A lot has changed when it comes to TV.
While nude scenes weren’t on screens in decades past, that wasn’t all that was censored. Tame things, such as married couples sharing a bed, pregnancy, and even toilets, were also banned.
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Wondering what else got the kibosh? Keep reading for 10+ normal things that were once banned from TV.
1. Shared beds
Those steamy bedroom scenes you see on shows like Bridgerton ? That would never fly in the ’50s and ’60s since any suggestion of sexual relations between a married couple was deemed inappropriate.
This meant that couples had separate beds on shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show .
2. Gyrating
The kind of grinding we see in music videos today would never fly in the ’50s.
When Elvis Presley performed on The Ed Sullivan Show , they even filmed him from the waist up to avoid showing his gyrating hips.
3. Pregnancy
Given the fact that married couples slept in separate beds on TV during the ’50s and ’60s, this made pregnancy off-limits as well.
This meant that network executives weren’t happy when Lucy was pregnant on I Love Lucy .
She was actually TV’s first pregnant character since Lucille Ball was pregnant in real life.
Despite this, they wouldn’t even let the actors say “pregnant” on screen.
They would use phrases such as “with child” and “having a baby” instead.
4. Toilets
Basic bodily functions used to be a major no-go on TV. Blame prude TV executives for that!
Leave It To Beaver was the first show to feature a toilet in 1957. And even then, they only showed the tank.
That’s because the pilot episode had been pulled for showing a full bathroom.
The tank was also where Wally hid his pet alligator.
As for an actual toilet flushing, that didn’t happen on TV until the show, All in the Family .
5. Any reference to drugs
The Ed Sullivan Show strikes again!
When The Doors were set to perform, the network executives told them to change the lyrics “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” to “Girl, we couldn’t get much better.”
They were scared that viewers would connect the lyric “higher” to being high.
But at the last minute, the band’s lead singer, Jim Morrison, ended up singing the original lyric on live TV.
As a result, the band got banned.
6. Cartoon nudity
The Tweety Bird you know and love was actually pink at first!
But since this made him look nude, animator Bob Clampett was told to repaint him yellow so that it looked like he had feathers.
7. Political songs
Bob Dylan experienced this kind of censorship first hand when he was scheduled to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1973.
Since his lyrics mentioned various political figures, CBS executives told him to pick a different song or not perform.
8. Four episodes of *Star Trek*
The episodes “Whom Gods Destroy,” “Miri,” “The Empath,” and “Plato’s Stepchildren” were all banned from BBC since “they all dealt most unpleasantly with the already unpleasant subjects of madness, torture, sadism and disease.”
The same thing happened in 1998, as *The Next Generation* episode “Conspiracy” was banned.
It was considered gruesome in featuring alien parasites taking over Starfleet officials’ brains.
Another episode, which dealt with terrorism, was also later banned.
9. Aliens
Star Trek wasn’t the only time aliens were banned from TV.
They also banned Brian Cox’s Stargazing Live since BBC was worried that aliens would violate health and safety guidelines. Cox’s show would have been about making contact with the extraterrestrials.
He would have done so by pointing a telescope at Threapleton Holmes B for signs of life.
“[I said], you mean we would discover the first hint that there is other intelligent life in the universe beyond Earth, live on air, and you’re worried about the health and safety of it?” Cox once said.
10. Period products
Get this: Courtney Cox was the first person to say “period” on television.
It’s crazy to think now, but advertising menstrual products on television was banned up until 1972.
So when Courteney filmed this 1985 Tampax commercial and said the word “period,” she was making history.
11. Sexualized cartoons
She was one of the most famous cartoon characters on TV, but Betty Boop also one of the most polarizing.
With her big-busted chest and sexy outfits, her look and character traits were sexualized.
The censorship laws to change Betty’s look stemmed from Motion Picture Production Code representatives.
They stated that she had to change her 1920s sleeveless flapper dresses to more conservative dressing that covered her arms, back, shoulders.
Her hemline was also pushed further down.
12. Belly buttons
Back in 1965, Barbara Eden’s navel was a real issue on I Dream of Genie .
While on the Today Show , Eden revealed that producer George Schlatter wanted to “premiere my navel,” but NBC executives got scared.
“George said he had never seen so many suits sitting around a table in his life discussing someone’s anatomy,” she said.
There was some hypocrisy in this, as one episode saw Genie go to the beach.
While she had to wear a one-piece, others had on belly button-showing bikinis.
13. Interracial relationships
Television wasn’t always so accepting of interracial couples. For instance, the first kiss between a white man and a Black woman didn’t happen until 1968 when Captain Kirk kissed Uhura aboard the USS Enterprise in Star Trek .
At the time, this was considered to be highly taboo.
The episode in question is called “Plato’s Stepchildren” and it aired almost exactly one year after the U.S. Supreme Court abolished state laws that restricted interracial marriage.
When the episode aired, polls suggest that less than 20% of Americans approved of interracial relationships.
14. Homosexuality of any kind
Did you know that homosexuality used to be considered a criminal offense?
You could be charged and tried in Canada for acts of homosexuality up until 1969, and in the U.S. it wasn’t decriminalized (nationwide) until 2003 !
Because of this, TV shows didn’t begin portraying LGBTQ characters until the mid-’90s.
Series such as Roseanne and Friends worked wonders as far as helping to de-stigmatize homosexuality in mainstream media.
The first kiss between two women didn’t happen until the year 2000 in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the first gay kiss between two men happened the same year in Dawson’s Creek .
15. Modeling underwear in commercials
Up until 1987, it was illegal for men and women to model underwear in TV commercials. Advertisers were forced to instead use plastic mannequins to showcase their product.
If there was even a whisper of sexuality, an ad would be pulled and banned.
16. Swearing and cursing were strictly forbidden
Yes, there are of course exceptions to every rule — but I think it’s safe to say that the majority of us have a bit of a “potty mouth” at times.
It wasn’t until 1983 that standards began to loosen when it came to swearing, thanks largely to premium outlets like HBO.
17. Nudity
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that TV leans heavily on the conservative side of things when it comes to displaying the human form.
Even today, censorship would rather break than bend when it comes to nudity on TV.
But over the past 30 years, there have been a handful of shows to question the status quo.
One of the most important series as far as ‘normalizing’ nudity is concerned wasn’t some HBO drama, but a prime-time cop show called NYPD Blue .
For the first time ever, audiences got to catch gratuitous glimpses of male and female parts on the small screen
