The Toddlers' Truce on This Day in History

This Day in History: The Toddlers' Truce ended on this day in 1957. 

The Toddlers' Truce was an early British television scheduling policy that required transmissions to terminate for an hour each weekday between 6.00pm and 7.00pm – after the end of children's broadcasting and the start of the evening programs – so that young children could be put to bed.

"The policy didn't raise much of a reaction among audiences, although some in the government thought it reeked of a nanny state. However, the 1955 launch of the advertising-based ITV (in contrast to the BBC’s public broadcasting model) threw a wrench into the works. ITV felt that going dark for an entire hour, especially the one preceding primetime programming, meant the loss of an hour's worth of ad revenue, giving the BBC an unfair financial advantage." Source

Speaking of the nanny state...did you know that you need a license in the UK to watch live TV. 

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When You Weren't Allowed to Use the Word PREGNANT on This Day in History

 

Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America

This Day in History: Almost 72 percent of all television sets in the United States were tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth on this day in 1953. However, rules were strict back then, so they couldn't use the word "pregnant" opting instead for the French term "Enceinte." Lucy was pregnant for the entire season of I Love Lucy, but they weren't allowed to actually use the word PREGNANT once. They were allowed to tell audiences what was going on: the show got used phrases like "with child," "having a baby," and "expecting."

Old time television at one point couldn't show toilets either. It was not until Leave It To Beaver that people got to see a toilet on TV, and even then they couldn't even show the whole commode. In 1960 Jack Paar walked off the set of "The Tonight Show" in the middle of taping an episode because censors cut a joke that used the phrase "water closet."

You couldn't show shared beds on TV back then either. On TV shows, married couples such as The Dick Van Dyke Show’s Rob and Laura Petrie (Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore) were forced to sleep in widely separated twin beds.

Also: "On the dramatic anthology series 'Playhouse 90,' an episode titled 'Judgment at Nuremberg' has all references to gas chambers eliminated from its re-enactment of the Nazi trials. This is done at the behest of the show's slightly sensitive sponsor, the American Gas Association." Source

Barbara Eden was not allowed to show her navel on I Dream of Jeannie.

The Doors were not allowed to sing about getting Higher on the Ed Sullivan show. Jim Morrison used the word anyways.

Mick Jagger, the lead singer for The Rolling Stones, was asked to change the line “Let’s spend the night together” to “Let’s spend some time together” on the Ed Sullivan show.

Early TV would show Elvis only above the waist because of his gyrating hips. 

Motion Picture Production Code 'punished Betty Boop for her short hemlines and garter, for her sex appeal and for her representation of liberation and fun.' As a result, 'her hemlines were lengthened, her garter removed,' and she began wearing pencil skirts and collars. She also became a nanny, as she transitioned to 'a responsible, maternal ‘mother.’" Source

Warner Brothers' Tweety Bird was once considered too naked for TV. Source