Calendar enthusiast
Thanks for the perspective, tropette.
Point taken, mewtron.
Still, we at least need some evidence that an example breaks some rule
Ukrainian Red Cross
he/him | Image Pickin' regular
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
if it needs TRS again, it'll go to TRS again. loss of time investment is unfortunate, but shit happens, and i personally would a thousand times rather a cut trope than a bad trope.
Angry babby
If nothing else, it needs to be Trivia now, so it'll need TRS again eventually. I would honestly be fine cutting it at this point because the extra technicality (does it count in this country, in this era, do we know for sure what the censors are thinking, etc) feels like too much work to maintain and might ultimately leave this too rare to accurately list, but I know there's issues with inbounds and stuff.
Or maybe it'll be easier when cleanup is done. We have a lot of items that cover what this item used to be and I think we should promote them so people will use them and stop misusing GCPTR. The more misuse we get, the more we fall behind and the more work there is to be done checking every example. Adding examples we already know are valid will be much easier.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Found Radar.Psychonauts, and all of the entries seem to be written under the assumption that it's a kid's game... despite the game having a T rating Specifically for... . While it is kinda tame compared to other T-rated games, the point still stands that it has a T-rating, so nothing on the page is GCPTR, nor can anything be DIH.
Y'ALL JUST GOT SHREKT
Cut away!
Calendar enthusiast
PEGI rated Psychonauts 12, with secific content warnings for violence and strong language. Yeah, the ratings agencies saw the game and rated accordingly.
Re the nature of the trope: Personally, I wouldn't be adverse to turning it into an index of methods creators use to sneak past the censors, but that idea was shot down in TRS. Making it Trivia seems reasonable.
I'm going to have to disagree on the verifiability requirements making it less of a trope. Once upon a time, the front page of the wiki proudly proclaimed that no citations were needed... but that was never true. This wiki is all about citations - that's what the examples sections ultimately are, a list of citations of how the trope is used. And in the case of GCPTR, the trope isn't a type of content, it's a type of shenanigan that goes on between the creator and the ratings agencies and censors. To that end, the describing the restrictions the creators got around are key to the example.
I also think that the example section on the trope page is today much more interesting and informative than it was before we introduced the new rules, since it isn't just gasping at everything that could possibly be interpreted sexually, but goes into how those sexual references shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I will hold up my hand and say I was pretty zealous with "Clearly this didn't get past the radar if if got published!" I'm going on the basis that these aren't subtle, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments, but jokes and references which the entire scene or instalment is built around; particularly in the base of newspaper comics, there isn't a whole lot of room to be sneaky. But, in any case, some sort of evidence that a work gets crap past the radar is still necessary, same as for any other trope or trivia item.
Ukrainian Red Cross
Making this an Index does seem like it would be a useful fix. It beats having to play editing whack-a-mole every time we change the rules.
Calendar enthusiast
Turns out Radar.Garfield exists.
Standard caveat regarding newspaper comics: Every newspaper has its own editorial rules, and the syndicates also have their own rules. And and Tropette explained, newspaper comics aren't usually vetted.
Garfield examples in particular are highly questionable, since Jim Davis is on record as saying he intentionally made it as inoffensive as possible to appeal to widest audience.
Let's dive in.
- Garfield gets high on catnip and wakes up in Atlantic City with a Barbie doll
. In 20 Years and Still Kicking!, Jim Davis admits that he didn't expect it to be published.
Davis: This was sent in as a joke. I combined drugs, sex, and gambling into one strip... breaking a copyright law in the process. It went through! The joke was on me.
Well. We have Word of God on this one, but it looks like it would fit better on Surprisingly Lenient Censor. However, this does give us a baseline for at least what was acceptable in the late 70s and early 80s.
- There are some Heterosexual Life-Partners jokes that just don't work when your Straight Man is a cat.
Nah, this is just silliness. The joke is about how absurd it is.
- The phone rings, and Garfield answers it. It's Liz. Garfield turns the receiver toward Odie, who loudly pants into it. Garfield then hangs up and walks away, saying, "The shot will be worth it just to see him try and explain that.◊" (August 6th, 1995)
Hmm, I feel like this is acceptable in 1995. Jon having a crush on Liz is a recurring gag, and this just feels like Garfield is trying to embarass him. General silliness, but doesn't look terribly out there.
- The time Jon made a sandwich out of his penis. He wore his sandwich and put his swim trunks in the picnic basket. (August 29, 1995)
- There was this strip in 1980; most newspapers changed the punch line to "dirt jokes". (But they kept the tobacco.)
If they changed it, the radar clearly picked it up.
- One of the pre-"nice Liz" strips had Jon asking a woman for a date over the phone. She tells him she'd "rather go out with camel spittle." Garfield urges Jon to retaliate with an insult of his own...and Jon comes up with "But what if your brother already has plans?!" - but hours later, when the two are going to bed. So not only is the brother "spittle", but Jon is insinuating that the woman would seduce her own brother.
Hmm, maybe. Based on the first example, I figure this might count if it was published around 1980.
- "Doug, a pig just bit me." "A pig? Where did he bite you, Earl?" "Right in the mudhole, Doug."◊
- Garfield somehow got away with saying "Sex" in an early strip◊.
Based on the quote from the first example, I think this one might count.
- Before Liz and Jon started dating, Jon once asked her what she would suggest for an animal that's madly in love. She quipped, "I usually prescribe neutering." Even worse, in the 20th anniversary book, the strip is followed by a picture of Garfield eagerly holding up a pair of scissors.
Encouraging neutering is OK. Even in the 70s, Bob Barker was encouraging people to "spay and neuter your pets" on daytime TV. The bit with the scissors isn't part of the original strip, it was added to the collection, which wasn't sbject to the rules of the syndicate or newspaper editors.
- Look at the middle panel.◊ Garfield is choking a (rubber) chicken. Noisily. Even if you haven't heard of that euphemism, the way he's doing it is plenty suggestive. And Jon says he's going to "wring [his] rubber chicken's neck" in the next panel.
This looks much more like Accidental Innuendo.
- Some of the strips collected in "Garfield from the Trash Bin" weren't finished or released due to pushing the boundaries of good taste. Most notably, one involves a man with a squirrel living in his pants who "appears to be storing..."
- Another "Garfield from the Trash Bin" strip had Liz claim that one of her friends told her to buy a leopard pattern thong for herself to surprise Jon with. Wonder why that wasn't considered kosher.
So they didn't get past the radar?
- "Wow... Van Gogh cut off his ear for the woman he loved! ... I wonder what ''I'' could cut off?"
- It becomes glaringly obvious in the "Garfield Minus Garfield" version◊.
- It becomes glaringly obvious in the "Garfield Minus Garfield" version
Possibly valid
No it's not, it's a joke about Jon being pathetic.
Is this a slang term I'm not familiar with? Because it looks like Garfield is just being silly.
Apparently "Hell" is a curse word in America, but he doesn't actually say "Hell", so I would say this is acceptable.
[[quoteblock]]
So this is from Garfield Minus Garfield. But in any case, it looks more like "wiener" is just an Inherently Funny Word.
- Take a gawk at Jon's Scariest Dates◊. Ignoring the fact that one of them is Garfield, which is already pushing it, the one that cartwheels past the radar is "Señorita Del Fuego." A handpuppet. With lipstick. Eeewww... Unlike most examples, this one actually didn't make it past the radar the second time: when it was reprinted in Garfield's Guide To Everything, Señorita Del Fuego was nowhere to be found.
OK, this one looks valid.
Ukrainian Red Cross
No objections keeping the entries with bold commentary. Kinda interesting that most of the examples are from earlier strips.
A loyal animal lover
The "Who greased my wiener?!" part sounds like an Accidental Innuendo to me. The "right in the mudhole" gag could also belong under Pain to the Ass. Also, yeah, I'm pretty sure the "sucking punch out of my bear" thing is just Grandma's Chicken Salad.
Edited by Segal991 on Nov 4th 2021 at 3:18:07 AM
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Calendar enthusiast
Garfield examples have been reassigned. Let's look at Radar.Pearls Before Swine.
The intro asserts that standards for newspaper comics are incredibly strict, but I can't find any actual information on what those standards might be. This also assumes that every single newspaper has the exact same standards, which is not true. And, as we know from Tropette's personal experience, newspaper comics are barely subject to oversight.
That said...
- Lampshaded Double Entendre on August 2, 2013.
- Another borderline strip. Goat shows Rat a friend of his who's a professor, and a donkey. Rat's response is...
- Erector buildings...
- "Enlarge your pens." Look closely at the placement of Rat's and Pig's speech bubbles in that last panel. Stephan still, in a way, got the word "penis" in.
- "Does a bear sit in the woods?"
- "Visited by magical fairies!" "That sounds worse."
- "I got 99 problems but a beach ain't one."
- "Me hear dey sell great croc pot."
- "Sit or get off the pot!"
- "Eat shiitake."
- "Makes me feel __rny."
- You dam fool!
- That just takes balls.
- But I like the sun of a beach.
- In this strip, the Comic Strip Censor confronts Rat over the term "hump day".
- "These G-men are searching for the G-spot."
- Testies.
- It’s well-hung.
- Nuts in my nut sack.
- Go Nads!
- Lo’s perm count.
- It’s full of shih tzu.
- The minstrel period.
- Don’t touch my test to cull!
I think these can be saved as in-universe examples, but that should be condensed to something like:
I'll look at the rest later.
Ukrainian Red Cross
no, that's a bad writeup. it's a general example as written, weblinks aren't sufficient context on their own per How to Write an Example, and even though the slugs clearly demarcate each link, it's still obnoxious to read.
can't we just keep three or four of the best examples and give them proper writeups, with an addendum that it's a frequent joke? do we have to link every individual strip where it happens?
Calendar enthusiast
...The links are supplementary to the example. Weblinks Are Not Examples doesn't mean you can't use weblinks, it means that a link on its own doesn't suffice.
But I take your point about the slugs; I was thinking that, knowing the wiki, tropers will add a shitload of subbullets to link to every single appearance of the censor, and linking them in the body of the example cuts that off. How about this version?
- A common joke in Pearls Before Swine is for a character (usually, but not always, Rat) to make an elaborate Double Entendre, whereupon the Comic Strip Censor barges in to either complain or make a snide comment about how they're technically within the rules (for example).
Edited by VampireBuddha on Nov 6th 2021 at 11:33:07 AM
Ukrainian Red Cross
Calendar enthusiast
So anyway, let's take a look at the rest of Radar.Pearls Before Swine.
- For example, there was one Sunday strip with the character Ashley Stearns Simpson, with whom Pig discussed FDR and JFK. A lot of readers didn't get it.
- Also, there was another Sunday strip where Pig wrote a letter to his girlfriend Pigita about how sometimes she's nice to him, but other times she's mean, requesting her to be more consistent...and wrote "P.M.S." instead of "P.S." right before asking "Is that a problem with you?".
- And then there's Ho Chi Minh. One strip was cut before it was released because Pastis felt he took it too far.
- In one arc, where Pig accidentally got breastsnote , Rat slipped in four Double Entendres in when ordering food. Pig said it was not funny. Pastis was pleased.
- One strip has Pig and a girl out for dinner, and she accidentally loses her prized souvenir Tee from a golf tournament she recently played in Virginia. They look for it, but can't find it, so Pig just drives her home, unfortunately shortly after her curfew. But Pig can explain it, to her angry father, of course; They are late because she lost her Virginia Tee. The father is not happy.
Pig: You would have thought I had taken it.
- "Just some light petting."
- This Entendre Failure.
- Pig says that he's interested in seeing a particular type of dust storm, or "haboob". Cue Pigita walking in at a wrong time...
- "Oh, she's great in the sack."
- "Well, I'm starting to get into her pants."
- "Do you want 'secs'?"
- V.D.?
- "Get the clap"
- We're having a pretty hot foursome.
- PLEASE DON'T TOUCH MY PRIVATE PARTS!
- There's no such thing as casual sects.
- A topless bar to see some huge cans.
- My libido is very healthy.
- "Do they touch inappropriate private parts?"
- "Some beaches and hose"
- "I'm trying to turn her (Pigita) on" (Pigita is dressed as a lamp for Halloween).
- In one strip, Rat was writing a detective story involving beds, with a punchline of "no sheet, Sherlock". Say it out loud, and then wonder just how the incredibly strict comics code let that one by.
- Never mind the word plays, Pastis gets away with a ridiculous amount of, um, shall we say, adult concepts. Like this one.
- "Wise ass on the hill"
- The April 30, 2017 strip depicts Little Bo-Peep cursing repeatedly (via Symbol Swearing); then after she storms off after losing a sheet of paper she intended to use to keep track of the sheep Goat delivers this response.
Goat: "Little Bo Peep has lost her sheet."
- ...but a beech ain't one.
- One strip has Pig crawling into bed with Rat and Rat trying to get Pig out of the bed before somone sees.... just as Goat walks in and goes "Ohhhhhhh myyyyyyyy" and Rat instantly trying to get the truth out… Yes, Pastis was able to get a Mistaken for Gay joke into the funny pages. The fact that he ran it on a Saturday might have helped get that past his censors.
- Rat once told a customer he was "not in the mood" while working at a coffee shop.
- Customer: Not in the mood?Rat: Yeah, not in the mood. You know, like your wife when you ask her for s-Manager: (quickly places hand over Rat's mouth) -Ssssssssssssoy milk cappucino.... ... on the house, sir.Rat: Mmmph
- Then there's another strip:
Woman: (talking about her boyfriend) "We're 'Friends with Benefits'."Pig: "It's good to have affordable medical insurance."Woman: "Wrong benefits."Pig: "Ohh... do you get dental?"
- Rat has had at least one Erotic Dream on panel. One strip implied he was having a cream dream about Winona Ryder, and an early Sunday strip about his alarm clock featured him dreaming about "The Land of the Nude Supermodels"
- He also had one about Tyra Banks
Rat: Oh Tyraaaaa~
- "Stick your hand in our kitty anytime, sir." It's a pun on the word kitty. Nothing dirty here.
- The page image is from January 24, 2014.
- Stephan's ex-wife is telling him he's number 1.
- In this strip, Pastis managed to spell "assholes" using Symbol Swearing.
- The April 30, 2017 strip depicts Little Bo-Peep cursing repeatedly (via Symbol Swearing); then after she storms off after losing a sheet of paper she intended to use to keep track of the sheep Goat delivers this response.
Goat: "Little Bo Peep has lost her sheet."
- This stripimplies Rat is Compensating for Something.
- The cover for The Sopratos◊ has a very high body count. Actually, so does the entire strip. Even Kenny and all of the Happy Tree Friends would be amazed. It's pretty clearly a Sopranos parody. It's also very cartoony and unrealistic, and there is no body regulating comic books
- Hell, Pastis managed to sneak in a ''Viagra'' reference. It's like he's just baiting the censors at this point. Dude. He didn't sneak that in. He quite openly submitted it.
- Pastis kicks off 2012 by telling you to be "happy with the crappy partner you have". And?
- The Foe Yay between Larry and Zebra in an early series of 2012 strips. This one in particular. Homosexuality was generally accepted in 2012.
- Pastis has been getting a lot in ever since 2012 started. He's snuck in "What the hell", "crap", and even "badass". Badass, in all fairness, did have the second syllable censored, although there's literally nothing else that could fit there. PBS is becoming like the Animaniacs of newspaper comics with all the crap it's been getting through. On the July 29 strip, Rat says to be "lying on my @$& with a beer on my belly." Only one thing could go there... If this keeps happening, it seems more likely that the censors just aren't as strict as tropers seem to think.
- "I'm not a beachy kind of girl. Edgy but not actual cursing.
- The entire Beerland arc was iffy, but this strip takes the cake. Not seeing anything objectionable. Is it because they say "Hell"? Apparently that happens a fair bit in the strip.
- The best Getting Crap Past the Radar in the history of all comics: Pastis HAS SEX after convincing a girl he was the author of Calvin and Hobbes. Remember that newspaper comics tend to have much stricter censorship than TV. In case you're wondering what Bill Watterson thought of the above comic, Pastis said that he showed this strip to Watterson during their 2014 collaboration. His response was, "This happens to me all the time." We have no evidence that any newspaper was stricter than TV.
- "Ask me how I remember your sister, Cass." He doesn't actually say "ass"
- The July 27-28, 2015 strips (featuring Larry working as a clown at children's birthday parties) had Larry refer to the children he had been hired to entertain as "unlovable turds"; followed by calling another kid "You fat little head" in response to the kid angrily demanding he make a balloon animal. Crude, but nothing particularly objectionable here.
- This strip establishes that Rat sees a drug dealer. It only mentions drugs, this is OK.
- The East Coast/West Coast Cartoonist War.
- One strip involves Rat letting in people to use Pastis' bathroom. One of the guests contemptuously comments on the magazines in the bathroom. The fact that Pastis was married then doesn't help.
- Rat lampshades this in this strip.
Edited by VampireBuddha on Nov 12th 2021 at 10:05:39 AM
Ukrainian Red Cross
Calendar enthusiast
Bumpity bump.
May as well finish off the look a Radar.Comic Strips with Radar.Zits.
- Walt and Connie in bed, bare shoulders above the sheets ("You know, when Jeremy moves away, I think my 'Empty Nest Syndrome' will be a very mild case." "Is it really only 7:30!?!"). The censors were nervous, but parents loved it.
Double Entendre. Also sounds like the censors saw it, knew full well what was going on, but consciously chose to allow it.
- Not to mention the Sunday in which Jeremy (horrified) watches as his parents slowly disappear behind the couch, legs and arms flailing willy-nilly, until one of them is heard to say "Gotcha!":
Walt: I thought I'd never get that popcorn seed out from under the cushions!Connie: Did you just hear a muffled scream?
- And let's not forget the strip in which Connie hears Jeremy playing Stairway to Heaven on his guitar, and flat-out tells him he was conceived to the song. Jeremy takes it about as well as you'd expect. The same series also had Hector reveal that his mom told him he was conceived while blueberry muffins were burning in the oven; because of this, just looking at blueberry muffins triggers his gag reflex.
- Jeremy actually calls someone a douche bag in one strip. (Although that comic was later changed to say 'loser' instead.) And he called Sara a skank in another.
This one actually looks valid if we can dig up a source. Even scans of the changed comics would work.
- There was one strip where Pierce shows that he protects his borrowed pencils from germs... by putting condoms over them. They never spell out what it is, of course, but it's hilariously obvious. Is this the first newspaper strip to get away with showing a condom on-panel?
- Apparently, the editors of the strip got mad at the authors when they used the word 'sucks' in the context of 'This sucks'. The authors parodied this in one strip.
Needs more context.
- There was one strip where Jeremy is shown in a boys locker room, and everyone is pixelated.
Troper. You can show pixellation.
- In one strip, (described in detail below), Connie cuts off Jeremy saying the word 'boobs'.
Well this is a poorly-written example. And it fits best on Curse Cut Short.
- Another Zits comic had Jeremy's friend Pierce give a long list of medical problems that his various pets had. In the middle of the list? A rabbit with E.D.
Maybe. [citation needed] .
- In one strip, Walt tells Jeremy that he can invite his friends over for dinner. Jeremy says that if he's going to do this or not depends on what Walt's apron says. The apron has a picture of a dog under the text "I [heart] tiny wieners."
- October 9, 2013. Connie tells Jeremy and Sarah to have fun and then feels the need to clarify that she meant scholarly fun and tells them to "study hard - I mean well".
Link is behind a paywall. That Came Out Wrong
- The November 29 strip starts with Walt whistling happily.
Jeremy: What are you so happy about?Walt: I got lucky last night!LaterConnie: Where's Jeremy?Walt: I was telling him about my five-dollar scratch ticket and he ran off making retching sounds.
Brain Bleach, Innocent Innuendo
- One of the earliest examples of a bluer joke getting past the editors was when Jeremy cuts his middle finger at school and the nurse foolishly tells him to "keep it elevated." Needless to say, passers-by were not amused.
[citation needed]
- One arc had Jeremy's messy room actually growing grass in it, to the point where he had to carry up the lawnmower to tend to it. When Walt told Connie of this, she exclaimed "Grass?!", to which Walt replied "Relax, it's not that kind of grass" (meaning marijuana). A second, identical exclamation from Connie made Walt realize that she was right to be shocked either way.
So they snuck in a joke about Jeremy not growing marijuana? This looks perfectly acceptable.
- Jeremy is having Connie remove a splinter◊ from his finger in the August 26, 2015 strip; when as soon as the splinter was removed; Jeremy is shown dropping the "F" bomb (depicted as an actual bomb with the letter "F").
Dead link. Visual Pun, and he doesn't say "Fuck" so it's fine.
- One comic strip features Jeremy and Connie texting when Jeremy's phone accidentally auto-corrects 'cookies' into... something else. He then tries to replicate the mistake on another dirty word.
Seems like it's just acknowledging that curses exist.
- "I'm going commando tonight!" No Connie, that's something else ENTIRELY.
Link is behind a paywall. I can't see the full context but there doesn't appear to be anything objectionable here.
- "And now, one without the finger."
What? I think the link is broken.
Ukrainian Red Cross
Calendar enthusiast
Radar.Zits examples have been reassigned. I'm going to start going through Radar.Music, begining with Radar.The Monkees.
The band:
- It was pop music aimed at teens, so naturally there was some of this. An internet commenter once pointed out that Davy's lead vocals on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. include songs that are implicitly about sex with a groupie ("Star Collector"), sex with an underage girl ("Cuddly Toy") and sex with an underage groupie ("She Hangs Out").
This album was released in 1967, before the RIAA introduced Explicit Content stickers. Colgems might have had internal policies, but we don't know what they were, and since it was the 60s and they were directly trying to appeal to the same demographic as the Beatles, some sex is to be expected.
- "Gonna Buy Me a Dog" is about a guy whose girlfriend has just broken up with him. It includes the lines "She used to keep me so contented/But I can teach a dog to do that!"
Ditto. Also, seriously, troper, please try and view relationships in terms other than sexual.
- One of their most famous songs, "Last Train to Clarksville", managed this; few if any listeners ever picked up on the fact that it's about a soldier who is about to be sent to Vietnam, meeting with his girlfriend in a hotel for a final special goodbye.
Again, this was pretty common in the 60s.
- "Love Is Only Sleeping" seems to be about female sexual dysfunction.
She said, "I cannot cryAnd I cannot give or feel or even try."
Maybe, but once again, this was the middle of the sexual revolution. Everybody was becoming open about sex.
The TV series:
The series ran from 1966 - 1968, before TV age ratings were introduced. Individual networks may still have had standards, but to prove any of these broke the rules, we'd need to get copies of those standards and also verify that the offending lines weren't cut from broadcast.
- In "The Success Story":
Davy: Micky, as my chauffeur, how would you help a lady into the backseat of a car?Micky: As quick as I can.
Also, this sounds like it's just about kissing.
[[/quoteblock]]
- The aforementioned "Cuddly Toy" was featured in two different episodes.
I feel like TV was more conservative than music at the time, but we'd still need to see the specific standards.
- In "Hitting the High Seas", when the group is shanghaied into service, the pirate captain tells Davy that "he's going to be my cabin boy".
... isn't Davy made an actual cabin boy? Might fit on Accidental Innuendo.
- Some second-season episodes (particularly "The Frodis Caper") include some drug-related humor, which is surprising given the level of censorship on TV during that period.
They could probaby get away with it as long as they weren't encouraging drug use.
- When the guys introduce the behind-the-scenes people at the end of the Christmas Episode, Davy jokingly calls one of them a "poof", a bit of Brit slang that hardly anyone in the United States would have understood in 1967.
Poof is a derogatory term for a gay man. Very few people in 1967 would have objected to homophobia.
Ukrainian Red Cross
Angry babby
So the new Scott The Woz videos aired on G4 tonight with a rating of TV-14-DLSV. In Scott's videos, "fuck" and "shit" are censored with a bleep, but for the most part, the G4 airing bleeps out the words even more to make them harder to make out. However, around 9-10 minutes into the episode, Scott says "fucking shit" uncensored, which he doesn't even do in his original video.
Does this count as GCPTR? Since they bleeped out the other swears, it's highly unlikely that this was intentional, so it seems that the people in charge of censorship just missed that bit. I know some TV-14 might allow a "fuck" but it's very rare that I see that go by unbleeped. Also note that the episode was originally slated for 6:30pm but a technical glitch got it pushed to 10:30pm.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Calendar enthusiast
The L in the rating does specifically cover strong language, so I would say it doesn't violate the national guidelines.
However, the fact that they bleeped out every other curse, even more than Scott does himself, means that the uncensored curse was a violation of G4's internal standards. Looks valid to me.
Ukrainian Red Cross
Veteran Editor IV
Decided to do a Radar.Home On The Range review, as it seems quite short and quick... Oh, and it was made 10 days ago.
- USA: PG
- Canada: G
- Australia: G
- UK: U or PG depending on release?
- The size of Slim's undergarments. He's mocked for having size XXXXL. Pretty sure he's just fat.
- The saloon sequence where one of the dancers is shown to be a drag queen. Doesn't seem that radar-breaking? It was 2004, though...
- Some of the flirtatious exchanges between the cows and Bob. He even suggests they help each other. Not too much for PG.
- At Echo Mine, as the cows and Lucky Jack prepare to ambush Slim, Grace warns the others about Slim's hypnotic yodeling. She then tells Lucky Jack, "I hope you can forgive me," and when the jackrabbit questions this, Grace rips off part of his cotton tail, to which he covers his rump and rebukes, "Now you just watch it there, toots!" Pretty sure that's covered by "brief mild rude humor".
- This line, the sole reason the film got a PG rating: If it says it got the film the PG rating, it got caught, so it's can't count!
Maggie: [referring to her udder] Yeah, they're real. Quit staring.
- When Barry and Bob are chasing after Maggie on the train and hitting on her. Hardly sounds like anything dirty.
Maggie: I've got two words for you, cold shower!
How'd I do? Any other thoughts?
Edited by Piterpicher on Dec 11th 2021 at 4:02:47 PM
Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)
Calendar enthusiast
I agree with your analysis.
Men wearing women's clothes was a common subject of humour in children's media at the time, so yeah, a drag queen is fine.
Ukrainian Red Cross
Logic Girl
Looking through Radar.The Real Ghostbusters:
- In "Beneath These Streets", Janine has to go wake the boys for a job, pausing before opening the door to ask "Is everyone decent?" I think that just means, "Does everyone have their clothes on?". Little kids know that people get changed in the morning.
- In "Cold Cash and Hot Water", Janine is pushing her way through a crowd to reach the team, stopping as she does and shouting, "HEY, watch your hands, pal!" to a guy behind her. That might count, except I have no clue what the censors were doing.
- In "Drool the Dog-Faced Goblin", when the Ghostbusters list off the forms that the shape-shifting phantom could assume, one of the creatures mentioned is an incubus, which is a male demon that gains power by sleeping with women. In short, a male succubus. Ditto.
- In "The Boogieman Cometh" Meghan and Kenny Carter are being scared by the Boogieman and go to the Ghostbusters for help. Unfortunately, the children's parents aren't happy when the Ghostbusters barge into their home in the middle of the night and ask them to leave. At the end of the episode Venkman lampshades why they want to leave by saying "We're full-grown adults in a kids' bedroom, I'm surprised they don't call the police." It's implied that the children's parents thought the ghostbusters were pedophiles, Which is shocking to see in a kids show back in the mid-80s. This probably counts.
- In "Hanging By a Thread" the Ghostbusters travel to the underworld, and one of them says "So this is..." only to be cut off by Venkmen saying "Swell, people are always telling me I should go here." ??? (also, they spelt his name wrong)
- Speaking of (H, E, Doubble Hockey stick). In the episode "Chicken, He Clucked" after the ghostbusters helped a demon named "Morgannan" undo a humiliated wish he granted to get rid of all the chickens in the world, he thanks the Ghostbusters with this response, Implying that one of them will go to hell (possibly Peter). This show is full of supernatural stuff, so I don't think this counts.
Morgannan: Well, I'll be seeing you.Morgannan: (disappears)Morgannan: Well, One of you.(Everyone shockingly looks at Peter).Peter: Hey, Why does everyone look at me when someone says that.
- At the end of "Once Upon a Slime", Ray reads Slimer a dessert magazine, but the magazine having a centerfold that is initially off-screen, Ray remarking how nice it would be for something like that to come to life, and Egon's concern that Slimer is too young to be read that kind of stuff at bedtime clearly makes it look like Slimer had Ray read a skin magazine. Demographically Inappropriate Humour.
- In "Trading Faces", the evil Slimer lookalike at one point slaps Janine's ass. Not sure.
- In "Slimer's Curse", the Ghostbusters reply to Janine saying that they've been told to go to the rubber room by stating that they've been told to go to much worse places. It's pretty blatant that they're implying they have been told to go to Hell. Not sure.
- The fraternity in "That Old College Spirit" is called Tri Kappa Brew. While "try a cup of brew" could more innocuously refer to coffee, "brew" is also a slang term for beer and other alcoholic beverages. This outright says that it could be referring to coffee.
Calendar enthusiast
- USA: TV-Y7
- Australia: G
- UK: U, PG
- Agree
- Eh, pretty vague and inoccuous. I'd say it's fine.
- Looks valid, since you're not supposed to have anything like that in a TV-Y7 work.
- I'm on the fence about this one since it is pretty vague, but I think it can stay.
- They don't actually say "Hell". It might fit under Parental Bonus.
- Agree
- Agree
- Looks like fetish myopia.
- As far as I understand it, the word "Hell" itself is considered a curse in America, so children's media generally isn't allowed to refer to it by name. However, the concept of Hell is acceptable, since it turns up in quite a few children's cartoons. Indeed, Dragon Ball Z famously changed Hell into the Home For Infinite Losers, but the episode itself still aired, underworld and all. Since this example is referring to the concept and not the name, I think it's OK.
- It's obviously referring to coffee.
Edited by VampireBuddha on Dec 13th 2021 at 8:14:06 PM
Ukrainian Red Cross
Calendar enthusiast
I'm going to go through Radar.ABBA.
ABBA were initially active from 1972 to 1982, so after the sexual revolution and before the RIAA introduced Parental Advisory stickers. As far as I can tell, there has never been any requirement to label objectionable lyrics in Sweden; furthermore, Sweden officially abolished censorship and guaranteed freedom of the press in 1766 (yes, seventeen sixty six). As always, record labels may have their own internal rules, but I was unable to find any references to such restrictions being applied to ABBA.
Waterloo
- "Honey, Honey" has several. It's about a woman gushing about her boyfriend.
- There's this:
I heard about you before,
I wanted to know some more,
and now I know what they mean
You're a love machine
Oh, you make me dizzy!- Who on earth would "they" be in this situation? This boyfriend was most likely a former womanizer.
- "...And, honey — to say the least — you're a doggone beast!"
- When we get the boyfriend's part:
I don't wanna hurt you, baby
I don't wanna see you cry,
So stay on the ground, girl,
You better not get too high - The heavy breathing too...
- "I feel like I wanna sing when you do your thing!"
- There's this:
Here's the song:
It is a bit entendrey, but pretty mild and I don't think it actually breaks any rules.
- "Gonna Sing You My Love Song" is about a man stuck in an unpleasant situation with his spouse. It's likely that she's thrown him out and he's arrived at his female friend's house until his spouse has calmed down. Unbeknownst to him, his friend seems to like him too and seems to want to take advantage of the situation, especially when it gets to this:
Yeah, this is just about romance, not sex.
- "Sitting in the Palm Tree" is about a man who lives in a tree underneath a girl he's trying to pursue, most likely to manipulate her into sympathising with his state.
Yeah, no. The 70s were a different time.
ABBA
- Where do you start with "Rock Me"? Most likely about a couple's sex life, even though the mentions of "rock me" and "roll me" may trick one into assuming that it's about music.
- "So, don't stop doing it, don't stop doing it..."
- At one point in the background, you can hear, "Don't stop the rocking..." being chanted.
Judge for yourself, but this sounds more like using rock'n'roll as a metaphor for romance.
[[quoteblock]]
- "Hey, Hey, Helen", a song about a woman taking her children and leaving her husband, who was most likely abusive.
Even the example doesn't describe anything controversial!
Arrival
- "Money, Money, Money", at one point, makes the singer consider becoming a Gold Digger, but then doesn't think she's attractive enough.
Marriage has never been off the table.
- "When I Kissed the Teacher" is about a Precocious Crush.
This would indeed freak out people in 2021, but this sort of thing was pretty accepted in 1976.
ABBA: The Album
- "Move On" can be seen as this, seeing how it's heavily implied that the narrator has depression and is considering suicide.
What really makes the difference between all dead and living things?
The will to stay alive?
Oh, hey, it's our favourite weasel words, "can be seen as". Anyway, no. If you can find a set of standards that forbid discussion of mental illness, we'll see if this qualifies; until then, it's crap.
- "Take a Chance On Me" is about a Stalker with a Crush. ABBA loved making songs about these, didn't they?
- The 70s were a different time.
- It's not about stalking, it's sung from the point of view of a dogged nice guy.
Voulez-Vous
- A man in "Does Your Mother Know" is trying to fend off the advances of a young woman who may or may not be jailbait.
So... is the troper suggesting this song broke the rules by having a man react properly, and let a teenage girl down gently?
Also, this song was written and released before the birth of the meme that everybody is a pure innocent ingenue with no desire for, or even knowledge of, sex or romance until a couple of years after they hit the age of consent.
[[quoteblock]]
- "Lovers (Live a Little Longer)": A couple discovers news of a scientific breakthrough that says that people in relationships live longer and happier lives than people that are single. The voice of the song wants to follow the advice, after all, "Lovers live a little longer in the night".
- "Making love is a dynamite drug, baby, so why don't we start right away?" (Humorously, "making love" is emphasized with backing vocals.)
- Followed by Agnetha moaning, "I'm EXPLODING!!"
- "I don't care if they're watching 'cause listen/We've got a reason for each time we're kissing..."
- "Making love is a dynamite drug, baby, so why don't we start right away?" (Humorously, "making love" is emphasized with backing vocals.)
This song definitely involves sex. But, as established, it came out after the Sexual Revolution and before the RIAA introduced Parental Advisory stickers.
- "Kisses of Fire" have questionable lyrics too. The voice of the story is clearly enjoying her love life because she's never been starved from kisses.
"Never before did you see me begging for more kisses of fire"
- Kisses of fire — burning, burning
I'm at the point of no returning - Every kiss has her "riding higher than the sky".
- The introduction features:
Touch my lips
Close your eyes and see with your fingertips
Things that you do
And you know I'm crazy 'bout you...
- Kisses of fire — burning, burning
I really think this song is just about kissing.
- "Voulez Vous" is about someone offering a one-night stand.
Voulez Vous? Take it now or leave it — that is all you get
Nothing promised — no regrets...
So it turns out this isn't the song that contains the lyrics "Voulez-vous choucher avec moi ce soir?", though it is likely that ABBA were directly referencing it.
Anyway, it's definitely sexually suggestive, but there was more explicit music in 1979.
- The aforementioned "Walking in the moonlight, lovemaking in a park" debacle from "Summer Night City". Hilariously, you can't blame Björn for making that blooper at the end, since it's so easy to slip in by accident, even though it makes the sentence redundant.
He's clearly saying "walking". This is just a mondegreen that Bjorn decided to embrace for notoriety.
- "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight)". The title has already warned what the listener's in for.
Again, suggestive, but not the most explicit thing in 1979.
Super Trouper
- "Andante, Andante" is about someone playing the piano, apparently. Some of the lyrics suggest otherwise.
"Take it easy with me, please. Touch me gently like the summer evening breeze. Touch my soul – you know how… andante, andante; go slowly with me now.
There's a shimmer in your eyes, like the feeling of a thousand butterflies. Please don't talk – go on, play… andante, andante, then let me float away.
ABBA hit 1980 with... a song that is a little less suggestive than "Lovers" and "Voulez-vous". Still five years before Parental Advisory stickers.
The Visitors
- "Two For The Price Of One" is about a single man unlucky in love answering a classified ad for a threesome: a woman named Alice Whiting and her mother.
Yeah, no. First of all, that's not being sneaky, it's front and centre. Second, the other girl being Alice's mother is the punchline; the song doesn't endorse an incestuous threesome, we're supposed to think the Whitings are weird. Also, it only talks about marriage, not sex.
Overall: Some suggestive content, but honestly I don't think anything here would even warrant a Parental Advisory sticker had they existed when the respective songs were released. None of these examples appear valid.
Ukrainian Red Cross
It's funny when the argument that it's not getting crap past the radar is that... it got past the radar. And not getting past the radar would make it not the trope.
Honestly I think the focus on objectivity makes this less of a trope than ever before. The radar is never as clear-cut as it seems to be. I feel like everything is case-by-case due to numerous double standards and contextual differences. It's impossible to figure out on our own what the executives were thinking and whether they consciously accepted something or if it got "past" them.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.