Friday, September 29, 2023

Hallmark censors Frasier

As our household makes its way through Frasier, we listen closely for the missing words. The Hallmark Channel bleeps ass, balls, bastard, bitch, and butt. Buncha prigs! Yet the overtly bawdy often stands, as when Niles Crane reports a typo in the advertisement he placed for his Jungian practice. From “Love Bites Dog,” (September 24, 1996):

Niles Crane. Hung specialist. Servicing individuals, couples, groups. Satisfaction guaranteed. Tell me where it hurts.
You can watch the scene at YouTube.

The most awkward excision thus far, from “High Crane Drifter” (12th March 1996), Niles speaking:
“Oh, for God’s sake, Frasier, don’t waste your breath on this hairy, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing troglodyte who’s probably the only male in existence who suffers from envy.”
Hallmark apparently cuts scenes as well. See this Reddit thread: Damn you, Hallmark channel! And if it doesn’t go without saying, everything is a tad speeded up to make more room for commercials.

A related post
Hallmark is a bleep

comments: 6

Anonymous said...

imagine being the persons who have to sit through all of them and censor! let's face it it is censoring!

about tv shows and commercials: if i bing shows on dvd it's always fun to see how the time of the shows changes as the years go on. some of the earlier hour shows were around 48 minutes but many now are down to almost 42 minutes.

even 30 minute shows today are down to about 21 minutes.

kirsten

Michael Leddy said...

Fast-forwarding through commercials on a “smart” TV really brings home how much time they take up. YouTube has some clips to show how Seinfeld episodes have been speeded up. There may be ones for other shows too.

Chris said...

I'd be curious to know whether they censored the "Banger, Dad?" scene.

Michael Leddy said...

That’s in there. They’re dumbly literal in their choices, which at least means that it’s relatively easy to figure out what’s missing. They even let “fellatio” through — maybe they were unfamiliar with the term.

Sean Crawford said...

From old black and white clips on Youtube I know shows had much less commercial time, because people said so. During my day, during color TV, the rules went from allowing 12 to 16 minutes per hour. I forget what year the change was. Hence shows no longer begin with a ballad.

Michael Leddy said...

I just checked to make sure that it was the Hallmark version of the episode (“Guess Who’s Coming to Breakfast?”) that we watched. It was. They kept Daphne’s “toad in the hole” line as well.