The Simpsons
#31

I may be wrong, but doesn't Cartridge Family on that VHS have the VT Clock with a message about the BBC airdate?

Swear I read that on the blue place before.
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#32

Abe once called Homer a d***head and that was on BBC2.
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#33

(26-01-2023, 10:46 PM)TIGHazard Wrote:  I may be wrong, but doesn't Cartridge Family on that VHS have the VT Clock with a message about the BBC airdate?

Swear I read that on the blue place before.

Surely it can't considering that video came out in 1999 BBC2 didn't show it until 2001.
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#34

(26-01-2023, 09:29 PM)octothorpe Wrote:  
(26-01-2023, 08:06 PM)JAS84 Wrote:  Yeah, there was a VHS called Too Hot for TV, which served as the UK premiere for The Cartridge Family since as the video tape's name suggests, it hadn't aired on television.

Oh, I wasn't aware of that! I digress here, but I've often wondered how many people have actually bought a VHS/DVD of any show in the past and watched a yet-to-air episode, and actually how many of them were aware of that. E.g. when the unaired Mr. Bean episode (the haircut/pet show one) was released on home media before TV; various episodes of late My Family had that happen to them as well (two episodes released on the series 10 DVD that didn't air until the series 11 TV run, with the series 11 DVD released early too), and I personally took advantage of that at the time.

Might depend on the show, Coronation Street got caught up in a home "exclusive" thing:
tvforum.uk 

Mr Bean though managed IIRC to last about 10 years before that episode was ultimately aired in the UK, though it had apparently appeared abroad. Long enough not to cause a problem, but then of course there was a new Mr Bean movie coming out the following year so...

My Family went downhill major big time towards the end of its life and it was somewhere around Series 10 that things went sour behind the scenes with the principal cast decreeing that the scripts were crap.  Which may be why the DVD release got a bit screwed up.
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#35

(26-01-2023, 11:33 PM)James2001 Wrote:  
(26-01-2023, 10:46 PM)TIGHazard Wrote:  I may be wrong, but doesn't Cartridge Family on that VHS have the VT Clock with a message about the BBC airdate?

Swear I read that on the blue place before.

Surely it can't considering that video came out in 1999 BBC2 didn't show it until 2001.

If I recall correctly it was a message about when the BBC could air it. Something like "Do not air before August 2001" or whenever. I can't seem to find the tvforum post about it though, maybe it was in one of dead links or was something added to the wiki that was inaccurate.
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#36

(26-01-2023, 11:41 PM)Neil Jones Wrote:  
(26-01-2023, 09:29 PM)octothorpe Wrote:  Oh, I wasn't aware of that! I digress here, but I've often wondered how many people have actually bought a VHS/DVD of any show in the past and watched a yet-to-air episode, and actually how many of them were aware of that. E.g. when the unaired Mr. Bean episode (the haircut/pet show one) was released on home media before TV; various episodes of late My Family had that happen to them as well (two episodes released on the series 10 DVD that didn't air until the series 11 TV run, with the series 11 DVD released early too), and I personally took advantage of that at the time.

Might depend on the show, Coronation Street got caught up in a home "exclusive" thing:
tvforum.uk 

Mr Bean though managed IIRC to last about 10 years before that episode was ultimately aired in the UK, though it had apparently appeared abroad. Long enough not to cause a problem, but then of course there was a new Mr Bean movie coming out the following year so...

My Family went downhill major big time towards the end of its life and it was somewhere around Series 10 that things went sour behind the scenes with the principal cast decreeing that the scripts were crap.  Which may be why the DVD release got a bit screwed up.

Re: My Family, series 10 and 11 were filmed back-to-back, and the cast at the time just said it was up to the Beeb how they showed it. The BBC had clearly got sick of the show by 2010, as they put the new series out in summer rather than a more plum slot earlier or later in the year, and the ratings nosedived. Obvious they wanted to do something like what US networks sometime do with comedies to see if they can hold up away from the cosy crutch they've maybe been in all season - move them to another slot and evaluate the extent to which viewers followed.

MF's final run actually got screwed over by an episode being delayed due to overrunning Wimbledon coverage and simply being pegged onto the end of the series (on top of an accidental iPlayer availability in the hours after its intended broadcast time), and IMO it worked out in the end as that episode served as a much better series finale than the episode which consequently became the penultimate episode of the show.

(26-01-2023, 11:56 PM)TIGHazard Wrote:  
(26-01-2023, 11:33 PM)James2001 Wrote:  Surely it can't considering that video came out in 1999 BBC2 didn't show it until 2001.

If I recall correctly it was a message about when the BBC could air it. Something like "Do not air before August 2001" or whenever. I can't seem to find the tvforum post about it though, maybe it was in one of dead links or was something added to the wiki that was inaccurate.

That's certainly quite interesting! I've subscribed to this thread, so I'll be sure to follow in case this gets verified!

Here's something about Cartridge on IMDb...:
Quote:This episode was [...] originally banned in the UK (as well as other countries) because of the soccer riot opening and the episode depicting guns in a comical and positive light (which the UK's censor boards find to be offensive and likely to encourage others into committing gun violence, especially with the Dunblane school massacre occurring a year before episode premiered). It eventually aired on UK TV on BBC Two in 2001. The network typically broadcast episodes four years after its premiere, making it the only episode to get its UK premiere on the BBC rather than on Sky One. When the episode finally aired on Sky, the end scene of Marge trying to throw out the gun, but stopping when she realized it makes her look cool was edited, making it seem that Marge got rid of the gun offscreen, yet the edit ruins the explanation of why she was walking like a femme fatale when she exited the motel. Other scenes were edited as well.

...and from TVTropes:
Quote:The heavy references to guns and Reckless Gun Usage being Played for Laughs (and shown in such a way that glamorizes guns and/or makes gun misuse susceptible to imitation in real life) got this episode banned on the UK's Sky One channel. It didn't help that production started just after the Dunblane school massacre which resulted in the passage of the Firearms (Amendment) Act of 1997. It was available on the VHS release "The Simpsons: Too Hot for TV", and when The BBC (the terrestrial broadcaster of The Simpsons in the UK from 1997 to 2004) got the rights to season 9, they had no qualms about showing the episode uncut. Sky followed suit when the rights reverted to them. This episode was also broadcast by Channel 4 (the successor to the BBC as the show's terrestrial broadcaster), but they cut the end where Marge goes to throw away the gun, only to keep it for herself when she sees how good she looks with it in the trashcan reflection.

...and here's a write-up from website CBR:

Quote:Sky1 -- the network that aired episodes of The Simpsons at the time in the UK -- pulled the episode, as reported by Off the Telly. Fans in the UK could only see "The Cartridge Family" on a special VHS/DVD release titled The Simpsons: Too Hot for TV, which featured other controversial episodes of the series. Eventually, "The Cartridge Family" was aired on BBC Two, Sky1, and later Channel 4 as they each gained the rights to air reruns of the show. However, the ending was edited so that Marge never took the gun back, leaving it in the trash at the conclusion of the episode.

The change gave the more politically nuanced episode a stark ending, supporting a more defiant and negative view on guns. As such, it quietly went against one of the principal messages of the episode. Although "The Cartridge Family" didn't glorify gun ownership, it did show local members of the Springfield NRA to be reasonably responsible gun owners. They kicked Homer out of the group when they saw his reckless nature with the firearm and they ended up saving the family from the gun-toting, psuedo-Indiana Jones character Snake near the end of the installment.

But the danger of guns -- especially in poor hands -- was still highlighted, with Snake threatening the family with one and Homer repeatedly endangering multiple lives. The episode was designed specifically so it wouldn't come down too hard on either side of the debate. By altering the ending of the episode, Channel 4 made "The Cartridge Family" a more definite criticism of guns.

It's certainly an interesting case. I think the only equivalent in the US would be the episode of Family Guy that was banned because Fox got too squeaky-bum-time over the fact it was centred around abortion. That's only available over there on home media, AFAIK, yet was aired here to little fanfare other than having the unique circumstance of the episode being shown here before there, something The Simpsons would enjoy the following year with the episode set in Ireland; it's not available on streaming here or over there, though (at least on Disney+ here, who knows what ITV2 might do). There was also a case a few years ago of BBC2, for whatever reason, missing out the episode of Family Guy's thirteenth season, and its UK premiere ended up being as part of a routine repeat run on ITV2 late at night, with no recognition of the circumstances at all.

Anyway, I digress; there's also some other articles that may be relevant in this discussion online, but Wayback Machine appears to be being belligerent my end right now, so I'll link to them when I can. Apols for the very lengthy post.


EDIT:
After doing some Googling, here's a few websites that may be of interest, including write-ups and forum threads from the time:


[*]Equivalent TVForum thread: tvforum.uk 

[*]Blog post about episode censorship: cwickham.blogspot.com 

[*]Post from the same blog about the show's history on the BBC: cwickham.blogspot.com 

[*]A couple DS Forum threads about City of New York/Cartridge cropping up on Sky in 2005: forums.digitalspy.com forums.digitalspy.com 




...and the Simpsons Archive episode capsule for Cartridge might have a more concrete explanation for Sky's reluctance to show it... or it might just be presumption like what I've done:

Quote:>> The Sky's the limit...

Lets hope the people at Sky TV in the UK aren't supersticious. 5F01 was going
  to be broadcast as usual back in 1997, but shortly before it premiered, a
  mass-shooting occured in the States (can't remember whereabouts). In
  respect for the victims (and for their own good name), Sky didn't show "The
  Cartridge Family," and instead, released it around 1.5/2 years later on
  the "Too Hot For TV" video tape.  The episode was going to be broadcast
  sometime after January 1st 2000 when the incident wasn't recent anymore,
  but then sometime close to the release of the video tape version, the
  Colorado tragedy happened, shoving it back once again. Who knows if it will
  ever be seen on UK television.

Ross Tregaskis:  Strangely, they allowed "Homer the Vigilante" (1F10) through
  uncut (which has a similar plotline and gun references).
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#37

(26-01-2023, 11:41 PM)Neil Jones Wrote:  Might depend on the show, Coronation Street got caught up in a home "exclusive" thing:
tvforum.uk 

Reminds me of the Brookside Lost Weekend video. While it wasn't broadcast, they kept referencing the events of it in the regular show to the point where people who hadn't seen the video had no idea what was going on. At least other home video spin-offs of soaps tend to be pretty much stand alone. Usually they were set up in the main show (though Fiona and Maxine's presence in the Corrie Viva Las Vegas video went against the continuinity of the main show), but they didn't tend to mention the events of the video in the show afterwards, so it didn't matter if you'd seen it or not.
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#38

I’m late but interesting to note how seasons of the show that haven’t been with C4 for years now (S4, S5 and S12) have undergone new editing further censoring scenes from already butchered episodes.

Tonight’s episode '$pringfield' sees the removal of Homer screaming alongside Dustin Hoffman in the Rain Man parody scene.
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