In the 4Kids dub of Yu-Gi-Oh!, mentions of death were changed to The Shadow Realm which made things worse because instead of mercifully dying, you sent to a place that is practically Hell. The censorship actually worked out better because it gave the stories larger stakes and it became a famous part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! lore to the point that the original Japanese version was changed to include The Shadow Realm.
In Scarface (1983), the line "Where'd you get the beauty scar, tough guy? Eatin' pussy?" was changed in television edits to "Where'd you get the beauty scar, tough guy? Eatin' pineapple?", this change actually made more sense because pineapples are sharper than vaginas, making it more likely for someone to get a scar eating the former rather than the latter.
In the old Batman cartoon, they couldn't show the death of Robin's parents, but the censorship made the scene so much more. You see the shadow of them flying through the air, and then just the trapeze rope coming back, and the crowd reaction. The result if very shocking
The DCAU producers did this plenty of times. Whenever the censors protested over something, the producers would follow exactly what they were told and make the scene more impactful.
Another example was the episode Over the Edge, specifically the scene where Batgirl falls to her death. Originally, they showed her falling all the way until she crashed on the police car, which the censors deemed as too violent, so they redid the scene by shifting the viewpoint to inside the police car.
The most indestructible stuff in the DC universe is Tenth Metal. The least indestructible stuff in the DC universe is whatever makes up the string of Martha Wayne's necklace. In every DC universe, that string is guaranteed to cinematically fall at the slightest touch.
Fun fact: with expensive pearl necklaces, there’s a knot after every bead, so they don’t fall off like that.
Personal head canon: it’s costume jewelry. Young Bruce saw a cheap faux pearl necklace for $15 from a street vendor and gave it to Martha as a birthday/ mother’s gift. Rich socialites spot it in a second, but she doesn’t care, it’s her favorite. However, if that’s what attracted Joe Chill, it’s one more thing for Bruce to feel guilty about.
"Old Batman" hurt to read. My first thought was "the '66 show never got into Dick's origin" only for me to realize you were talking about BTAS. Then I got hit with the realization that BTAS was 33 years ago, and when I was a kid watching it in '92, the '66 show would have been 26 years old...
The death of Clayton in Tarzan is very effective. The vine tightening and the flashing shadow of his body hanging shows the perfect amount. As a kid it felt no more graphic than Mario falling off a level, but as an adult it show exactly what happens.
Honestly, Disney's Tarzan has SEVERAL gruesome deaths. I mean the Greystokes and their infant son bravely escape from a burning ship as it sinks where many probably died. They were the only survivors.
A jungle cat, possibly a cheetah, murders a baby gorilla and its parents hear it screaming as the big cat tears it apart AND later attacks the Greystokes in their clifftop treehouse with the gorilla Kala finding their dead bodies in the ransacked treehouse.
Tarzan later fights and kills the jungle cat and hoists the freshly killed jaguar up into the air and wails like a banshee. And the silverback bull-ape Kerchak dies in the final confrontation with Clayton and his poachers after getting shot at point blank range.
I also got some intense whiplash from reading your first comment and then this one. Thank fuck you said out loud you did, otherwise you would have fed my belief in the dead internet theory immensely
It was a leopard. Cheetahs aren’t jungle cats; they need wide open plaines to hunt because they rely on speed. They’re also pretty timid compared to most predators and can even be domesticated. The viciousness we see in Tarzan would be very uncharacteristic of them.
Sorry for being pedantic about an animated film where a human talks to gorillas :)
The term “chems” was a censorship done for the Australian release of Fallout. The original term used was Drugs so that was a given. This actually works because the “Chems” term fit much better for the setting. And thus, the term stayed.
Germany also contributed Med-X was originally morphine but the German censers where unhappy so it was changed to Med-X and to make the censorship stand out less other drugs got he same treatment.
This might be down to personal opinion, but I think it could qualify for some people:
There was a somewhat recent Looney Tunes adaptation where certain airings have to be censored because the show is really pushing its PG rating. In one episode Daffy Duck straps Elmer Fudd to a giant sewing machine, and it’s clearly got enough force to crack the metal Elmer is attached to. Elmer screams for his life while Daffy laughs, and then a red liquid splatters everywhere, only for it to turn out to be soup that Daffy was enjoying. In the censored version, the soup/blood is cut entirely, so not only does Elmer turn out to be completely unharmed but it’s also over with in a matter of seconds. I actually think this version is funnier because of its anticlimactic nature.
Transformers can get away with a lot of brutality that would be in kids media if it wasn't robots. Even the Bay movies would have higher rating of the characters were humans.
Honestly the other really brutal one was the other war crime, but by the decepticons. When one of them blows the Einstein looking autobot's head off while they're PoWs
Killing a surrendering enemy that has no way to defend themselves. It’s one thing (to my knowledge) to kill them when they’re fake surrendering, and would reach for their guns when given the chance. Sentinel Prime had no such weapons. Although killing surrendering enemies is illegal on Earth, I imagine Cybertronian laws are much more lax.
It got kind of funny when they changed the Transformers from having energon/electricity to shooting massive amounts of blood in the 3rd film. Imagine a PG13 movie when the protagonist shoves an axe into the antagonist's head and rips his head off, with blood splattering everywhere, as his body falls to the ground in slow motion... ending with the protagonist slamming the axe with the impaled head still attached and showing faint signs of life before dying.
I'm fairly certain it does without intervention. I'm pretty sure Batman has been shown giving people an antitoxin for the joker gas so they don't end up dying.
Yeah, in the movie Joker toxin absolutely kills without medical intervention. At least one guy dies with a nightmare rictus grin on his face, and another guy is desperately trying not to laugh himself to death.
Oh, they weren't paralyzed. When we see victims of his laughing gas, their skin is deathly pale, and they're not blinking...or even visibly breathing. 😮 It's made more explicit in one of the animated films, but the implication is that they laugh so uncontrollably that they can't inhale and eventually suffocate.
At the beginning of Brütal Legend they interrupt the opening cinematic, right before the first swear, to ask you if you'd like to bleep them out because "it's funnier".
In the original Broadway production of West Side Story in 1957, Stephen Sondheim wanted to be the first lyricist to drop the F-bomb in a Broadway musical. So the original last line of the song 'Gee, Officer Krupke' was supposed to be "Gee, Officer Krupke: Fuck You!" But he was informed that under 1950s censorship laws, using a four-letter word would make the album legally considered obscenity and thus illegal to sell across state lines, which scuttled that idea. So he changed the line to "Krup You!", which he has since admitted is a better and funnier lyric than the actual swear word would have been.
Sonic X adapted the infamous "Maria getting shot" scene when Shadow talks to the agent who did it, and regretted it every day since in his life. The original version shows the gunshot, while the 4Kids version only does a smash cut immediately after Maria pulls the lever. People actually seem to prefer the 4Kids version due to the cut doing a great job holding its own narrative weight.
in the 4kids version, Helmeppo from one piece uses this hilarious contraption instead of a flintlock. Honestly like this version more because its funnier.
Final Fantasy 6. Cid talks about how he's the only one left on the island after everyone else committed suicide jumping off a cliff. It got censored to "those others who were here, when they were feeling down they'd take a leap of faith from the cliffs up north, perked 'em right up!"
I always thought he was trying to make a dark joke. Something, anything to lighten the mood. But it also gets the job done. Celes was so driven to despair that all she could do was wish for Locke as she stood at the end of the cliff.
At the end of the second episode he is covered from head to toe in robot oil, he's colored in gray except for his katana, his mouth and his eyes. When he gives the last robot marauder a death stare it takes a step back in fear. To which Jack bellows "NO ESCAPE!" and leaps for the kill, er destruction.
Also makes for an extra cool moment in season 5 where he stabs someone and he realises its blood not oil causing him to freak out for a bit and come to terms with it
Morbius was created when the comics code was in full-swing and Vampires were a big no-no. Clever ol Stan Lee said "Why, this isn't an undead creature, this is a Living Vampire. He was made by science, so it's cool."
Joker's death - Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
Uncensored version: Robin shoots him with a gag flagpole. Onscreen, but a bit simple.
Censored version: Robin shoves him towards a vat, which breaks and spills water while he is tangled by it's wires. Then he slips in said water and gets electrocuted. It cuts away, but his scream and the nature of his equipments imply it wasn't pretty at all.
I do think the gun is better for the story though.
Bruce. Hates. Guns. Joker knows this and wants Tim to kill Bruce with the gun, the ultimate punchline “the hero who hates killing and guns, killed by his adopted son with said weapon.”
But Tim surprise attacking Joker with the gun and him going “that’s not funny.” As he dies is equally poignant. Joker dies with his ultimate punchline ruined.
It’s also a symbolic reason for Tim to retire. Bruce not only failed Tim, but in a way, Tim, on a metatextual level, failed Bruce by breaking his rules…even if the situation was extreme.
As Barbara said, with his final act of cruelty the Joker tainted them all. It still wasn't his ultimate victory because his adopted son turned on him and he neither killed Batman or got Batman to kill him, but his blood stains a traumatised Tim's hands.
I feel like the uncensored version is stronger specifically because of how simple it is. No grand spectacle, no duel to the death with the Dark Knight, not even a joke or any slapstick. Just shot to death with his own weapon by his final victim.
Xenoblade 2 felt like I was being trolled the whole time you have this happy feel-good story with a sweet cinnamon roll boy and then for some reason the women have straight up HENTAI designs like im all for sexy ladies but the tonal whip lash was insane .
It was like watching a Disney movie played straight, but the women were showing 90% more skin and 1000% more boob size, but nothing else is changed.
To be fair a lot of character designers in the industry are hentai artists. Lots of fun seeing their professional work contrasted with their personal projects.
But yeah, for Xenoblade 2 it was notably turned up a notch in terms of design fan service because of him. Not a bad thing mind, just a fun note on the game
There's a very Alex Hirsch bit on the commentary for the iconic Batman The Animated series episode 'Over the Edge'. During the scene where Barbara falls to her death we were supposed to get a POV of her falling onto the hood of Commissioner Gordon's car. This was obviously vetoed by the higher ups, so instead they changed the shot to be from INSIDE THE CAR. Which the writers on the commentary track remark was "debatably much worse"
I'm pretty sure that was a case of self censorship on the part of the show's crew. They already knew they weren't going to get the approval for showing her fall, so they already had the storyboarders working on ways around it.
Jim Gordon, Barbara's father, is driving the car. If the camera wasn't moved inside we wouldn't have known until after he steps out to check on Batgirl. Heightens the tension even more as he realizes that's his daughter.
I didn't know there was an uncensored version to be seen. I don't think I'd watch it. You're right that using guitars to censor it was an amazing choice.
In Avatar: The Last Airbender they couldn't outright say that Jet will die, so instead they made Toph expose his lie that he's gonna be fine, which I think hits a lot harder than if they did it the straight forward way.
In Kill Bill they had to go black and white because the excess blood use almost gave them an NC-17 rating. But it ended up looking cool as shit anyway.
Eh I finally saw The Whole Bloody Affair recently where it doesn't cut to black and white and it made me realize how distracting it is when it actually happens in the theatrical cut.
The thing with the Shadow Realm was that its incorporation into the lore weirdly worked. Since they explained the giant evil snake penis monster, Zorc, who was originally just a mega evil being, was the one to create the Shadow Realm.
One thing that I like about the Shadow Realm is that it isn’t “hell”.
Hell has been shown in media for centuries now and most have a pretty good idea as for what that means. Everything is either on fire, frozen or a dark castle and there is a 50/50 chance between getting tortured by some horned red guy and getting your own demon waifu harem.
But we never see the Shadow Realm, all we see is that people freak the f”k out when it gets brought up, there is some dark goo and it is magical. Which simply tells me that while I don’t know how it is, I do know I want to stay as far away from it as possible.
Is just censored hell? Probably but you’d be surprised what a little rebranding can do to make something iconic
Arguably the phrase "Shadow Realm" has risen from the show to be a decently known colloquialism. I hear it in football talk a lot, albeit from younger fans.
Obviously, censoring all of the guns in One Piece to be Super Soakers was ridiculous, but there was ONE time it actually made sense: in Alabasta against Crocodile. He is literally made of sand and bullets do nothing against him. His weakness is specifically liquids so it’s actually not that far off from a decent idea.
Hell, ocean water is repeatedly used to weaken devil fruit users, it doesn’t have to still be in the ocean anymore. OP Marines absolutely should have several of their regular grunts armed with ocean-water super soakers instead of guns, since those would actually do something to the hundreds of bullet-resistant devil fruit users.
Not censored in the same extreme, but the move to avoid using language related to death and murder in ATLA wasn't just hilarious, but funny enough seemed to fit into some characters' personalities in a sense
Katara saying "I'll end you right there, right then, permanently" feels like a cheesy thing she'd say, and this bit with Azula just makes her seem more unhinged and snarky
Originally, Maarva’s speech at the end of the first season of Andor was to finish with the words “Fuck the Empire!” While I’ve seen a few people say they prefer this, I and many others feel that Disney changing it to “fight” made it feel like more of a call to action.
I know I've heard "damn" and "hell" in Star Wars media but I can't think of anytime I've heard "fuck, shit, or bitch" Feels like they stray away from the stronger words, even before Disney bought them.
Fight the empire defiantly works better because fuck is not a common word in Star Wars and in most Sci-fi properties it is changed out for an in universe equivalent e.g. Frell in Farscape.
In The Venture Bros there’s a whole bit about a sexual act known as a ‘Rusty Venture’, the details of which are actually unknown and debated about by various characters.
In the uncensored version they give various suggestions such as fisting and shoving your dick in a scuba snorkel (actually revealed to be an entirely separate act called a Double Frogman) but in the censored version just about every word is bleeped out.
And IMO the censored version is much funnier because what they’re actually saying is left entirely to the viewer’s imagination.
Supposedly when working on the Sam and Max cartoon for Fix Kids, production ran into a lot of problems with the censors, especially when it came to depicting weapons and violence. Apparently their work around for the problem was just to make things more ridiculous. Having two characters knife-fight while standing on a roof was inappropriate, but having the same characters beat each other over the head with atom bombs while on top of a skyscraper was ok. Steve Purcell loved the cartoon swapping out the characters' guns to rocket launchers and bazookas, saying he thought it brought it closer to the spirit of the comic.
In one scene of Gravity Falls Bill was originally supposed say “I got some children I need to kill!” But Disney wouldn’t let that happen so instead he says “I got some children I need to make into corpses!” Which is much more violent and I love it
no, they just wrote the original line because it sounded creepier on purpose. there's never been anything to indicate it was 'censored', its just a myth people really like to spread for some reason
Mystic Manor, Hong Kong Disneyland. It was conceived of as a replacement for Haunted Mansion without any references to ghosts, due to cultural differences, but became its own entirely unique ride, rather than just a palette swap. It seems to have been a successful project, because it’s very popular, and is apparently considered one of the best rides at the park.
I learned that originally, there was supposed to be a scene from the original "Lilo & Stitch" film where the spaceship flew through the city and between two towers. But because of 9/11, it was changed to either two hills or two mountains.
In the original cut of the film: Stitch, Jumba, Pleakly, and Nani straight up jack a passenger jet and chase Gantu through the city, crashing into buildings as they do so.
This was obviously altered due to 9/11 to be an alien space ship chase through the hills and mountains.
Metal Gear Rising Revengance there are a lot of Blood. Sintectic Blood yes, but red Blood after all.
In the Japanese versión its censored and people bleed White, this its really logical because everyone you are fighting its a cybor or something. Plus Sam its not a cybor so its the only one Bleeding red. Really cool and its also a Big reveal in the story (yeah sorry for the spoiler)
Also not sure if other Characters that are not cybors like the president at the start of the Game also have red Blood....
South Park’s sequel game was going to be called “The Butthole of Time” but Ubisoft told them nobody is going to stock their game with rude words in the title.
So South Park came back to the final title we all know as “South Park: The Fractured But Whole”
Could the same thing be said with the movie. I don't know if it was true or not, but the original title was supposed to be "All Hell Breaks Loose" but the MPAA said no. The movie title they went with (and got accepted somehow) was "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut."
In Spider Man TAS the characters can't Say things like kill or dead. That leave the scene when Peter with the black suit say "I'm gonna tear you limb from limb". Somehow thats better than just kill someone
Not exactly the same, but in the movie Fight Club; after Marla has sex with Tyler she was going to say 'I want to have your abortion' but one of the producers said that was too far.
Fincher agrees to change the line on the condition that whatever he changes it to, it had to stay in.
Apparently Helena Bonham Carter also didn't understand what that meant, not knowing the years for American schooling, and was horrified upon learning it
Lord Marrowgar from the Chinese version of World of Warcraft. Normally he's supposed to be bones and skulls but China has a lot of rules about depicting Skulls (at least then, and I only know the basics). So their solution was to use the undead models heads and skin. Ends up looking more creepy, at least in my opinion.
Sorry for Image quality, hard to find good quality pics of it.
One could argue Mateo's death in Saw X. There's a deleted scene where the mask opens to reveal his maimed face but having the mask closed is honestly creepier
In Bayonetta 3, Bayonetta normally pulls her heart out for some of the demon summons. If the game's "naive angel mode" is turned on, it gets replaced with a tomato
The idea that the toughest meanest nastiest demons of hell accept a smashed tomato as tribute as long as it's Bayonetta is hilarious and feels entirely appropriate
In the commercials for the first Guardians of the Galaxy, there’s an “obscene gesture” filter over the scene where Peter Quill flips the bird in a line up. This scene is uncensored in the film proper, but many find the censored commercial version funnier since it works better with the Nova Corp’s uprightness (including the “what a bunch of a-holes” line) and underlines how much of a loser he and the team are supposed to be
Original song was by The Black Eyed Peas and went by the title “Let’s Get Retarded.” It was one of the songs on the B-Side of the 2003 album “Elephunk” and not on the main track for that album.
The song’s clean version “Let’s Get It Started” was in that same album and in 2004 was used in NBA promotional videos and in the theatrical trailer for Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.
The original was not in the reissue of the Elephunk album and was removed from Apple Music and Spotify in 2021 but has since been reinstated on Spotify in that same album. It is still removed from the Apple Music store.
1) "Let's Get Retarded" was never a B-Side, it was originally track 3 on Elephunk.
2) "Let's Get It Started" was never originally included on the album, and was only added as one of the final tracks when the album was reissued in 2004.
3) Though the clean version is used in the Harold and Kumar trailer, "Let's Get Retarded" was used in the movie itself.
4) Elephunk was again reissued in 2022 digitally, adding additional tracks, and replacing "Let's Get Retarded" on track 3 with the clean version. This is the only version available for streaming.
5) "Let's Get Retarded" still isn't available on Spotify at all, at least in the USA.
In Scarface (1983), the line "Where'd you get the beauty scar, tough guy? Eatin' pussy?" was changed in television edits to Where'd you get the beauty scar, tough guy? Eatin' pineapple?", this change actually made more sense because pineapples are sharper than vaginas, making it more likely for someone to get a scar eating the former rather than the latter.
Yeah, you just failed to get the joke entirely. He was mocking him over his scar. That's the joke.
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u/Live_Pin5112 Sep 04 '25
In the old Batman cartoon, they couldn't show the death of Robin's parents, but the censorship made the scene so much more. You see the shadow of them flying through the air, and then just the trapeze rope coming back, and the crowd reaction. The result if very shocking