There are bad TV scenes, and then there are TV scenes that psychiatrists say can push viewers to commit unthinkable acts. Here's proof that some small screen moments really do deserve to be on the cutting room floor.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00There are bad TV scenes, and then there are TV scenes that psychiatrists say can push
00:04viewers to commit unthinkable acts.
00:07Here's proof that some small-screen moments really do deserve to be on the cutting room
00:11floor.
00:12Believe it or not, the Big Bang Theory got off on the wrong foot.
00:15The powers-that-be reflected on the original pilot episode and decided to cut one particular
00:20scene from the version that went into syndication.
00:23They thought it was a little… inappropriate, and they're not wrong.
00:26Is this the… high-IQ sperm bank?
00:29If you have to ask, maybe you shouldn't be here."
00:35That's right.
00:36The very first scene of the Big Bang pilot involved Leonard and Sheldon going to a genius-only
00:40sperm bank to make some money.
00:42For a show where most of the jokes amount to,
00:44"...look at how nerdy these nerds are!"
00:46it's a pretty risqué way to kick things off.
00:49It also feels out of character for Sheldon, who later in the series would struggle with
00:53the ins and outs of sexual behavior.
00:55"...there's no guarantee that our sperm is going to generate high-IQ offspring.
00:58Think about that.
00:59I have a sister with the same basic DNA mix who hosts us at Fuddruckers."
01:03The sperm bank scene did make it back in the episode, if you're streaming it on Max.
01:07While, yes, the scene does raise some questions in the age of binge-watching, it's arguably
01:11necessary since there's a callback in Season 12 when Zack and Marissa ask Leonard to be
01:16their sperm donor.
01:18The characters in Squid Game are put through the wringer, but in one case, a real-life
01:21person got a touch of the Squid Game treatment thanks to a massive production oversight.
01:26In the first episode, Song Gi-hun receives a card containing a phone number he can call
01:30if he wishes to compete in the games.
01:32One problem — the number was real, and after the show's premiere, one person was unindated
01:37with thousands of calls a day.
01:39If you think that's funny, think again.
01:41The unlucky person told Money Today,
01:43"...since the airing of Squid Game, I've been receiving text messages and calls 24 hours
01:47a day that make it difficult for me to live my daily life.
01:51I get calls out of curiosity day and night without any sense of time, to the point where
01:55my phone battery would run out in half a day."
01:57And it wasn't just one person who was subjected to the phone nightmare.
02:01Someone else also received frequent calls, since their phone number was only one digit
02:05off.
02:06The person told The Korea Times,
02:07"...the stress from incessant prank calls is driving me crazy."
02:10And get this — neither person had any idea that the calls were coming from Squid Game
02:15fans.
02:16Netflix edited the episode so that viewers can no longer see the phone number, but we
02:19have to wonder if they kicked in for PTSD treatment for their unwitting victims.
02:24The first season of 13 Reasons Why centers around the suicide of Hannah Baker, and the
02:28cassette tape she'd left for the people in her life to help them understand why she killed
02:32herself.
02:33While suicide is a topic of discussion throughout the season, things came to a head in Episode
02:3713, Tape 7, Side A, in which viewers actually see what happened.
02:42Creator Brian Yorkey released a statement to X explaining the choice, writing,
02:46Our creative intent in portraying the ugly, painful reality of suicide in such graphic
02:51detail in Season 1 was to tell the truth about the horror of such an act and make sure no
02:55one would ever wish to emulate it.
02:58But many experts disagreed, pointing out how depictions of suicide can make viewers more
03:02likely to contemplate the act themselves.
03:04Immediately following the backlash, Netflix added more trigger warnings.
03:08"...if you are struggling with these issues yourself, this series may not be right for
03:12you."
03:13Unfortunately, more than two years after the show first aired, it pulled the scene entirely.
03:18But even that may not be enough.
03:19Lisa Horowitz, a pediatric psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health, told
03:24NPR,
03:25One of the things that mental health clinicians recommend is that you don't talk about or
03:28publish the suicide note.
03:30And 13 Reasons Why is really 13 hours of a suicide note, and that's a problem.
03:35The office went for shock humor in the cold open of Season 6, Episode 8, Koi Pond.
03:40The Dunder Mifflin staff set up an appropriately lame haunted house for kids to go through,
03:44with Michael Scott promising to really scare them.
03:47At the end of the tour, we see that Michael's attempt to scare them involves him faking
03:51his own death via suicide before cutting the act, turning to the children, and saying,
03:56"...kids, just remember, suicide is never the answer."
04:03All the while, Michael is dressed as one of the d**k-in-a-box guys from Saturday Night
04:07Live.
04:08Surprisingly, many viewers complained, and the moment also reportedly drew criticism
04:12from Karen Zucker, then-wife of NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Zucker, who previously worked in
04:18suicide prevention.
04:19The entire cold open was subsequently removed from reruns, and it's nowhere to be found
04:23on its current home at Peacock.
04:26Blackface dates back to the 19th century, when white performers would wear dark makeup
04:30and perform offensive caricatures of black people.
04:32It's an incredibly racist practice, but somehow it continues to crop up on screen in the 21st
04:38century, and on mainstream shows like 30 Rock, The Office, and five episodes of It's Always
04:42Sunny in Philadelphia.
04:44In 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests, many streamers finally pulled or edited episodes
04:49depicting Blackface from their lineups.
04:51In a Season 9 episode of The Office, Dwight Christmas, Dwight dresses up as Belsnickel,
04:56a figure from Germanic folklore.
04:58I am nigh!"
05:00After researching the character, his colleagues become worried about his sidekick.
05:04His partner, Schwarte Piet, or Black Peter, a slave boy, often portrayed in colorful pantaloons
05:10and blackface.
05:12Dwight insists he'd never go that far, but he already has.
05:14He tells Nate, who's wearing blackface, to get rid of it.
05:17The scene can no longer be found on Peacock.
05:19Office creator Greg Daniels explained to The Hollywood Reporter,
05:22"...the show employed satire to expose unacceptable behavior and deliver a message of inclusion.
05:27Blackface is unacceptable and making the point so graphically is hurtful and wrong.
05:32I'm sorry for the pain that caused."
05:34Game of Thrones was such a massive production that it's something of a miracle it came together
05:38as well as it did, even if it completely fumbled the ending.
05:41There were multiple signs that the final season was coming undone a bit, such as the presence
05:45of a paper coffee cup resting on a table next to Daenerys Targaryen in the episode The Last
05:50of the Starks.
05:51This is it!
05:52Here it comes!
05:53Here it comes!
05:54Hey!
05:55Oh my god, that's so cool!
05:57Contrary to popular belief, it actually wasn't a Starbucks cup as the whole internet immediately
06:01assumed.
06:02It came from a coffee shop in Northern Ireland near where they were filming, which probably
06:05could have used all of the publicity that Starbucks got instead.
06:08"...the coffee cup got more press than the final season altogether."
06:11As expected, HBO edited out the coffee cup pretty quickly, heading off any speculation
06:16about what kind of coffee shops are present in Westeros.
06:18"...they thought you were great."
06:20It's a good thing there are no Starbucks in this fictional land.
06:23If the baristas have trouble spelling common names, can you imagine them trying to spell
06:27Daenerys?
06:28The most embarrassing gaffe would befall Game of Thrones in its final episode, when
06:32a water bottle was spotted during a scene.
06:34The Star Wars franchise includes lightsabers that can slice a body in two, and space whales
06:39that can create tunnels through hyperspace, but apparently a guy wearing jeans is a step
06:43too far.
06:44In The Mandalorian Chapter 12, The Siege, Din Djarin gets into a shootout with some
06:48stormtroopers, and if you look closely during this sequence, you can see a person standing
06:53behind the doorway, wearing a green shirt, watch, and blue jeans.
06:56It's an incredibly hilarious thing to miss, and sharp-eyed fans mocked it mercilessly.
07:01There was even a meme dubbing the person Admiral Jeff Blue Jeans, complete with a mock-up of
07:05his very own action figure.
07:07Jeans Guy was digitally removed shortly after the episode aired, but while he may be gone,
07:11the internet never forgets.
07:13It may be a network for children, but Nickelodeon has a history of deleting offensive scenes
07:18deemed unsuitable for broadcast.
07:19The SpongeBob SquarePants episode, Procrastination, ran afoul of the network's guidelines in more
07:24ways than one.
07:25It's a classic episode, where SpongeBob struggles to write an essay to try and get his voting
07:29license.
07:30I am about to write the greatest essay of all time.
07:33Like most great essays, it will be written on paper.
07:37There's one scene involving Patrick applying suntan lotion to Sandy that was later removed,
07:42potentially for being a bit too… suggestive.
07:44The same could probably be said of Nickelodeon removing a beat where SpongeBob does calisthenics
07:49with his nose moving in a way that suggests another body part.
07:53But the most notable scene to be cut from reruns involves a moment where SpongeBob daydreams
07:57about what he can do once he actually gets his license.
08:00It's a live-action fantasy sequence of a drag racer burning out, flipping over, and crashing
08:05into a wall.
08:06The whole thing is pretty violent, and probably not something parents want their kids to see.
08:10While all three of these scenes were gone for a while, they eventually came back in
08:132019, when Procrastination began airing on Nicktoons.
08:17Nickelodeon followed suit by bringing the scenes back to broadcast in 2024, and may
08:21exist in their entirety on Paramount+.
08:24When Animaniacs was rebooted in 2020, it maintained its original devil-may-care attitude.
08:29But there was one moment that went a little too far.
08:32In one episode, Brain creates an infomercial offering his assistance to alien invaders
08:36interested in conquering Earth in exchange for allowing him to rule, which has always
08:41been his big plan.
08:42"'Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"
08:45"'The same thing we do every night, Pinky.
08:48Try to take over the world!"
08:51At the end of the ad, he posts what you would assume is a made-up phone number.
08:54But as the people who got curious and called it found out, it was actually the number of
08:58a phone's sex hotline, which isn't ideal in the target demographic as children.
09:03Hulu temporarily pulled the episode, before bringing it back with all the text displayed
09:06on screen during the scene removed, so it was just Brain talking surrounded by a blue
09:11rectangle.
09:12That solved the problem, but it didn't really lend itself to the infomercial parody.
09:16So Hulu went back and re-edited it once more with new text.
09:19The phone number is now 1-800-555-0199, which is wisely a made-up number.
09:24If Squid Game and Animaniacs have taught producers anything, it's to always go ahead and give
09:29any fake number you want to use a call before putting it on screen.
09:33Everyone loves Bluey.
09:34It contains positive messages for kids, and even adults can watch a Bluey episode and
09:38bawl their eyes out at its utter sweetness.
09:40But not even Bluey is exempt from controversy.
09:43Various episodes have been met with contention over the years, including Season 1, Episode
09:478, Fruitbat.
09:48The crux of the episode is that Bluey wants to be a fruit bat, but toward the beginning,
09:52she's seen sliding around on a wet bathroom floor like a penguin.
09:56It seems innocent enough, and it originally aired in Australia without incident.
10:00But when the episode aired globally, some countries cut the moment out of concern that
10:03kids could imitate Bluey's game.
10:05Let's stop mucking around, eh?
10:07A bit of olive oil on those knees'll do the trick.
10:11There's no denying that sliding around on a bathroom floor is dangerous.
10:14Bluey's an energetic blue heeler puppy, but real-life children who get carried away could
10:18end up injuring themselves for sure.
10:20That being said, the wet bathroom floor sequence isn't anywhere near as triggering as seeing
10:24a real car crash on SpongeBob, for example.
10:27At the moment, Fruitbat can be found on Disney+, with the bathroom scene intact.
10:31So was the temporary removal of the scene an overreaction?
10:34Who knows?
10:35But so far, we're not aware of any children who have been harmed cosplaying as slippery
10:38blue puppies.