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January 9 - January 24, 2024
Otto Preminger defied the code again with The Man with the Golden Arm, based on Nelson Algren’s bleak novel about heroin addicts in Chicago. The movie contradicted the code’s ban on drug use. It once again proved that the majority of filmgoers did not give a shit about film code restrictions. “Hollywood’s Production Code may be losing a serious amount of its influence,” reported Variety in December 1955. “Apparently there hasn’t been an instance of reluctance among the nation’s top circuits to play the film.”
Sahl had modernized stand-up comedy in the 1950s. His freeform approach broke from the established contrivances of Las Vegas dominant at the time. He influenced a whole new generation of comics, but by the end of the 1960s, they passed him in popularity. As his star power diminished, he turned hostile, storming out of interviews, and the industry abandoned him. Sahl was convinced that his career was faltering not because of erratic behavior, but due to conspiracy.
TV Guide reported, “A high-ranking New York police official, insisting that he not be identified, said he would like to see Car 54 cancelled because it makes all policemen appear to be morons.” Footage of real-life policing made them look worse. Law and Order, a cinema verité documentary that shadowed police in Kansas City, Missouri, aired on public television in March 1969. A black-and-white precursor to the long-running Fox series Cops, its realism was shocking to viewers. Variety wrote, “Episodic, and abounding in human interest, drama, comedy, and tragedy with everything from the cliché of
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A handful of people within the industry defended the Family Viewing Hour. “The creative people can’t come up with something creative, so they blame the Family Hour,” said Bill Cosby. “The hour should be directed toward the family [so it] can sit down together without being faced with some controversial issue or clinical discussion on abortion.” Showrunners ran into problems right away. CBS spent sixteen hours trying to determine whether or not Archie Bunker changing a diaper was obscene. Censors removed the word “sucker” from an episode of The Jeffersons. An episode of Good Times, written by
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The sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, starring Gabe Kaplan and John Travolta, was banned in Boston. “It sounds ridiculous in these days of porno flicks,” reported Variety, “ABC’s Welcome Back, Kotter [was] pulled off the schedule in Bean Town because its cast of non-scholastic high schoolers might have an unhealthy influence on local students.” Executive producer James Komack couldn’t believe it. “To be banned in Boston is funnier than anything we’re doing. This is the first time a tv show has been banned in Boston. We don’t quite know why. The ABC local affiliate is very nervous about putting our
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The Pacific Daily News reported that, in response to medical concerns, Family Feud instated a new policy: “Contestants, both male and female evidently have to undergo a mouth test with a magnifying glass from medical distaff.” A contestant revealed that before her appearance, a Family Feud production assistant entered the dressing room with a magnifying glass and a cotton swab and said, “Okay, everybody line up for your herpes test.”
Richard Pryor already had a volatile reputation. According to Kevin Cook, Flip Wilson’s biographer, Pryor attacked a gay hairstylist on The Flip Wilson Show for “what Pryor considered a lascivious look.” “Pryor lashed out,” wrote Cook, “poking the stylist in both eyes … NBC lawyers made Pryor’s attack go away with a settlement and a confidentially agreement.” “Richard practically blinded him,” recalled Flip Wilson’s son. “They thought the guy was going to lose an eye.” Pryor appeared at the Hollywood Bowl on September 18, 1977, for an event billed as A Star-Spangled Night for Rights. It
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Life of Brian was banned in Ireland. It was
The few people who supported Paul Weyrich in the 1960s were fringe extremists like R. J. Rushdoony, an anti-Semitic “Christian Reconstructionist” who wanted the death penalty for children and a federal ban on interracial marriage. Weyrich was also befriended by Samuel T. Francis, the segregationist who coined the term “white pride.”
Among the first Culture War controversies that Weyrich and his associates participated in was the censorship of school textbooks. The Heritage Foundation joined the movement to suppress textbooks that spoke positively about the Civil Rights Movement. In 1974, a Texas school district was accused of promoting “documented communists” like Charlie Chaplin, Picasso, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A reference to the song “We Shall Overcome” was provided as evidence that Texas textbooks were “furthering Marxism.”
The Gablers wanted to ban a textbook that referred to future presidents as “he or she.” They demanded the removal of Edgar Allen Poe because he was “too gruesome.” And they objected to math books teaching calculus and trigonometry. Norma Gabler said, “When a student reads in a math book that there are no absolutes, suddenly every value he’s been taught is destroyed. And the next thing you know, the student turns to crime and drugs.”
Showbiz columnist Sheilah Graham thought he was strange: “He and Nancy were lunching upstairs at Sardi’s restaurant in New York a few years ago and I was rather startled when, after the main course, Ronnie took out his contacts, put them in his mouth, sucked them for a few seconds, and put them back in his eyes.”
Senator Barry Goldwater, a man who had been endorsed by the John Birch Society, in 1964, distanced himself from Weyrich’s influential new movement. “Abortion is a private matter between the woman and her doctor,” said Goldwater. “The religious right scares the hell out of me. They have no place in politics … Don’t try to preach and practice religion in the halls of Congress.”
Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority declared war on children’s author Judy Blume in 1984. Her stories were known for earnest teenage emotion and the books were pulled from school libraries around the country. “Censorship always grows out of fear,” said Blume. “But there isn’t anything to be afraid of as long as a parent can talk to his child. I can’t argue with the Moral Majority about their views. I can only argue that they can’t control the rights of all children.”
“I remember the day Danny brought home a Beach Boys record,” said Mrs. Peters. “I sensed it wasn’t Christian. The Beach Boys just had a different message than we were used to in this house. We realized that Satan was all around us. Some mothers complain to me about the burnings … Some say it reminds them of the burnings in Nazi Germany. I shouldn’t say this, but when we were in high school, we thought Hitler had some pretty good ideas.”
Nebraska’s Lincoln Star reported on another record burning that torched everything “from Abba to Zappa.” Frank Zappa was fascinated, horrified, and bemused. The rock-music legend was a widely respected cult icon, one of the best guitar players in America, and an accomplished composer. He believed anti-rock hysteria was due to a new television phenomenon: televangelism. “With the proliferation of video religion in the United States,” said Zappa, “and all these fundamentalist organizations gathering up millions of dollars, you’re looking at a whole nation full of potential mutants who could be
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Pastor Jim Brown of the Psalms Ministry in Ironton, Ohio, held a mass burning of Television’s Greatest Hits, a double album featuring classic theme songs. Pastor Brown claimed that if you reversed one of the theme songs, you could hear Satan himself say, “The source is the devil.” The theme song was Mister Ed.
Other supplemental research was provided by the Victory Christian Church of St. Charles, Missouri. They prepared a rock music research packet in which they denied the Holocaust, condemned Hollywood’s “race-mixing,” referred to Martin “Lucifer” King, and accused Bruce Springsteen of singing in satanic code. The PMRC sponsored a senate hearing about lyrics and music videos. Held in September 1985, the hearing was endorsed by only two music industry notables: Mike Love of the Beach Boys and Smokey Robinson of Motown fame. Everyone else rejected the PMRC, including Hall & Oates, John Cougar
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John Denver: I’ve had my experience … with this sort of censorship. My song “Rocky Mountain High” was banned from many radio stations as a drug-related song. This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains … Mr. Chairman, what assurance have I that any national panel to review my music would make any better judgment? … Mr. Chairman, the suppression of the people of a society begins, in my mind, with the censorship of the written or spoken word. It was so in Nazi Germany
“Now, it seems to me that there are a couple of forces at work in American society,” said Zappa. “Those two major forces would be the advertising industry and the Republican Party. They have a vested interest in bad schools because the dumber people are, the easier it is for them to work their special magic on the electorate … This economy will only work if people are kept sub-stupid and are kept paranoid to the point they will continually invest in weapons.”
Texas was one of the last states enforcing obscenity laws. The group 2 Live Crew had recently been prosecuted for a Texas engagement and comedy team Bowley & Wilson were arrested at a Dallas comedy club for singing a song about farts. Clay’s manager felt it best to cancel the gig.
“One of the fantasies that has been created during the Reagan administration is the myth of the liberal media bias,” complained Frank Zappa in October 1988. “Even if you have liberal reporters covering the events—they could be wildly left wing covering the event—the guy who pays the salaries has the right—and usually uses it—to tell the man who does the editing for the television news how it’s going to be done.” Zappa added, “If you raise this bogeyman of liberal media bias, it gives you the license under the idea of American fairness to give the people on the other side a little bit more time
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The Rush Limbaugh Show held a contract with Premiere On Call, a company that provided actors to phone into the program and agree with the host. The purpose was to create the illusion of consensus. Premiere On Call told its clients, “We supply voice talent [for] your on-air calls, improvise your scenes or deliver your scripts
Massive amounts of cash from the Scaife, Mellon, and Olin fortunes sustained the Culture War. They also sustained the political career of Senator Jesse Helms, one of Dr. King’s greatest haters. Helms was elected in 1972 after defeating North Carolina Congressman Nick Galifianakis, the uncle of comedian Zach Galifianakis. Helms’s talking points were supplied to him by the Heritage Foundation.
In the 1970s, Pat Robertson purchased property and broadcast licenses with the charitable donations he solicited over the air. He loaned Ted Turner the money to start CNN, and he purchased the rights to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Throughout the 1980s, he became known for outlandish statements. In one of his most famous moments, Robertson called feminism “a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
“There were close to two hundred of us,” recalled one officer. “We had our marching orders. We were told that under no circumstance that they were to perform that song … We immediately jumped on the stage and started taking out amplifiers.” Priority Records, NWA’s label, received hundreds of letters of complaint. A reporter with the Village Voice tried to determine their origin: “To find out why the letters were so often alike, I called their authors, who came from all over the country. I checked more than 100 letters. Most of the letters claimed that the authors would ‘never buy an album from
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Police unions said “Cop Killer” would lead to widespread assassinations. Ice-T laughed at the assertion. “The album has been out since March, we’ve been performing this album for two years out on the road,” he said. “It’s stupid. Where are all these dead cops? The people who listen to music understand music. And they take it as just that. I think there’s a lot of ulterior motives … Why are they continually calling this record a rap album? This is a rock album done by Black guys
“Charlton Heston … is nothing but a politician,” said Ice-T. “He rallies against me, but then at the same time he lobbies to keep a bullet called the cop killer legal because he’s spokesperson … of the NRA. So, he’s got his shit twisted.”
The three-network monopoly of ABC, CBS, and NBC
triopoly?
That year, the category for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program was presented by comedian Gilbert Gottfried. At the last minute, he decided to ignore the teleprompter and deliver a series of jokes about the recent arrest of Pee-wee Herman in an adult movie theater: Y’know, I’ll tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, I sleep a lot better since Pee-wee Herman has been arrested. [audience laughter] Masturbation’s a crime—I should be on death row! [audience laughter] Masturbation’s against the law—I should have been sent to the electric chair years ago. [audience laughter] To
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First Lady Barbara Bush watched just one episode of The Simpsons. Despite having raised future president George W. Bush, she called The Simpsons “the dumbest thing I had ever seen.”
A pair of Catholic nuns from Miami Shores, Florida, pretended to condemn The Simpsons, but actually cashed in. “I don’t think Bart is helping us,” said a nun. “We hope in some way to balance out Bart.” The nuns copied The Simpsons shirt design and released a new clothing line featuring “colorful decals of popular saints.”
Political observers from outside the United States were contemptuous. German correspondent Mario Dederichs said, “The discussion here [in America] is so shallow that sometimes Europeans really feel that there is a loss of reality here in the whole political discussion.” BBC reporter Gavin Esler explained, “When you have a campaign in which people can take comments about Murphy Brown, a fictitious character’s pregnancy seriously—they seriously discuss this—it strikes most Europeans as utterly bizarre.”
“The mother says he had never played with matches or lighters prior to witnessing ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ and laughing about fire being fun,” said the fire chief. “The mother told our investigator that Austin watched ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ all the time and became obsessed with playing with fire. We’re going to ask MTV to remove those segments—and if they won’t do it voluntarily, we’ll go through the powers that be and force pressure on them.” Politicians led the charge for cancelation. MTV refused to end the program but did delete certain antisocial segments and put the kibosh on lighters,
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Exit to Eden starring Dan Aykroyd was banned in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
A longtime fan of comedy and tireless advocate for comedians, Steve Allen could no longer defend his genre. He rejected the comedy of the 1990s and said he’d much rather listen to Amos ’n’ Andy because they “never depended on shock to get laughs.”
The Bradley Foundation, a powerful and ubiquitous far-right piggy bank, provided grants to cash-starved schools in exchange for mandatory courses about Ayn Rand.
The White Citizens’ Councils that had opposed the Civil Rights Movement had been defunct for decades. But as Y2K approached, they reemerged under the name the Council of Conservative Citizens. According to the president of a Mississippi chapter, they used the “old White Citizens Council mailing lists to set up the new organization.” The Council of Conservative Citizens said they were tired of the culture of “political correctness,” which derided them as racists simply because they were racist.
