  • "Marge in Chains" hasn't aired reruns on FXX or Freeform since March 2020, due to the episode's plot being kickstarted by a flu epidemic in Springfield, which can be seen as in poor taste due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It's still on Disney+ and DVD, though.
• Soupe Opéra: Supposedly, the episode with the bat was banned because its wings gave children seizures (Sound familiar?).
• South Park's Milestone Celebration episodes "200" and "201" only aired once, and cannot be accessed on the South Park Studios site, especially in the wake of a death threat by a small Islamist group towards Trey Parker and Matt Stone after the former aired. For 201, Comedy Central censored every mention of The Prophet Muhammad, as well as Kyle's entire monologue about giving in to fear, while Parker and Stone were not allowed to disclose the details of said monologue ^note The uncensored version has since been leaked in which the characters say in an inspirational tone that threatening violence is the best route to getting your way. The censored content still remain for DVD versions of the episode, and the two episodes never aired on syndication since then. On a related note, although it never stirred controversy when it aired, "Super Best Friends" (which depicts various religious leaders, including the Prophet Muhammad) can no longer be syndicated for similar reasons (though it is on the season five DVD).
  • The ban on "200"/"201" also extends to several foreign language adaptations of the series. In particular, the director of the French dub had stated that it is highly unlikely they'd be translated due to requiring even more dialogue censorship. Likewise, the scene where Buddha is shown snorting cocaine alongside Jesus looking at pornography, parodying the double standards of which religious figures are and aren't okay to depict, ironically got the episode (and the entire series) banned in Sri Lanka.
  • At least seven episodes have been banned in the Japanese version to date (the dub has yet to get to "200"/"201"):
    • "Terrance and Phillip in: 'Not Without My Anus" was skipped in the second season. A Japanese version of the Other Wiki had speculated it was due to Saddam Hussein's appearance, although the popular belief is that the episode got banned because fans didn't like it, as it aired in place of the second part of the season one cliffhanger (the one where Cartman tries to find the identity of his biological father) as a joke, though Trey Parker and Matt Stone have said that this was one of the few episodes from seasons one to three that they don't hate.
    • "Chinpokomon" was completely banned (and thus not available on DVD) due to mockery of the Japanese and Emperor Hirohito, including a plot point where the Japanese were brainwashing the children to bomb Pearl Harbor.
    • "Do The Handicapped Go to Hell?" and "Probably" were not dubbed by WOWOW for season four. While the official reasons were not stated, the popular theory is that the references to Christianity and the Western concepts of the afterlife wouldn't be fully understood by Japanese viewers. The episodes did later make it on to the DVD releases but were left in the original English version with Japanese subtitles.
    • "A Ladder to Heaven" was banned when WOWOW began broadcasting of season six, as it contained more mockery of the Japanese and had again included heavy references to Christianity. Despite this, a clip from the episode was retained in their dub of "Casa Bonita".
    • "Krazy Kripples" was to be aired in the dub of season seven, but was pulled from broadcast due to the death of Christopher Reeve (who had been the villain in the episode).
    • "Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow" was banned in FOX Japan's broadcast of season nine, on the heels of the 2011 tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear disaster. Another part worth noting is that for some reason (perhaps to do with expenses), the entirety of season 9 besides this banned episode was also not dubbed and only broadcast in a subtitled format.
  • The Spanish-language dub aired in the Latin American markets has had its own cases of banned episodes. Aside from "200" and "201" (which were already banned for international adaptations and DVD box sets), there are at least eight other cases to date:
    • "Rainforest Schmainforest" was banned late in the game in 2011 (several years after it was dubbed), due to its mockery of Costa Rica. A toned-down redub was produced as a way of getting the ban lifted for it to air again.
    • "Free Willzyx" and "The Last of the Meheecans" were initially left completely banned and untranslated due to their mockery of Mexicans, although these bans would wind up lifted for the DVD releases for each season.
    • "Pinewood Derby" would have been aired on MTV, but the portrayal of Felipe Calderon (the President of Mexico from 2006 to 2012) wound up getting the episode banned before it was broadcast.
    • A few episodes of season six have been banned by MTV Latinoamerica in reruns of the series (with the season having originally aired on Locomotion). The official reasons remain unstated (though given the episodes banned, it was probably because of content considered too vulgar for broadcast), but the episodes include "Freak Strike", "Child Abduction Is Not Funny", "A Ladder To Heaven", and "The Death Camp of Tolerance".
  • The original Italian dub by SEFIT-CDC Group banned and left three season 4 episodes untranslated: "Cartman Joins NAMBLA" (due to Kenny attempting to force an abortion on his mother, as well as references to pedophilia with NAMBLA), "Do The Handicapped Go To Hell?", and "Probably" (both due to mockery of Catholicism and religion in general).
  • Related to the Italian dub above British satellite channel Sky1 had pulled the season 4 episode "Cartman Joins NAMBLA", (due to the similar reasons in the Italian dub above), however the channel had also pulled the season 5 episode "Proper Condom Use", (due to its highly sexual and violent content), and the season 6 episode "Jared Has Aides", (due to its AIDS references, heavily discussing disgraced Subway pitchman Jared Fogle, and the ending scene where Butters is beaten up by his parents after Cartman impersonated him), as of 2018 those episodes are still very rarely shown on British television.
  • Along with the Muhammad episodes, a few other episodes, including "Go Fund Yourself" and "Back to the Cold War" (and later "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson"), were skipped from Canadian reruns on Much.
• The episode of the first season of the 1967 Spider-Man series titled "The One-Eyed Idol/Fifth Avenue Phantom" is occasionally left out of circulation as it contains a lot of content that, these days, would be considered racist and sexist.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In the United Kingdom, the paired episodes "Shanghaied" and "Gary Takes A Bath" were banned for several years. "Shanghaied" was banned because of its frightening images (especially a disturbing, surreal sequence where SpongeBob and Patrick are sprayed by perfumes, and Squidward falling through the Fly of Despair) and "Gary Takes A Bath" was banned for three reasons: The inclusion of an inappropriate "don't drop the soap" gag (which refers to prison rape), a scene where SpongeBob deliberately straps a bomb onto himself (which brings suicide bombers to mind and came off as distancing from current events following the 7/7 London bombings), and a short scene where SpongeBob tries subliminal messages on Gary and a very freaky image of a goofy-looking hillbilly girl appears without warning (Even SpongeBob is disturbed by this, and he apologizes to Gary, as well as presumably the audience). Even today, these two episodes remain controversial and are very rarely shown on British television. At least those episodes are available to stream on the British version of Paramount+.
  • "Kwarantined Krab" from Season 12 was not aired in the USA initially due to Nick being concerned about the sensitivity it would cause regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic, according to Vincent Waller's Twitter it was even missing from the Season 12 DVD (though oddly enough another season 12 episode "Hiccup Plague" which was also unaired in the U.S. due to COVID was included on the set). The episode was released digitally in other countries, however and both it and Hiccup Plague were finally aired in the U.S. in April 2022.
  • Viewers in 2021 have noticed that the episode "Mid-Life Crustacean" was missing from Paramount+ and quietly removed from Amazon. Nick later confirmed the episode had been "out of rotation" since 2018^note However, this only applied to the main Nickelodeon channel, as the final time "Mid-Life Crustacean" aired on American television at all was actually on the NickToons network, specifically on February 26, 2021 as part of the second (and quite possibly final) incarnation of the channel's "Every SpongeBob Ever" marathon., due to having "story elements were not kid-appropriate". They never specified which, but it might be due to this episode involving SpongeBob, Patrick and Mr. Krabs engaging in a "panty raid" (which winds up being at Mr. Krabs' mom's house). This also resulted in "The Great Snail Race" being banned, due to being paired with "Mid-Life Crustacean." Both episodes can be viewed on the Season 3 DVD set, and can be bought on YouTube and iTunes (albeit only as part of a collection of episodes on the latter), however.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
  • "The Banagic Incident" was banned in some European countries for unknown reasons. Most guess it's because the MacGuffin of the episode resembles a self-pleasuring device.
  • In May 2017, "Just Friends" was pulled from Disney XD's schedule and site, most likely due to One Million Moms sending the channel a complaint about a scene depicting several same-sex couples kissing. It was eventually restored.
• Steven Universe:
  • Episodes such as "The Answer", "Reunited" and "Hit the Diamond" were never allowed to broadcast in Russia and the Middle East due to the presence of same-sex couples. Other episodes containing these themes were not outright banned but heavily edited.
  • The season 4 episode "Last One Out Of Beach City" was notably skipped not only in the above regions, presumably due to further homosexual themes, but in multiple regions that don't normally censor the same-sex relationships in the show. The reason for this was likely the fact that during the episode, Pearl runs a red light and flees from the cops (and isn't exactly condemned for doing so).
  • Eventually, the ENTIRE SHOW was pulled from air in the Middle East, North Africa, and Kenya.
• The 2003-2009 series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had an episode called "Insane in the Membrane" that never aired on FOX (though it was available on DVD and shown on the former 4KidsTV site). It involves Baxter Stockman cloning his old body and inserting his brain inside. It goes fine for a while but after a few months, he begins to fall apart and constantly tries new ways to fix himself including chopping off limbs. Eventually he loses his mind and blames April for all that has happened to him. To be fair, the episode was quite disturbing for kids. It finally aired in the US in 2015 on Nicktoons.
• Thunderbirds Are Go had the episode "Inferno" banned from airing in the UK due to the episode being centering around a tower fire. This would normally be typical Thunderbirds fodder, but it came at the unfortunate timing of airing around the same time as the Grenfell Tower Disaster. Out of respect, the episode was pulled from airing, and UK viewers weren't able to watch it until the episode was put on DVD.
• Time Squad had an episode pulled by Cartoon Network after it had just finished production and wasn't even scheduled to air yet when 9/11 happened. It was called "Orphan Substitute", which involves the time squad having to briefly help a dim-witted President George W. Bush. According to writer Carlos Ramos, when 9/11 happened the episode was outright banned by the network and was told it would "never air". But it did air eventually, in November of 2003 as the series finale. The creator Dave Wasson stated that the episode was never intended to be the last to end the series, so one would suspect that CN felt that the episode would probably not be too damaging to the company by that point in time, and they probably just needed to fill in that extra timeslot for their "November Premiere" block that was running new episodes leading up to Thanksgiving Weekend.
• The What A Cartoon short "The Kitchen Casanova" was removed from the show later on due to a scene where Casanova accidentally cuts his finger off while trying to cut come carrots.
• Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: "I Am Jackie Robinson / I Am Anna Pavlova" was banned after August 2020, because viewers complained about the Jackie Robinson episode watering down history and systemic racism. To be specific, the episode compared minor disagreements between kids (i.e the playground bully not liking Yadina's red jacket) to racism. It is still available on digital platforms.

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