Back in the radio days, Fred Allen and Henry Morgan ridiculed censors. Allen pointed out in his book, “Treadmill to Oblivion,” some of the ridiculous bans he dealt with.
When network television and its 20-inch screens came along, the radio censors simply switched mediums and continued with the same old policies.
TV Guide examined the whole issue in its edition of February 26, 1954.
TABOO! What You Can’t See On TV
EVERY TV network has a Continuity Acceptance Department, which, in word of two syllables, means “Censor.” The reasons for a censor are rather obvious—among other things, no network wants to get involved in undue hasseling [sic] with viewers or the Federal Communications Commission. But when you add the items snipped out of shows by the censors to the stuff hacked by fussy advertising men, you get an impressive list of things that might, but never do, appear on television.
Ad men, always fearful that the name of a competitive product might sneak into the script, are apt to do some quick changing. The most famous recent example took place on the Danny Thomas show, sponsored by Lucky Strike, where Winston Churchill almost was mentioned as a Member of Parliament. (Parliament cigarets, get it?) This was changed to a Member of the House of Commons.
The network censors, on the other hand, work more quietly. Without setting themselves up as arbiters of what the public should and should not see, that’s exactly what they do. Their job is to prevent anything of obviously bad taste from reaching the air. They are firm about deleting passages in scripts that contain suggestive wording. They squelch lines or characterizations that might in any way reflect on a race, religion or nationality. They watch old movie film that’s to be shown on TV and snip material that easily slipped by the last two generations of movie censors.
Here, as an example, is a verbatim quote from NBC’s Continuity Acceptance Department’s seven-page report for January, 1954:
“There were numerous deletions in comedy films of men losing their pants and such items as dogs spitting, a fat woman doing a shake dance, kids sticking their tongues out at each other incessantly, an animated tuba spitting, a cruel portraiture of an Old Ladies Home and the inmates of an insane asylum, some scantily clad harem girls and two films replete with such remarks as ‘Who in the flaming hell do you think you are?’ and endless use of ‘For God’s sake.’ ”
Advertisers running amok is another problem for Continuity Acceptance. A cake flour company was vetoed when it wanted a commercial to show an inauguration cake topped by an American Flag.
A skin ointment company got the veto when it tried to submit a filmed commercial which showed cannibals refusing to eat an American girl because she had so many pimples.
What’s good for kids is another problem. Nine o’clock at night is figured as a reasonable hour for kids to be in bed and any complaints about shows after that, as regarding children, are usually ignored. There are numerous taboos that hold for all shows. Suicide is never allowed as a justifiable out for a tread-upon individual. You can never see anyone struck with a blunt weapon or see a pistol fired and the bullet hit someone in the same picture. Such things as narcotics addiction, excessive drinking, etc., are carefully avoided. In most cases these restrictions are passed on to producers before they ever start, easing the censor’s work.
Which brings us to the matter of dress. The plunging neckline has pretty much gone out of style, except for guest hostesses on such programs as Your Show of Shows. The most famous incident on that show took place when Madge Evans had some difficulties with her gown which on TV made her look pretty much undressed. As the program progressed this was remedied in a sort of reverse strip-tease until she finally passed the censors. Such things as this and the ad lib which follows a flubbed line are not anticipated by censors and there’s no defense against them.
Then there are the pressure groups to contend with. The meat interests are frankly depressed with the way comics and others continually refer to the rising cost of living by talking about the cost of meat.
And now we get to the ad men. Madison Avenue, New York’s advertising row, is full of nervous men who can’t bear the thought of the names of competitors’ products appearing in any way on their shows. Thus, on Kraft TV Theater, a character’s name was changed at the last minute because it was Borden. On I Love Lucy, sponsored by Philip Morris, or on the Camel Caravan, no one is ever lucky.
No Kingdom For A Horse
Some years back, Richard Himber was signed by Studebaker and immediately had to purge his singer who had the misfortune to be named Joey Nash. Oscar Mayer’s meat packing firm in Chicago wouldn’t agree to sponsor a local Chicago show until the title was changed to Elmer the Elephant from Homer the Horse. And an adman rewrote one line in Rodgers and Hart’s “Blue Room” so that Chesterfield’s Perry Como could sing it. The offending line: “I can smoke my pipe away.”
Studio One, sponsored by Westinghouse, thought it appropriate to change the name of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Light That Failed” to “The Gathering Night.” Another Studio One script was turned down when an \adman found that the plot revolved around a leaky refrigerator.
The Plight That Flailed
As a closer, we offer you the plight of the announcer for the General Motors-sponsored college football telecasts, who while broadcasting a Pittsburgh University game, had to conceal his discomfort each time he mentioned the Pitt quarterback. It was a free commercial for a competitor whenever he handled the ball. His name was Henry Ford.
The “cake” censorship may seem odd today, but there was a time that the flag had to be treated with the utmost reverence and dignity, and a cake didn’t qualify. There was a flap on The Smothers Brothers Show in the late ‘60s when censors objected to a guest wearing an American flag shirt; today, doing that would be deemed super patriotic, not tacky. That’s because times change. In 1959, it was okay for Quick Draw McGraw to have a gun or Popeye’s mouth to be adorned with a pipe (which he never smoked) or an impolite cartoon tuba from the 1930s expectorating. Taking them away in later years seems, to me, as much as an overreaction as Oscar Meyer thinking someone will connect a horse with horse meat.
But then, I’m a product of my time. I will bet something we find innocuous and perfectly acceptable today will be deemed horrific and offensive 50, 60 years from now.
I'd match today's cancel culture with 1950s censorship any day.
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