Don't worry, unlike my last rant, this one is a little more light hearted. One of the biggest things I ever hated about the entertainment business is censorship. I've hated it ever since I was a kid. But the thing I hate the most is the obvious shit they do that sticks out like sore thumbs.

That being said, why? Because you're afraid kids would see it and recreate the violence and cursing among most things? Granted you do have a point. For as long as kids have access to a TV they are always, by accident or incident stumble upon entertainment they aren't old enough to see. However unless they can't tell fiction from reality, I seriously doubt that happens. However the thing that irks me the most about it are the ways they do it.

There used to be 4 kinds of Censorship, but now there are only three.

1. Bleep Censorship. Probably the most debated one of them all. When you're a kid and you hear an electric beeping sound coming from a human being when they talk, you think nothing of it. As you grow up, you realize that the beep is meant to cover up any swearing and the longer one swears in the show, the longer the beep lasts. Now this one doesn't bother me as much as the others, because over the years, many both for and against censorship have often tried to make the most out of beeps. Replacing the sound with a different effect in an effort to make it sound funny being a prominent example. This was made famous by two things I saw growing up. Super Dave Osborne and Christian Slater's Kuffs. In Super Dave, the titular censor sound whenever he swore on his own show or Bizarre was that of either a squeaky toy or a car horn. The latter of which was lampshaded in his famous Car Crusher stunt as the car horn itself blocking his lungs. The scene in Kuffs being much more funny. This was back when PG-13 was still relatively new and one of the major rules of the game was that you are only allowed one time in your movie to say "Fuck.", but there are loopholes. If it's beeped out or distorted in a way so naturally, they managed to get away with saying fuck leading to one of the most hilarious scenes in movie history. Even shows like South Park have used the beep for better comedy. In terms of censorship as a whole. This is tame.
2. Self Censorship. I am so so on this, one. Self Censorship is where a movie maker does their own censorship, by filming scenes that are meant to be posted on Television. On one hand the same people who do them, are against censorship themselves making it look hypocritical. On the other hand if anyone is gonna censor their work, it may as well be them and they did manage to create memorable moments regarding that. Three on the top of my head: A. Superman II. Now this one is a roller coaster because censorship was the least of their problems. Considering that there was a battle for creative control between Richard Donner (Rest in Piece), Richard Lester and The Salkind family who had the movie rights to Superman at the time. But in terms of censorship that was a real doozy. In both the Lester theatrical cut and the Richard Donner Cut of the movie, it's been pretty much established that Superman killed, Zod, Ursa and Non after rendering them powerless. With the Lester cut implying for trying to betray him. Superman left Lex to freeze in the arctic. The Donner cut going so far as showing, Superman burn down the Fortress of Solitude with his heat vision, presumably with Lex still inside. Of course it got kind of omitted when Superman, using his Earth Reversal technique goes back in time and makes sure the Phantom Zone doesn't break, freeing the trio. However even that wasn't enough. Because their demise was shown being thrown into a bottomless pit, it could be argued that they survived the fall. So the TV version had an additional scene, where the trio and Lex are arrested by the RCMP. B. Ghostbusters. Oh my God. Normally when you have to censor your own work, you often do it half-assed like to mess with the producers. But when you have geniuses like Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd writing, even their censor stuff is comedy gold. Case in point the mayor scene for context. This is the original line. Ray: Everything was fine with our system until the power was shut off by Dickless here. Peck: They caused an explosion. Mayor: Is this true? Peter: Yes it's true. This man has no dick. And here's what they wrote for TV. Ray: Everything was fine with our system until the power was shut off by Wally Wick here. Peck: They caused an explosion. Mayor: Is this true? Peter: It's true your honor, the man is some kind of rodent I don't know which. While I like the "Dickless" line better, not gonna lie, I laughed my ass off when I first saw this. Now the third example I'll save for the last category, because it's kind of a hybrid between this and the last. However I can tell you this. This is one of the kinder examples. However it's not used anymore so it may as well be dead.
3. Edit Censorship. Probably the second most hated form of Censorship known to the human race. Mainly because like it's counterpart Beep Censorship, it comes in many forms. The first form is just simple sound edit. This is the less bothersome of the them because all they do is simply mute it every time someone says an R rated swear. The second form is using blockers for visual offences You all seen them. A black bar or a blur of pixels covering up parts that no one should see. Now that is fine and good for live TV as anything can happen, but sometimes, they kinda screw up in funny ways. My favourite example, would be when I watched Fright Night on AMC. This was the first time I watched the movie beginning to end and while AMC never disappoints on the blood and gore they still have a long way to go to make people comfortable about censorship. What do I mean by that? Now bare in mind I had to find this scene after for context, but here's what happened. In the movie, Jerry turns Charley's Girlfriend Amy into a vampire. Taking a cue from Bram Stoker, female vampires become more endowed when they are turned. Which is used to lure in male victims for the kill. In layman's terms, their tits and ass get bigger after a vampire turns them. Amy was no exception. For they went as far as making a prosthetic set of her actress' breasts so they could make it as realistically big as possible. However the main issue, that prevented this movie from ever being shown on public television was that at the time Amy was wearing a see through outfit. Meaning that to put it plainly no matter how fake they were, you could see her nipples. Now you gotta give AMC points for this, because even if that wasn't their intention their way of getting passed this was probably the most funny way imaginable. They didn't simply just blur her or even cut the scene out entirely. Using amateur photoshop techniques, they brought out the colour of her dress more, making it less see-through which did cover the nipples up. However the result made it unintentionally more sex appealing. Because the colour was brought out more, mixed with the blur it made Amy's tits look so big that they were stretching out the fabirc. Goes to show, that even my big picture theory in my previous rant applies to even something as simple as censorship in movies and television. Then there's the third version of Edit Censorship. One worthy of the name. Now, it's common practice for TV to edit movies. Not just for censorship, but also to save time as well as work around the scheduled commercials. However what sucks about it for any reason, it often cuts off the best parts. My favourite example, being Jaws the Revenge. In the original movie, the Shark met it's end when Ellen and Michael work together. He uses an electric device to make it surface and Ellen impales the shark on the bow of the ship. But because the shot was too gory, they edited heavily by making the shark explode the second the tip hit it. That's just a minor example. In horror and action movies, we don't even see what kills someone and rarely see the hero's/heroine's reaction to it. They just cut it out and move on. It seems though is I'm not the only one that hates this kind of Censorship. Long before Fox was owned by Disney, there was a little show called MadTV. A sketch comedy show based on the popular Mad Magazine. They had a sketch based on the hit TV show The Sopranos. The main punchline of the joke is that it was shown on the Pax Network. A fundamentalist Christian TV Channel that heavily censors their stuff. So naturally a 50 minute show like Sopranos. Which is full of violence, coarse language, sexuality and so on, would only be on for a few minutes. But don't take my word for it. See for yourself. However the worst is yet to come.
4. Dub censorship. My most hated one of all. Dub Censorship is where rather than beep it or replace with an altered scene or even muting it out. They dub any swear word or slur with a different, less offensive word. The key examples being replacing "Fuck" with "Screw". Censoring is bad enough but what they use for the dubs is worse. Most of the time in order to keep us watching they would use stock words used by the actor talking at the time. Other times, the censors themselves dub over it. Not even using a convincing enough voice and it throws people out of the initial immersion of it. The most hilariously bad example "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" In the end McClane causes a fuel leak on a terrorist's airplane, creating a line of gas and allowing John to blow it up with his Zippo. Now as we all know, the original line was "Yippee Kie Yay Motherfucker." However when I first saw this on TBS they changed it to "Yippee KIe Yay Mr. Falcon." Now that I'm older and hear the line again, I know that's not Bruce Willis and since then people have made fun of it in many ways, from that shitty Alvin movie having Alvin replace it with "Mammacita" to Donald fucking Duck himself saying the Falcon version in the new Duck Tales. Even Bruce Willis himself had his own when he was in a fist fight with Stephen Colbert. To this day I had no fucking clue who Mr. Falcon was, it wasn't the main bad guys. It's not on the side of the Airplane blown up. So WHO!!? However that one is peanuts compared to the example I will now say. A hybrid between this and the Self Censorship one. The Big Lebowski. Now you gotta give the Cohen Brothers some credit. Like many other genius writers, they knew ahead of time that Big Lebowski was gonna be censored 8 ways from sunday. So to beat them at their own game, they had John Goodman, Jeff Bridges and the other cast members not just dub their own censored swearing, but dub it with as many nonsensical words as they can. The most prominent being when Goodman's character Walter smashes up a car he thinks belonged to a kid that stole the ransom money they had in their own car. The original line is "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass." The censored lines? The legendary "Find a Stranger In The Alps" Followed by in the same scene "Feed a stoner scrambled eggs." It's one thing to censor dub something it's another when the dubs you use, make a crazy character look even crazier.

So in conclusion, with the exception of certain things that should be censored at all cost, (You know what they are and you know who likes that shit.) censorship is a huge crock of shit. If you don't want your kids watching stuff you think is gonna scar them or have them imitate it, there are simple rules to follow:

1. Change the Channel or shut it off. You have parental control you lazy fucks. Use it. Half the problem isn't the TV itself it's you expecting it to be their babysitter. If you take offence to this, then you proved me right.
2. Find Mister Rogers Neighborhood. There's episodes on the differences between fiction and reality that are filmed in a way that educates both kids and adults on it, without them feeling stupid about them. One particular episode being when Fred had to step in when he heard some kids tried to fly like Superman.
3. Read the first 2 rules.

Now if this goes unheeded and people insist on censorship Even doubling down on Dub Censorship at least do it right. Hire the actors if they are still alive or a very good sound alike and use words that would fit in with characters they play. Case in point Pulp Fiction. This is how I would do Jules killing Brett.

Jules: What does Marsellus Wallace look like?

Brett: What?

Juiles: What country are you from?

Brett: What?

Jules: Do they speak English in What?

Brett: What?

Jules: English Melon Farmer do you speak it!?

Brett: Yes!!

Jules: Then describe what Marsellus Wallace looks like?

Brett: What?

Jules: SAY WHAT AGAIN! SAY WHAT AGAIN!! I DARE YOU, I DOUBLE DARE YOU MOTHER TRUCKER!!! SAY WHAT ONE MORE GOSH DARN TIME!!

Brett: He's black.

Jules: Go on.

Brett: He's Bald.

Jules: Does he look like a fish?

Brett: WHAT!?

Jules: DOES HE LOOK LIKE A FISH!!!

Brett: No.

Jules: Then why you trying to catch him like a fish?

Brett: I didn'...

Jules: Yes you did. Yes you did, you tried to catch him. But Marsellus Wallace don't like to be caught by anybody except Mrs. Wallace.

*THE FOLLOWING SCENE HAS BEEN EDITED OUT SO THAT BOTH CHRISTIANS AND NON-CHRISTIANS* (Let's face it, as more things are considered offensive SLJ would get as much flack for quoting the bible as he does for well everything else.)

Point being, use words that would make sense for characters to use if they're being censored. It won't ruin the immersion. Other than that I only have one thing to say to every Network Censor in the world. FUCK YOU.