I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.
The Pokito (anime tv programming in Germany) had an awefull verstion of Naruro. Were they would sensor out the weapons.
The way they censored the gay out of Steven Universe in Russia was just comically stupid. There’s a couple, Ruby and Sapphire, with Ruby being a more hot-headed butch type, and Sapphire being a cool-headed femme. So, Russia gives Ruby a goatee:
Even though, mind you, the dub still has a female VA for her. Anyway, last season of the show, Ruby and Sapphire get married. The showrunner didn’t want them to be able to censor it as easily, so she put Ruby in a dress and Sapphire in a suit:
So, naturally, they put the goatee on Sapphire this time:
Which kind of just makes it double gay, I think?
The 20th Anniversary Edition of E.T. not only had superflous CGI E.T. scenes (no doubt inspired by Lucas), but also all guns of the federal agents were changed to walkie talkies.
Spielberg later apologized for the changes and rolled them back.
“Yippie kay yay, MR FALCON.” from Die Hard is pretty infamous.
I like in Repo Man how every “fuck you!” becomes “flip you!”
The Invincible TV series is quite gory. Blood gets censored to be white in China which makes for some interesting scenes of hands dripping with white stuff. Or this:
Oh god!!! That’s way worse!!!
Cat Bukake!
c u m
it’s ok, because now everyone is having a good time!
Why do I now want to make an AMV with THAT trilogy of songs and this censored cut.
Jesus they have their work cut out for them with that show lol. After a while, what’s the point. Also, isn’t anime just as bad or worse…
In the Teen Titans Go! episode “Uncle Jokes”, Robin says “Ground cow” in Asian airings instead of “Ground beef” during the cow with no legs joke, thus making it unfunny.
I remember when Young Guns aired on a cable channel in the 90s there’s a scene at the climax when Billy the Kid actually says “Murphy, you son of a bitch…” and shoots the baddie in the head.
So this cable channel edited it for him to say “Murphy, you sorry old buzzard…”. But the headshot was still intact because this is America.
John McClain kills every member of a heist crew then throws the boss off a skyscraper to his doom and the only concession made for tv is “Yippee ki yay Mr Falcon.” America.
I thought he said melon farmer
ISAIP episodes, those episodes pre-2010, with blackface jokes, basically it was showing how ridiculous blackface is to racists, the "execs decided it would be obliterated from most media besides clips on youtube. they are doing it "im a white person offended for black people "type of virtue signalling, not even poc is offended by this.
you know BSG wanted to say fuck instead frack.
also castlevania nocture, when they turned the captain lady intoa frozen shade, you can clearly see they dint want the frozens shades boobs to show in anyway, so its constantly always covered up.
When Sailor Moon was airing on American TV back in the late 90’s, they completely censored out every aspect of romantic relationship between Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus. Turned them into cousins.
It was a shock to me when I bought the subtitled version and they were suddenly lesbians.
lol yeah. They didn’t edit out all the flirting though or all the embarassed or indignant reactions by the characters around them, which presents those “cousins” in a really interesting light ;)
The US version of Sailor Moon was also censored and edited in different other ways. IIRC:
- All Tokyo references were changed to New York. So they’ve changed where the whole thing took place.
- They changed all Japanese writings (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji)
- Multiple characters had their gender or sex changed as to avoid homosexual relations.
- The music was completely changed for some reason
- They took out many scenes or even whole episodes if they thought, they might vaguely get into conflict with the FCC.
- They scrapped a whole season, because the Sailor Starlights (I think that was their name?) changed gender in their magical transformation.
I believe there was also a scene in Sailor Moon where a character was in the bath. In order to make the water opaque the censors decided that red would be the best colour to use, so it looks like she’s bathing in blood.
That honestly sounds absurd to me and makes me want to see sailor moon or (but the uncensored version).
That’s so disappointing. To me, Sailor Moon is the OG all inclusive series. (It was my very favorite show ever as a kid and probably still is.) I kinda love how they didn’t make a big deal out of it. The star sailors change sex when they transform and it’s not even talked about. It just is how it is and nobody wonders about it. Neptune and Uranus having the hots for each other is portrayed as any other romance is and iirc no character ever addresses the “taboo” of it. Even the alien incest is somehow fine (I mean they are aliens and extinct so they do them).
I understand the LGBTQ+'s struggle for representation and acceptance, so probably they do need somewhat of an over accentuated representation on screen to eventually reach full acceptance. But Sailor Moon seems to be what comes “after” this, just normalization without it ever being a question. All the while sparking an interest in astronomy in kids who then know all the names of the dwarf planets in our solar system before they know the multiplication table.
Man I can’t wait till my kid reaches Sailor Moon watching age.
I hope your kids like it.
It has always seemed to me that my kids have gone out of their way to avoid liking anything I like. That’s fine, but I never could relate to them.
I adopted my son so it was different with him. We did everything together and he was happy to look into my interests sometimes. He and I played world of Warcraft together for a decade and I’d cut off a couple toes to go back and have that with him again.
Thanks, I hope so too. For now she’s very much into girls as main characters so maybe I’ll get lucky with the series.
I once heard that a teenager will act very similarly to how they acted at 3 years old. Extrapolating from that (my child is 3.5) it’s very likely that she will also not like anything I like or listen to anything I say. When she has the choice between A and B she suggests C. Her answer to the Sally-Anne test is wild. I’m pretty sure she’ll keep destroying metaphorical boxes or playing Schrödinger’s cat instead of just thinking inside or outside the box.
I also always dreamt of having music playing in the background and dancing to it. She hates recorded music. She likes singing and me/others singing (sometimes) but God beware I turn on a CD.
Also, time to call your son and invite him over for a WoW weekend I guess.
When I was a teenager, I bought a DVD that had a few Sailor Moon episodes that I had never seen before (being from the U.S.) In these episodes, Makoto (or “Lita” AKA Sailor Jupiter) develops a crush on Haruka (or “Amara” AKA Sailor Uranus) and has to cope with her being unattainable. The DVD included both an English dub and the original Japanese with English subtitles.
In the original Japanese version, the crush is treated as romantic in nature, with Makoto’s friends telling her that Haruka already has “a girlfriend” (Michiru AKA “Michelle” AKA Sailor Neptune.) In the English dub, Makoto wants Haruka to be her “best friend,” with the rest of the Sailor Scouts telling her that Haruka already has “a best friend.”
The visuals all stay the same, complete with roses and Makoto’s starry love-eyes. The romantic implications are so obvious it’s painful.
Out of curiosity, (if you’d like to share), how old were you when you found out and how did you take it? Were you on board with it or did it feel weird?
I was a freshman in high school when I found out, and I was dumbfounded. I’d always chalked the wonky scenes up to being a culturally Japanese thing. And anime in itself was more “effeminate” overall than anything we had in America.
I was shocked, but it all suddenly made sense. I was fine with it. Early 2000s where I lived at the time was pretty accepting. I had friends in high school who were openly gay, and no one bothered them about it.
I think now it’s pretty wild that sailor moon was even on the air back then, though. There were definitely series they could have played that wouldn’t have to edit out huge chunks just to keep in line with broadcast regulations. The fact it got airtime at all is astounding. I mean, I’m happy it did, because SM is awesome, but still.
::: I spoiler tagged this long ass post in order to hide it from folks who don’t care.
I’m not that person but I had the exact same thing happen to me! And let me tell you, when I was first watching it as a middle schooler, I knew they were in love! I didn’t know that women-who-like-women had a word (lesbian), so I thought, “Well, if you’re in love with someone, they’re probably your friend. Probably your best friend, so that makes sense. But you can’t just call them your girlfriend, because-”
I grew up in rural Oklahoma (and now live in Tennessee). A woman, who has a friend, and that friend is a woman, makes her a girlfriend. I still call women who are my friends, ‘girlfriends,’ even though it obviously could mean something romantic. So Uranus and Neptune probably couldn’t just say ‘girlfriend,’ because all the girls who were their friends were their girlfriends, so ‘best’ friend is probably a friend who is such a good friend, that you’re also in love with them. (This was the logic of a sixth grader.)
It’s one of the reasons that Sailor Moon fans have always been so inclusive, have always stood up for other presentations or orientations. Why on earth would we support people trying to hide this stuff from children, when a not-so-small number of us knew what we were looking at when we were children?
To add to that, I might have had a very unique interpretation of the situation, because I would later learn that I was a demi bisexual (we didn’t even have the word ‘demisexual’ when I was a girl) and what that means is… For me, I usually only want a relationship with the person who is such my best friend, that I also am in love with them!
:::
Why on earth would we support people trying to hide this stuff from children, when a not-so-small number of us knew what we were looking at when we were children?
I watched Sailor Moon on German TV in the 90s (RTL 2 gang unite!). And whenever this topic of changes in the dubs comes up I struggle to remember how they put it in the German translation exactly because of what you said. It doesn’t matter how they translated it. It was so obvious. I haven’t known anyone who didn’t know exactly what was going on (but to be fair, it was common knowledge what lesbians were).
(Also 90s German dubs in general sometimes turned out weird - looking at you, first three seasons of FRIENDS - so I kinda didn’t over interpret the exact wording because I was so used to strange ways of putting things.)
Now you must tell me about the first three seasons of FRIENDS. (Please?)
Oh they just didn’t translate idiomatically. Alot of times they translated it literally and very badly. So a lot of puns just don’t work at all. Not the worst example but one that I remember out of my head is when Rachel and Ross have their fight in the cafe right before their first kiss. I think they say that the shop has long sailed (which is a saying and works with relationship) but they also talk about ships in German. Which isn’t too bad but it’s not a saying in German, you would say the train has left. The German word for relationship also has no “ship” so them talking about ships was really random. You can take it as a metaphor still, so it was ok-ish, but why would two New Yorkers use ships as a metaphor out of the blue.
A lot of sexual innuendo that is more or less obvious in English just absolutely doesn’t work in German. Like the dude with the watch who claims he has a dry spell (Monica’s date) - when he starts talking about having no ink in his pen it just sounds super off. Not like in a well designed metaphor but just like “???” you get it but it’s just not something that works.
There is also a scene that is so random that I can’t even pinpoint it down right now. Monica asks Joey (or Chandler?) whether he will be good to some specific girl and he doesn’t get the question. In English (and with context) it makes sense and it’s funny why he doesn’t get it, in German it is so random, you absolutely are on Joey’s side because you do not understand wtf is going on and what he is supposed to answer and why Monica would ask that. As I said, I’ve watched the show a lot and I can’t even tell you the context because it is so unfitting in the moment. I’ve watched the whole show like 15 times in German and about 5 times in English and I only got it when I watched it in English. If I remember what episode that was I’ll let you know.
I wish I could provide you with more and better examples but it’s been at least 6 years since my last rerun :(
As a side note, the Russian dub is so much worse quality wise, but they end up just summarizing more or less idiomatically what happens. Jokes are lost this way, but at least there is no confusion about what is happening.
And now we are friends!
That’s the other cool thing about the Sailor Moon fandom. I’ve never once met a Sailor Moon fan who was a racist, or a bigot, or… anything. It comes with the ‘love and justice’ thing.
I have HAD it with these monkey-fightin’ snakes, on this Monday-Friday plane!
Yippee-ki-yay, Mister Falcon.
Yippee kayak, other buckets!
Nine-nine!!!
.
This city is a big chicken, just waiting for me to pluck it.
In France, advertising alcohool brands on TV is heavily restricted. It wasn’t a problem in the Simpsons since Duff was not a real brand of beer.
When Duff became a real brand, French TV had to blur every Duff logo and beep out every “Duff” pronounced on screen. Some episodes became unwatchable, Duffman became beepman, every beer became blurry…
Duffman became beepman, every beer became blurry…
Considering Duffman’s signature hip movements and the funky Ohhh yeaaah~ music that always plays whenever he arrives, someone who doesn’t know Duff is supposed to be a beer might get a very wrong idea about his job.
It’s like the censored Sesame Street clip of the Count
Wait, what?
Iirc they bleep out every time he says “count”
“I love to %@#$! 1…2…3”
Edit: lol https://youtu.be/6AXPnH0C9UA
You’ve made my day, thanks
<bleep>-man, can’t breathe! Ohh no!
The Welsh rugby team were at one point sponsored by a Cardiff brewery called “Brains” and when they played over in Paris the sponsors name was rendered as “Brawn”.
Also the cigarette brand “Benson and Hedges” were branded “Buzzing Hornets” when their F1 team were racing in countries that had already banned tobacco sponsorship.
Clearly needs more state regulations. People can’t be trusted to know what they want to watch and see with their eyes
Idk man France seems to be doing better than us these days I wouldn’t knock em too hard
Yes, alcoholism isn’t real and if it were we shouldn’t make it easier for people who try to quit.
Nobody said that. Also shouldn’t it be up to the recovering alcoholic to not watch tv shows that often depict heavy drinking if that bothers them? Nobody is forcing alcoholics to watch The Simpsons.
As I understand it the ban in France seems to specifically target real brands. So you can still show people drinking but you’re not allowed to show the logo of e.g. Heineken.
Is this a good regulation? I don’t know, but it might not be as arbitrary as the other comment suggested.
Nobody forced anyone to make a real beer brand called Duff. Liberal BS takes like yours are just so shortsighted. Might as well let kids buy cigs, their choice after all, isn’t?
Die Hard 2.
Original line: “Yippee ki-yay, mother fucker.”
Censorship line: “Yippee ki-yay, Mr. Falcon.”
There is no one named Mr. Falcon in the movie.
Yippi ki yey melon farmer
There’s also the sign changing from “I Hate N-words” to “I Hate Everyone”
They chose something that was plausible with how his mouth moved to say mother fucker?
I think i remember a movie with that weird martial arts guy who lives in Russia now where they changed mother fucker to mother flipper lol
Yeah, they were trying to match the syntax, but mother flipper at least sorta makes sense. Mr. Falcon just made me think I had the bad guy’s name wrong the whole time.
Mr falcon is a way cooler replacement than mother flipper imo lol
For sure, 100%, but it’s more confusing as well. I remember the first time I heard it thinking, “Wait, why did they change it to Mr. Falcon? Is the general named Falcon? I thought he was Esperanza. Is his nickname Falcon? Did he make reference to falcons? Who is Mr. Falcon?”
I feel like even though there were probably instances of it before this, the “Yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon” is kind of the OG, because it’s the first one I remember to become well-known on this new thing called “the internet”.
Yeah, i was either going to do Mr. Falcon or, “find a stranger in the Alps,” and someone beat me to the Alps. I think Falcon was first though.
I don’t remember if it was that movie or another Bruce Willis action movie, but there was a particular nonsensical line that sticks with me decades later. “I don’t care about any of this sweet tooth boot wash!” Like, wut?
What was the swear? I’m guessing bullshit for the last bit, but what’s sweet tooth?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Ah, the Norwegian subtitle crew had creative freedom when translating that line. The official translation was “hipp hurra kølletryne” which would translate back to english as “hip hooray club face” (“club” as in golf club or hockey stick - which of course also is a goofy euphemism for penis).
It’s in the first film but yeah walking through glass barefoot, shooting people and throwing someone screaming from a ledge is all cool for the kids to watch.
I’ve only seen the first recently as a Xmas movie every year but it’s in them all I guess so we’re both right
I’m old, and I saw the Breakfast Club back in the 80’s on like, channel 11. For years I couldn’t figure out why Principal Vernon and Carl the Janitor went from hating each other to being friends.
Years later I saw it unedited and realized they cut out the whole scene with the two of them bonding and smoking weed. So much made sense at that point.
Oh my gosh. I think Ive only ever watched this movie on TV. Going to have to change that now after reading this comment!
South Park Season 1 Episode 7 (the episode where Cartman wears a Adolf Hitler costume for Halloween) was partially censored in Germany. Cartmans “Sieg Heil” was changed to “Wie Geil” (means “how cool”). I think the censoring there was actually funnier than the original.
Similarly, the episode titled “An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig” was supposed to be “An Elephant Fucks A Pig”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Elephant_Makes_Love_to_a_Pig#Production
Parker and Stone intended to call this episode “An Elephant Fucks a Pig”, but changed the title under pressure from Comedy Central.
Good. I would hate to think the elephant and the pig didn’t love each other before fucking.
I always thought the “wie geil” was international for the joke to work. So that others think it’s harmless… but I haven’t seen it since years.
