How strict was your upbringing w/r/t TV shows?

[Sex Machine Gun]

I was barred from watching Beavis and Butt-Head by my grandmother (I was raised by my grandparents), but when I'd visit my mother in Bennettsville or Gastonia we'd stay up specifically to watch it. My grandmother tried to get MTV blocked on our cable feed by Storer Cable and later Comcast, but was thwarted when she found out that there was no way to block the basic channels. I was robbed of my static screened but still very, very viewable HBO feed when she found out you could still pretty much watch it one day. Everyone was kinda pink and had crap around their teeth, but I could still see boobs as a kid and it was robbed from me. Anyway, were your parents/guardians nuts about keeping you from seeing bad things or what?

 

[BruiserBrody]

"Andy if you don't shut off Billy Connelly you'll have to go to confession tomorrow!"

Married...wth Children BANNED

 

[Jebus]

Not strict at all. Parents are cool.

Although, my mom wasn't happy with me wanting to watch Beavis & Butt-Head after she saw that story that the show encouraged a kid to burn his home after watching it and the fire killed his little sister. I had to remind her: I'm not an idiot.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Cool thread. My Mom banned MTV on the cable box until I was 10 or 11 or so. She was really disapproving of me and my younger brother watching Beavis and Butthead. She also briefly told us we couldn't watch WWF during the peak of the Attitude era but she kind of forgot and after a few weeks of only watching WCW, we went back to watching RAW as usual.

I wasn't allowed to watch R rated movies by my mom until I was 14 but Dad didn't care and he even occasionally encouraged us to watch "objectionable" content so long as it wasn't too violent. Hence, I saw a lot of zany R rated teen comedies at an impressionable age.

 

[Jingus]

My parents were semi-strict. Of course, we had neither cable nor a VCR until I was eleven or twelve years old anyway, so there wasn't much to censor. I do remember when I was real young that mom didn't want me watching GI Joe because of all the gun violence, nevermind the fact that nobody ever got shot. (Actually, in some ways, that may make it worse; I wonder if any kids ever wound up accidentally killing someone when trying to re-enact some A Team scene where a thousand rounds get fired off but nobody ever gets hit.) When The Simpsons first hit, she was also one of those whiners who thought that Bart was a bad influence on kids. Never mind that I couldn't ride a skateboard and had no statue readily available for me to decapitate. Married With Children was banned on similar grounds. I was too old for the Beavis & Butthead craze by the time it came around.

As for movies, I wasn't allowed to see anything remotely R-rated until I was in middle school, and even then it was a fight. They objected way more to anything sexual, buncha Protestant prudes, would've fit in perfectly at the MPAA. I didn't have the freedom to watch whatever I wanted until I was like 17 or so, and even then I basically had to watch whatever in my room by myself if I didn't want to get bitched at for corrupting my innocence or some shit.

 

[Precious Roy]

Mom was generally chill when it came to TV/Movies as long as I could give an explanation as to why I wanted to watch what I wanted to watch, granted it wasn't overly graphic or explicit. With music on the other hand she had a real bug up her ass, didn't want me listening to Jimi Hendrix because he was a drug addict, didn't want me to play guitar or drums, didn't want me listening to rap music and would confiscate whatever tapes I had with parental warnings on them, wouldn't let me get the first Porno for Pyros tape because she didn't like the name of the band, etc. etc. From like 10-13 it was straight up bullshit trying to listen to music around my house.

My dad on the other hand didn't give a fuck, and bought me half the stuff my mom was freaking out about. I kind of wish he'd been a little more responsible, some of the movies I watched at a young age probably deeply scarred my brain.

 

[Aero]

I'm pretty sure that Beavis & Butt-Head was banned, but that was really about it until shortly before Wrestlemania XIV, my parents randomly decided that me and my brothers weren't allowed to watch wrestling anymore (after 6+ years). That lasted about a week and a half before it was seemingly just forgot about or something.

 

[Precious Roy]

When The Simpsons first hit, she was also one of those whiners who thought that Bart was a bad influence on kids.

Hahaha, yeah, my mom hated The Simpsons

I don't hold any grudges though, it's tough being a parent, you shouldn't judge them

 

[Smues]

Only shows I was ever banned from watching were Beavis & Butthead for the first year or two it was on, but I watched it anyway as my mom was sleeping (she worked night shift) when it was on at the 7pm hour, and she was at work on the weekends when it would be on at 11pm or whatever it was. And the other show? You can't do that on television.

Yeah, I have no idea why, but my mom didn't want me watching it when I was little.

That was it though. I could play any video games I wanted (Mortal Kombat, Leisure Suit Larry), or watch any movies, but Beavis and Butthead and YCDTOT were off-limits.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

My parents were wayy permissive. They let me watch Terminator 2 when I was like six years old and my mom started taking me to see violent R rated movies in the theater when I was nine. I was also allowed to watch Beavis & BUTT-head and South Park with impunity.

 

[bigolsmitty]

My mom secretly liked Beavis & Butthead.

 

[Czech]

Everything except The Larry Sanders Show was fair game through 1996; I was trusted to make good decisions. And I did! Left to my own devices, I just watched Press Your Luck and Kids in the Hall. There was a half-hearted attempt at a Beavis and Butthead ban on the heels of all that arson crap, but my parents watched it and decided "this isn't dangerous, it's just stupid" and so that was in play as well. (It also got my mom hooked on Singled Out, I'm pretty sure. Caught her watching that once, which made me feel weird.)

I was watching our videotape of Wayne's World since at least the tail end of 1992 because there's a home video from some 1st grade event in which I yell "EXTREME CLOSE-UP WAAAAAH!!!" I did make the mistake of asking my mom if the Shitty Beatles were a real band, but not in public, thank heavens.

 

[Gary]

My parents were weird in that they'd let me watch "The Simpsons" and R rated movies, but forbade me from watching "Beavis and Butthead."

 

[Czech]

You're a little older than I am, Garfl, so I'm surprised you were in the "Beavis = History's Greatest Monster" window as well. We never had problems with The Simpsons, though. As a matter of fact, when my sister was born in November of 1990, her "present" to me (more like a "here read this while we pay attention to the child we'll ultimately love than you" diversion) was a picture book of the series premiere/Christmas special. Now do you see why I have such an aversion to tattoos? At an early age I realized the harmful effects a tattoo can have on a family!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

My Mom every once and a while threatened us to forbid us from watching The Simpsons but Pops Kamala enjoyed it so much, he always overruled her. We also had the picture book of the series premiere that we busted out every Christmas.

 

[Precious Roy]

I think Beavis and Butthead debuted in 1993, which would mean I was 12 or 13 at the time. I remember it being the talk of town at school, and I remember going to friend's houses specifically to watch it, but we didn't have cable at that point and I don't think a discussion of the show ever really came up. I don't think I ever wanted any of the merchandise, which they produced a shit-ton of. That show must have made MTV so much fucking money, and probably helped lead to the awful fucking channel they have now.

 

[The Metal Maniac]

You know, the only show I can actually remember being told I wasn't allowed to watch was Weird Science. Me and my sister made the mistake of watching it in the same room with our dad, and after some sexual references he shut it off. Oh, and my aunt once made me switch off Duckman, cuz it had the warning beforehand.

Thinking back, they were pretty permissive with what we could watch. I wonder if they really knew what we were watching though; we had tvs upstairs and down, so they weren't over our shoulders or anything. I never heard them say anything about Beavis and Butthead, for example, but I watched it all the time.

 

[CookieMueller]

I was about 10 when Beavis and Butthead was big and I was one of only two kids in my class that was allowed to watch it. The other kid is still my best friend today.

I never remember my parents banning ANYTHING from me, and I had a TV (with HBO) in my bedroom from about the time I was 9. The only rule with regards to the tv was that it be off by a certain time (9pm when I was younger, the Monday Night Wars eventually pushed it back to 11pm). I could watch just about any movie (well, any that a preteen girl would wanna see). I also remember my mom taking me to see R-rated movies at the theater all the time, but only ones that my dad didn't wanna go with her to see. Single White Female was pretty interesting when I was like 11.

My parents were extremely lax in all fields, music included. I can't count how many times I had to call my mom in the store to buy a cassette for me. I really wanted that album that had the song "Short Dick Man" when I was about 11 (I didn't even know dick was in the title - on radio it was edited). The guy wouldn't sell it to me, so I had to call my mom in. The counter guy was like "Maam this tape is very vulgar, are you sure you want to buy it for your daughter?" And that just totally pissed my mom off. She ALWAYS bought my tapes from there after that just to piss that guy off. Listening to Nine Inch Nails "The Downward Spiral" when I was 12 was just about the coolest thing ever.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

I guess through a combination of being raised by a single mom who and pretty much always having a TV in another room (even when I was 5 and lived with both parents, I had a small TV in my own room that I vividly recall watching Heathcliff every morning on), no one ever really said "You can't watch this!". Married With Children was a show I assumed I shouldn't have been watching so I never really admitted to it until i was 14 or so (though I recall my father and I watching an episode when I visited him once - he doesn't strike me as the kind of person that would strictly monitor my TV viewing habits). The Simpsons was kind of on the fence for a bit - I distinctly remember watching the episode where Santa's Little Helper goes to obedience school and my mom made a comment along the lines of, "Wow, nice show her" then the word 'bitch' was thrown out there, but I ended up with a Bart Simpson t-shirt not too long after.

Movies were a bit different. For reasons I don't recall, I guess because I was just a good kid that followed on screen advisories unless nudity was involved (actually, I think I just didn't want to see graphic violence). I remember I had a cousin and two friends over and T2 was on. My mom was home and I was worried I'd get in trouble if she caught us watching it, so we didn't (and in fact, I did not see the movie until about 2002 or so) but my cousin made sure to make fun of me for 'not being allowed' to watch an R rated movie. I know my mom got slightly (but not very) angry when I told her I had watched Nightmare on Elm Street 3 or 4 on TV - and by "on TV", I mean on a local UHF station that had to edit the movie for broadcast. I do remember there was controversy over watching Uncle Buck due to their being some "bad language" but this was quickly overturned (sadly I do not remember if the concern was my grandmother's and my mom didn't mind or vice versa).

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

How many here had a case of "I've never actually seen the show in question, but because I've heard bad things you can't watch it" or it's evil twin named "I'm going to watch approximately thirty seconds of this show before I declare it off-limits?" The latter of the two was the issue with The Simpsons in my household when it first came out and I was six years old.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

That reminded me - I DID have one show temporarily banned growing up... "You Can't Do That On Television". My mom and aunt decided to watch it with my cousin and I and determined after just a few sketches that the show "portrayed adults as stupid" and therefore it would cause us to be disrespectful. I don't remember why, how, or when this was overturned, but it was, and pretty quickly.

 

[Jaxxxson Mayhem]

I've had all kinds of bans. Beavis and Butthead, Simpsons (that one flopped quickly after it was 1st enforced), South Park, Raw (for a short time period and oddly enough it was deep into the attitude era. Apparently someone told them it was bad for kids to watch.... even though I was 12 or 13) etc, etc.


Great thread by the way.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

Another odd quirk I remember was my mom buying me some Captain Power action figures when I was hospitalized with an asthma attack in the late 80s. I started playing with them in some manner that made it clear the good guy and bad guy toys would be shooting at each other and she had a, "Well if I had known this was about a violent TV show..." comment about it. This was despite the fact I was raised on a generation of shows where all problems were solved with violence and already owned several MOTU toys and a plastic Sword of Omens toy and a hard plastic Thundercat claw (awesome memory on that - my grandmother often, jokingly, suggested she would use it on me if I didn't keep my 'sass mouth' under control). I actually think she may have been joking, but since this happened when I was 7 or 8, the exact context has been lost.

Has anyone ever had the experience of having a parent think something would be clean, family fun and suitable viewing only to be sorely mistaken?

 

[strummer]

My parents really never paid attention to TV and what shows were on so I pretty much had free reign. I was staying up to watch Letterman at 12:30 when I was 7. I was the first person in school to ever watch SNL. It's kind of funny because I paid far more attention to TV when I was real young than I do now (pretty much all sports and late night talk shows now)

I remember watching Beavis and Butthead with my uncle's new wife in 1994 or so and feeling very awkward. She was trying to be cool to get us to like her and it came off as creepy.

 

[samoarowe]

When I was around 11 or 12, my mom forbid me from watching The Simpsons. My mom was the type of person who you didn't mess with when it came to her rules, but this was probably the one thing growing up that I managed to get my way on. I just couldn't stop watching it after school (there was an hour and a half of it thanks to syndication between Fox and a local network) and she eventually just gave up on not letting me watch it anymore. It's funny looking back because The Simpsons is a pretty tame show considering, but back in the mid 90's it was considered to be pretty edgy stuff.

I didn't have cable, so I was never told not to watch Beavis and Butthead. I frequently saw it while at friends or relatives.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

I lived a lawless childhood. We never had a satellite dish until I was 14, I think, so it was never an issue. I was surreptitiously smoking by then anyway.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Very not strict at all. We even had a black box (utilized for WWF and WCW PPVs mainly) but I wasn't allowed to watch HBO of course.

Although I was into horror movies since I was young (at least 4 or 5) thanks to Mom being a horror fan so my sister and I would be watching horror movies and Mom would be like, "Cover your eyes" and as any responsible kid does, we'd peek through and promptly have nightmares for a week but it was worth it.

As a a result of that, I specifically remember the wolf man sending me into utter hysterics and I still have a fear of werewolves as a result. Didn't help that dear old Dad dressed up as the wolf man when I was roughly 5 or 6 and proceeded to "chase" me around the house.

We also saw Jurassic Park in theaters when I was 8 and my sister was 6 because I loved dinosaurs.

 

[mellow]

Nothing on basic cable was declared off-limits for me, as far as I can remember. During my younger years I was really into 80's horror flicks, with Freddy Krueger acting as sort of a surrogate father to me. Okay, that's not true, but I was really into the iconography, and, in fact, drew pictures of Freddy and Jason and the like all the time; for many of which I received compliments from my mother. The funny thing is that this came at a time where Phil Donahue and his ilk were terrifying parents across the nation with tales of misguided youths going on violent killing sprees inspired by horror films like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This bothered her enough to specifically ban all horror movies in the household (I routinely broke these rules late at night on weekends where I was the last one awake) for most of my younger years, though I eventually reasoned with her that I'm not some impressionable kid who's going to attack her with a hunting knife just because I saw it on the TV. Plus, she probably got tired of enforcing an unenforceable rule.

Today, my siblings, ages twelve and fourteen, respectively, have it much easier than I did in my youth.

 

[mellow]

Has anyone ever had the experience of having a parent think something would be clean, family fun and suitable viewing only to be sorely mistaken?

A few years back, when I was working the front desk at a public library, a woman approached me with a half-dozen or so DVD discs. I forget specific titles, but all of these videos, mostly animated, were clearly intended for what would likely be her grandchildren. Somewhere in this pile of movies I came across the Henson Studios production of Animal Farm, at which point I brought to her attention that it was definitely not intended for small children. I bet a lot of you sickos are disappointed that I would do something like that, too. I know that I am.

 

[Chazz]

I was forbade from watching The WWF for a little while after I executed a backbreaker on my kid sister.