Cartoons that take shots at the censors?

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dbzgalaxy

New member
What are your favorite instances of cartoons making fun of the censors or lampshading various things they can't do because of the concerns of parent groups, child psychologists and standards and practices?

I was just watching an episode of the Powerpuff Girls, "Paste Makes Waste" in which Ms. Keane keeps a little boy who has been eating paste back for a minute during recess and tells him that he shouldn't do it because it's an "imitable act" and that if other children saw him they might want to repeat it. It immediately cuts to the whole class looking in through the window, gagging and protesting "ew, no way."

Of course there's also the famous one from the Tweety Cartoon, "A Tale of Two Kitties" in which one of the cats that's chasing Tweety, Catsello, says, "If the Hay's Office would only let me, I'd give him the bird, all right!" I think most of today's kids probably wouldn't get it, because they wouldn't know that the Hay's Office was the censorship board at the time.
 
One Freakazoid episode had an anvil being dropped on an annoying network censor a good three times.

There are also shots against the censors on Family Guy as well.
 
I believe there was a later episode that took an even bigger shot at the censors, or at least, zealots who demand that the censors censor more things. I believe that the episode was entitled ?Girls Gone Mild?, and in it, two individuals forced the girls to stop using their powers and being violent because of concerns with how other children would want to imitate them. It?s been a while since I seen the episode and I may not remember it correctly; I?m sure somebody else knows the plot better than I do.
 
The opening of the Aqua Teen episode "Gee Whiz" is basically a giant potshot at Adult Swim BS&P, particular how the AS shows can't actually say "Jesus".
 
That Simpsons Treehouse of Horror with the Fox censor toning down the violence to a TV-G rating, only to be stabbed repeatedly with a sword held by the logo, changing it from TV-G to TV-PG, TV-14, TV-MA, and finally TV-666.
 
South Park's Cartoon Wars takes a good jab at the censors. It's just too many people focus on the Family Guy part and tend to miss it.
 
One of the regular characters on the historical edutainment cartoon Histeria! was a network censor who constantly butted in when ever they got to some of the more "colourful" aspects of world history. One instance that sticks out was her objections to "smutty words like 'virgin'!", when they did a sketch about the Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome.
 
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: TAS had a recurring character, 'The Censor Lady', who'd continually try to keep the characters from doing imitable acts, even going so far as to make sure vampire's in the Halloween episode didn't bite people, telling them they had to *kiss* their victim's necks.

An episode of Tiny Toon Adventures had Babs and Buster literally being chased by the Fox censors.
 
Yeah, her name was 'Lydia Karaoke' and she was voiced by former SNL regular Nora Dunn, who ironically roused some slight controversy of her own when she refused to perform on SNL the night that Andrew "Dice" Clay was the host.
 
Let's not forget the infamous final episode of "Angry Beavers" that never was where Norb and Dag poke fun at Nickelodeon's canceling policies, making money off the show rather than the cartoon's creators, and never promoting the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vot4HAkRD-E

Also, in one of the deleted scenes for "Looney Tunes: Back in Action", there's a part where Kate (Jenna Elfman), the WB executive starts hacking away at some spikes in the ground, and Bugs quips, "Wow, you movie execs sure know how to hack things up."

http://www.livevideo.com/video/A854529BB676430D95A0F5F4FAC253DF/daffy-the-gauntlet-of-death.aspx
 
I don't know,I guess in FOP's Channel Chaser where they actually mention the censors.They didn't do it indirectly as other shows do.
 
There was a Billy and Mandy episode where Billy was apart of a cookie making Elf tribe for a little while, and they were at "war" with the Gnomes. During the battle they had, there was an Army guy who popped up and said that the fight was too violent for the young viewers. Then he put up a picture of a Koala eating bamboo while he described some of the fight. When he thought the fight was over, he cut back to the show, but the fight wasn't over and he quickly put the picture back up.

And there was Relax-O-Vision, an episode of Freakazoid! where everytime violence occurred, they put up a picture of something calming like a sunset or fish tank while Theme From A Summer Place, which is actually pretty calming music, played in the background.
 
Agreed. I actually like the censorship stuff more than the Family Guy bashing in Cartoon Wars. Kyle's quote: "It's either all OK, or none of it is" perfectly illustrates the slippery slope that can happen when you censor entertainment. And Mohammed actually being censored in the episode has sparked numerous interesting pro/con debates about exactly what Kyle was addressing.

While not a classic episode, "You Kent Always Say What You Wan't" from The Simpsons has a humorous end gag of Homer's speech against Fox being censored.
 
Garfield and Friends' The Buddy Bears.
Just the entire basic concept of the Buddy Bears is a beautiful pot-shot at the squeaky-clean-funducational-cartoon-we-can-all-learn-a-lesson-from concept.

Remember: "If you ever disagree it means that you are wrong"
 
While not directly related to censorship, the episode of Earthworm Jim where Psycrow becomes a cartoon scriptwriter is worth a mention.

"You can NOT say this word in a cartoon!"
"What word?"
"I... can't... say it!"
 
"Begone, pests, and give me the bird!"
"We'd love to, really, but the Fox censors won't allow it."

Ah, Animaniacs. :) This wasn't the only way they goaded the censors, though. Remember these lines?

"Stop playing with my bust!"/"Good-night, everybody!"
"Look, I found Prince!"/"No no no, fingerprints!"/"I don't think so."
"Yakko, can you conjugate?"/"Who, me? I've never even kissed a girl!"
"I am Ludvig von Beetoven. I am a peeeeeanist."
"That's our solar system!"/"Hey, you forgot Ur-anus."

There were so many more, too. God, they need to bring this show back.
 
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