Tree species
Government censorship boards and studio executives have restricted theatrical releases for as long as movies have crossed international borders, treating shocking content and clashing cultural values as grounds for keeping a film out of theaters. For instance, Tobe Hooper’s 1974 slasher The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was refused a certificate by the British Board of Film Classification in 1975 and remained officially banned in the United Kingdom for more than two decades, while Australia, Sweden, and West Germany each imposed their own separate restrictions on the film during roughly the same period.
A Clockwork Orange faced a different kind of suppression, as Stanley Kubrick withdrew his own 1971 film from UK circulation in 1973 after his family received death threats connected to a wave of copycat violence attributed to the movie, keeping it out of British cinemas until he died in 1999.
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The nature of television makes bans less severe, as single episodes can be removed in place of entire seasons, ensuring a beloved program can still circulate with punctual changes. On top of that, animation has historically operated with a wider margin of safety than live-action, largely because the bulk of the medium targets family audiences and rarely courts controversial content. In addition, dubbing or subtitling a cartoon requires none of the reshoots, edits, or cultural localization that live-action projects often need to clear foreign markets. Still, some animated episodes, but from adult TV and family-friendly programming, have been famously banned.
5) “Man’s Best Friend” (The Ren & Stimpy Show)
Image courtesy of Nickelodeon
The Ren & Stimpy Show built its reputation on gross-out humor that regularly tested Nickelodeon’s standards department, but the episode “Man’s Best Friend” pushed past a line the network refused to cross. Scheduled to air on August 22, 1992, as the fourth episode of the show’s second season, the story follows Ren (voiced by John Kricfalusi) and Stimpy (voiced by Billy West) after they are adopted by the disciplinarian George Liquor (voiced by Harris Peet), who trains the pair like disobedient pets. Nickelodeon pulled the episode entirely over its climax, in which Ren beats George with an oar in an extended on-screen assault, compounded by tobacco references and a joke involving dog treats shaped like feces.
The decision became the direct catalyst for Nickelodeon firing series creator John Kricfalusi and his studio Spümcø, handing production over to the network’s own animation unit for the remainder of the series. “Man’s Best Friend” would not reach television until 2003, when Spike TV aired it to promote Kricfalusi’s short-lived spinoff Ren & Stimpy “Adult Party Cartoon”, eleven years after its intended premiere. 4) “Partial Terms of Endearment” (Family Guy)
Image courtesy of Fox
Most banned episodes eventually find their way back to the air once the initial controversy fades, but “Partial Terms of Endearment” remains locked out of American broadcast more than fifteen years after Fox pulled it from Family Guy‘s eighth season.
The episode centers on Lois Griffin (voiced by Alex Borstein) agreeing to serve as a surrogate mother for an old college friend, only to face the decision of whether to continue or terminate the pregnancy after the friend and her husband die in a car accident.
Fox president Kevin Reilly confirmed the episode was held back for financial reasons, telling reporters that the subject matter felt too risky for advertisers during a fragile economic period, even as he acknowledged that the story handled the topic responsibly. Adult Swim, which had aired other previously restricted Family Guy episodes, also declined to broadcast it, leaving the episode without any American outlet beyond a standalone DVD release and international broadcasts in the United Kingdom and Australia.
3) “201” (South Park)
Image courtesy of Comedy Central
Comedy Central had censored individual moments across South Park before, but the network’s handling of “201” turned a single episode into a national controversy about freedom of speech and the boundaries of satire. Airing April 21, 2010, as the second half of a two-part celebration of the show’s 200th episode, the story revisited the franchise’s recurring argument that the Prophet Muhammad should be treated like any other figure subject to ridicule.
Days before the broadcast, the group Revolution Muslim posted an online warning suggesting that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone risked violence over the depiction, prompting the New York Police Department to increase security at Comedy Central’s headquarters. The network responded by bleeping every reference to Muhammad’s name, covering his image with a black censored bar, and muting more than thirty seconds of the episode’s closing dialogue, including a monologue about intimidation that never mentioned Muhammad at all. “201” has never aired again in the United States in any form, censored or otherwise, and it remains unavailable on official channels.
2) The Censored Eleven (Looney Tunes)
Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery
No single title on this list has remained banned longer than the eleven Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts collectively known as the Censored Eleven, a group withheld from American television since 1968 and never officially reinstated. United Artists, which held the syndication rights to the pre-1948 Warner Bros. cartoon library at the time, pulled all eleven shorts from broadcast because of racial stereotyping of Black characters, including the blackface caricatures at the center of Bob Clampett’s “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” and Chuck Jones’ “Angel Puss.”
Later rights holders upheld the ban without exception, as Ted Turner reaffirmed the restriction after acquiring the library in 1986, and Warner Bros. has continued that policy through every subsequent ownership change, including the current era of streaming distribution. The shorts have surfaced only sporadically since, appearing on low-cost VHS and DVD compilations outside official channels and receiving a single theatrical screening at the 2010 TCM Classic Film Festival. 1) “Dennō Senshi Porygon” (Pokémon)
Image courtesy of TV Tokyo
No banned animated episode is as infamous as “Dennō Senshi Porygon,” known internationally as “Electric Soldier Porygon.” That’s because the December 16, 1997, Japanese broadcast led to the hospitalization of hundreds of children.
Roughly twenty minutes into the episode, Pikachu unleashes a lightning attack against a wave of virtual missiles, and the animation team rendered the resulting explosion as several seconds of rapidly alternating red and blue strobe flashes. The effect triggered photosensitive epileptic seizures across Japan, sending 685 children to hospitals by ambulance and prompting the Japanese government to open a formal investigation into the incident.
The fallout extended well beyond a single pulled broadcast, as the anime went off the air entirely for four months while producers reviewed every future episode for strobing effects, and Due to the unfortunate event, “Dennō Senshi Porygon” has never received an official dub, has never aired in any territory outside its original Japanese broadcast, and remains the only episode in the Pokémon franchise’s history banned on every continent the show reaches. Which banned animated episode do you think deserved to make it to air? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum !
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