Adult Swim shot down the idea of the series being a silent cartoon and insisted that Christy Karacas and Stephen Warbrick give the characters dialogue and voices. The executives did concede to letting Jacknife remain as The Unintelligible.
Karacas voicing Alice is also due to an executive's suggestion that the original actress be let go.
One episode idea from season 1 was rejected by Adult Swim, because it only involved Jacknife and Jailbot and took place in the outside world instead of the jail: Jacknife would have evaded capture and built a robotic suit to fight Jailbot in, while the citizens of the real world would think Jailbot was an alien and think of Jacknife as a hero. Ironically, an episode involving the two characters stuck outside of the jail wound being aired as the Season 2 premiere, under the name "Best Friends Forever", and was considered one of the better episodes of that run!
The opening to "Special Needs" had to be altered slightly, as the Standards and Practices department objected to the visual of Jesus (in actuality a disguised Jailbot) leaping down from his crucifix to beat up Jacknife. The shot of him leaping was replaced with a reaction shot of the congregation.
Season 3 had some scenes that were censored by the network for being "too disturbing", although the crew had noted that other disturbing shots had slipped by without notice. The censored shots included a visual metaphor of Alice's groin being a jackhammer, a drug-crazed inmate snorting cocaine, and a shot where dogs tear apart and eat an inmate. These shots were meant to be uncensored in the DVD release, but the censored versions of the episodes were used instead.
All of the DVD releases have been advertised as "uncensored", but something happened in production to prevent the season 1 and season 3 sets from actually having the original unbleeped/uncensored episodes, leading to fans becoming angry at the false advertising and the creators having no idea themselves at what exactly occurred. To this date, the season 2 DVD release is the only one that has actually used the uncensored copies of episodes.
Mistress Kilda's death scene in "Lord Stingray Crash Party" was ordered to be toned down considerably, although Karacas can't remember all the details of what they had to change. The one noticeable detail that the crew does recall is that they had to color her innards a pale yellow.
Chris McCulloch originally voiced Lord Stingray, but was let go after an executive thought he was parodying the Monarch and told the crew to go with a different voice actor. It worked out for the better in the end though, as the crew and executives were more pleased with Eric Bauza's portrayal. The lines McCulloch voiced were dubbed over in post-production, although an early animation test has his take on the character.
"Hot Chick" had some content edits made to it during production:
Hunter was to originally not be defeated by the Twins, but would wind up shapeshifting back to goo when the inmates were trying to sexually assault her. The entire climax was changed as a result of having to tone down the disturbing implication. Her nudity also originally had detail, but Williams Street S&P forbid the depiction of nipples and pubic hair, leading to her Barbie Doll Anatomy.
One Twin originally wore a Nazi armband as part of his inmate gang disguise. After S&P told the crew that they couldn't show the swastika, the armband was edited to be a solid red in most shots, while another depicted it with a "Nazi smiley face" instead (with SS bolt eyes). As the network allowed the actual inmates to sport swastikas, it might have been that the Twin's disguise went a little too far (as he wore a fake Hitler mustache and had his scalp shaved).
"The Budding of the Warbuxx" originally had the titular Warbuxx with an umbilical cord, which was later removed in the final animation to tone down on the implications that the Twins had killed and eaten something that was likely their offspring. The birth of the Warbuxx was also altered to have it bud off of them (and outright shown), rather than the implication that it had come out of the Twin's butt.
In general since the hiatus between seasons 1 and 2, and the switch in animation studios, the censorship rules at Williams Street have changed a bit and anything to do with dead children or cannibalism winds up vetoed by the executives. This left the crew to have to slip in things implying it or find a way to write around the edits.
