Submitted by AnthillOmbudsman t3_10o6dtk in todayilearned
You knew and talked to lots of people about their decision to rent an uncensored version of holy grail to watch with company despite having recorded the censored version on VHS, because they were embarrassed they had recorded a version that ended up getting censored by cbs?
That seems like a kind of odd thing to converse with "lots of people" about. I mean, shit I can see that coming up in conversation with one neighbor, but that's not the most common situation. LOTS of people???
Bad Newt, naughty Newt...
Who got embarrassed by what?
Yep. That’s how I discovered it. That’s how I saw my first boob, too. The 80s ruled.
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I'm pretty sure I'm m the only person in the world who doesn't think Monty Python is funny.
What was there to censor?
The oral sex reference, perhaps?
Right there with you bud
I've seen lots of statements like this. It's very common
Nah, it's not for everybody.
My brother and I did it at the dinner table a couple of times in like 1992 for Thanksgiving or whatever just off the cuff. I think we did the "constitutional peasant" scene from the Holy Grail. Put my parents in stitches. Everybody thought it was hilarious and we were all roaring, so my sister bought the VHS of Holy Grail and we all watched it.
Literally nobody thought it was funny except me and my brother
The killer rabbit and the Black Knight scene i would imagine.
That's my favorite scene.
You couldn't say "shit" on TV in the 80s.
Considering the number of people who can do it off by heart, I would say it's a lot of people's favorite scenes.
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I never got why American TV censors so much stuff, if there's a film with profanity just air it later when the kids are in bed, or even better let the parents decide what their kids can and can't watch.
Also, it's okay for kids to watch John McClane shoot a dozen Germans into bloody swiss cheese but they can't hear him say fuck?
The Flying Circus was on PBS lateish ( 10:30?) on Saturdays ( Fridays?) on the Dallas ( KERA ) affiliated PBS stations. I used to see it then.
This would have been like 1974-1975.
The first time I saw "Holy Grail" it was a 16MM print shown at a frat house in 1979.
Flying circus, Dr who, red dwarf, I remember them being on all the time late night on PBS back in the late 80s early 90s
Americans are freaking weird, man.
They idolise free speech but censor words just because they deem them bad, they consider themselves more puritan than Europeans but are the origin of most porn and have an insane amount of strip clubs, they're fiercely individualistic but at the same time are one of, if not the most nationalistic country on the planet,...
I think I've partly figured out how they work, though. They're obsessed with image. Fake smiles, fake lawns, fake teeth, fake bodies, going into debt to buy fancy phones and cars,..., all that matters is that they fit the idealistic version of how an American is supposed to be.
>Americans are freaking weird, man.
Truth. Everything else you wrote was out of touch generalization but Americans are wierd.
What many from the outside fail to grasp is that Americans aren't any one thing. Alabama MAGA and Portland Antifa don't have much in common other than the currency and language and there might even be a language barrier due to accent. The country's too damn big and varied for it to have a "type". It would be like coming up with 1 common sterotype for the whole of Europe.
Yes, yes, the oral sex!
Unlike what the wording of the title implies, PBS gave Monty Python exposure to US audiences well before “Monty Python and The Holy Grail” played on TV. Mid-70’s.
I remember when Dan Ackroyd said "slut" on SNL in the 70s and we were astonished.
If you haven't seen it, I suggest Life of Brian. It's still wacky, but more meaningful and better packaged than their tv show or other movies.
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>What many from the outside fail to grasp is that Americans aren't any one thing.
They are though, they're Americans. It might seem that that they're different to an insider, who notices all the little inconsequential differences, but on the whole, they're the same thing. They share the same language and currency as you've said, but also history, nationality, culture,...
>Alabama MAGA and Portland Antifa
Those are political and rural/urban differences, which occur everywhere outside of city states.
Monty Python had some weird run-ins with BBC censors too during production of the Flying Circus TV series, though. Not much during the first series, because they were mostly ignored, but once the show got popular, suddenly, all eyes were on it. A particularly stupid case involved the animation of the prince with a black spot on his face. The original version (which is also seen in the "And Now, for Something Completely Different" movie) has the prince die of cancer, but for some reason, a censor at the BBC decided that was unacceptable, so the Flying Circus version, has an obvious overdub saying "gangrene" instead of cancer.
But for the most part, whenever BBC censors wanted to block something after series 1, the guys would just point at something similar from the first series that had aired (and the world didn't end) so the censors couldn't do much.
> What many from the outside fail to grasp is that Americans aren't any one thing. Alabama MAGA and Portland Antifa don't have much in common other than the currency and language and there might even be a language barrier due to accent.
That's a copout, and MAGA and Antifa are superficial media narratives; racial and class differences, while not necessarily a drum worth beating ad infinitum, fall across the same lines of education, opportunity access and ownership in any American community large enough
That and the Black Knight "Tis' a scratch"
At like 11:30pm EST or whatever too.
Now that I see this mentioned that sounds correct.
Me too--late night on PBS in Los Angeles. We nearly went out of our minds to see and hear such a thing on TV.
>The original version (which is also seen in the "And Now, for Something Completely Different" movie) has the prince die of cancer, but for some reason, a censor at the BBC decided that was unacceptable, so the Flying Circus version, has an obvious overdub saying "gangrene" instead of cancer.
Cancer used to just be sort of generally taboo to talk about, for whatever reason.
Jane was ignorant, don't ya know?
He hasn’t got shit all over him!
That's how we got most British TV shows in the 80s. Dr. Who was on PBS.
Damn, boob in 80s. Good times.
It sure wasn’t the spanking.
That's just not even remotely true. Some places have a strong English culture, some places of strong French culture, some with Spanish, some with Native American, some with Chinese etc etc. America is a giant melting pot of all the world's cultures. Even history is BS. The states that were the original 13 colonies have a very different history than that of California, Alaska, or Hawaii. We don't even all share the same language man. America has no national language. There are millions of people living here who don't speak english. Basically everything you've said is completely ignorant.
“Ignorant slut”
It's mind baffling cause they could make racist jokes but not curse
Nope. People were exposed because of Flying Circus. MPFC was on PBS not for censorship, but because the episodes were 30 mins long since BBC doesn’t have ads. Python didn’t want to edit their shows to make them shorter and allow ads, so PBS was the only option.
That's a pretty good description for about 15%-35% of the country. The eccentric part you see on television and tiktok. But it's as accurate as saying Polish people love LGBTs people because they're accepted in Sweden.
You're unknowingly cutting out the normal people you normally don't see portrayed in our media.
Wait until you see early TV edits of Blazing Saddles!
That’s how I watched it.
I watched it in the 70's on PBS. Nothing was censored, I was 10yo.
I thought that edit made it funnier. I never knew it was mandated.
What do boobs sound like?
That's the first Monty Python I ever saw. I just hate absurd comedy. Monty Python, Mel Brooks, Leslie Nelson. I hate it all.
Newt was a late 80’s asshat. Was around to mess with Bill Clinton.
Time for I practice. You first.
Still can’t on broadcast networks. ABC, CBS
Jane your an ignorant slut. Jane Curtin. Part of that great crew.
Got to sell the money maker ads for Marlboro etc, can’t cuss in front of the kids.
A lingering product of our founders. Puritans. Those randy naught Puritans. Now Baptists
Most people died. A real bummer. Now it’s manageable for the most part.
Sorry to be pedantic, but it was "Jane, you ignorant slut.". As Jane said, it was a different time.
Down right liberal Commie pinko Nixon loving pervs. How far we have regressed.
Something like boing, or bounce, or perhaps schlock
You’ve been watching too much YouTube
Polish people are super not cool with LGBT. And don’t even mention black folks. Source: I’m second generation American born Polish with a huge racist, homophobic extended family.
Nah. There are lots of people with no sense of humor.
> just air it later when the kids are in bed
The US doesn't have the concept of the 'watershed' like the UK does. I guess because of the multiple timezones issue.
And? The same thing happens with literally every country that changed its borders but didn't relocate/wipe out the people in the last couple of centuries. Hell, even in my tiny country of Slovenia, with a population of only 2 million, the North-eastern part is so heavily Hungarian-influenced that their language is incomprehensible to the rest of our country, the coastal part of it is Italian-influenced, and the Northern part Austrian, but those people are still Slovene.
Uh yeah. That was the whole point of my analogy. That just because one cultural group in America acts one way, doesn't not mean that completely different region will act the same.
Just because Sweden and Poland are both in Europe doesn't mean they are the same.
LOL. You're funny.
Nope, I started watching in 1975...The 70s ruled. You latecomers.
The 70s were weird. I was only a kid but it seemed like the entire world in the 70s was a bell-bottomed was a filthy, rapey, child-abducting, cigarette-smoking, Quaalude-popping, bell-bottom-wearing, airline hijacking, am-radio-listening fever dream has crisis with big dumb collars. I mean, the decade started with The Beatles breaking up. Talk about a harbinger.
SirHerald t1_j6crpjk wrote
That censoring had an interesting effect. I knew lots of people who had recorded and rewatched the edited version then rented the unedited version around people they were embarrassed to watch that unedited content around.