PTC Demands An End To Late-Night Fox Cartoons, Forgets What That 'P' In Their Acronym Means

from the is-it-for-penis? dept

Thu, Aug 8th 2013 5:35am — Timothy Geigner

You all remember the Parent's Television Council. They're the conservative family values on television police that seem to think nobody should watch anything they don't like. This has amounted to trying to keep kids from seeing documentaries, to being accused of a focus on fund-raising over actually doing anything, and seeming to have the kind of extreme interest in pornography that would worry most psychologists. Basically, they strive to make everything you see as family-friendly as possible, because they have families and you should too and, if you don't, you don't count. Side note: Billy Ray Cyrus is a board member of the PTC, because a guy married multiple times with children outside of wedlock is super in line with conservative family values.

Well, the PTC is back again to ruin everyone's fun. This time, they have their cross-hairs set on Fox's new late-night cartoon program, which is made up of a bunch of cartoon shorts parodying beloved children's programming for adult audiences. The recently-premiered ADHD programming is supposed to eventually compete with other adult-oriented shows in that time slot, notably Saturday Night Live. The majority of the content is only available online, but that doesn't mean a thing to the PTC, who recently publicly blasted Fox Chairman Kevin Reilly over the show.

"Even if Fox selected only the most benign programs from the 'ADHD' block to spin into a half-hour time slot on Sunday nights, there's no getting around the fact that the online counterpart makes available mind-blowingly explicit parodies of cartoons beloved by millions of children, all without any parental controls or age restrictions whatsoever," PTC President Tim Winter wrote in the letter.

So, by now you're probably wondering what has the PTC so up in arms, right? Well, the answer, of course, is turtle penises, as we learn from this NSFW clip.

If you're a child of the 80's and you didn't laugh, you need severe psychiatric care. It's a hilarious parody of what Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might be if they were depicted more scientifically accurately. And, yes, there are penises. Scary, terrifying, cartoon penises that just make the PTC have to go poopy with anger.

But here's the thing, this show is a late-night show, competing with other shows geared towards adults and shown in a time slot when all good little boys and girls with parents that aren't chimpanzees should be in bed. Or, at the very least, should have their television habits monitored. You know, by their parents. That, after all, is what the "P" in PTC stands for: parents, who, if they're doing their jobs properly, can save their children from the horrors of seeing a half-shelled mega-wang (turtle-power indeed). But, hey, parenting is hard (totally not an intended pun) and grandstanding for fund-raising is easy, which is how we get the PTC trying to make sure no one has any fun.

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Filed Under: cartoons, censorship, family values, ninja turtles, parents television council, tv

41 Comments

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Ninja (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 4:32am

That, after all, is what the "P" in PTC stands for: parents, who, if they're doing their jobs properly, can save their children from the horrors of seeing a half-shelled mega-wang (turtle-power indeed).

I could swear the P was the English equivalent of calling them a bunch of dicks.

*puts on British accent*
"You, sirs, are all Chelonii penises! Or would it be Testudines?" (see, P of penis)
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Pragmatic, 8 Aug 2013 @ 5:39am

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&am p;ved=0CDQQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D2NDPT0Ph5rA&ei=ZZEDUsOkPIi2 0QX2loHoAg&usg=AFQjCNFhQRhAf8I5AJopGuj8weTOpkdgZw&bvm=bv.50500085,d.d2k
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Pragmatic, 8 Aug 2013 @ 5:40am

Re:
Sorry, that's Family Guy's Freakin' FCC song, which I thought might be appropriate where censorship is concerned. I know they're different thing but there's not a funny cartoon about the PTC that I know of.
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gnudist, 8 Aug 2013 @ 5:46am

Sometimes I wonder if we even need the author naming bit anymore. Penises in a techdirt article is the same thing as saying Tim wrote it, and the trolls will call everyone Mike Masnick anyway.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 5:51am

Remember this kids, it's far easier to bypass the parental controls on a PC than a TV.

As for the video I learned that Ninja Turtles have huge cocks. The more you know!
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RyanNerd (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 5:57am

PTC should ban Animal Planet
Last week my wife had the TV channel set to Animal Planet and they were discussing the mating habits of turtles. My wife runs a daycare and so young children got to learn that male turtles have a penis. I'm sure that the parents of those children in my wife's day care had they known that such indecency was being viewed by their young impressionable children that my wife would be locked up for child endangerment. Let�s hope the PTC doesn�t get word of this program since it plays in the afternoons. These self appointed moral guardians need to go [NSA/PTC redacted]
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Dark Helmet (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:01am

Re:
Interestingly, running "penis" through the search bar only turns up a couple of my articles, though that's heavily swayed by comments results and stories about penis pills and email spam....
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:08am

Re: PTC should ban Animal Planet
Its different if its a real penis but an animated one makes it a million times worse. The children will be scared for life!
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:20am

Whenever we hear "Think of the children"
We should all reach for an axe.
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Michael, 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:21am

Re: Re:
If you continue to run your penis through the search bar, you are going to have to watch those videos from HR again.
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Michael, 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:23am

Thank goodness the PTC is complaining about this.

If they hadn't, I may not have ever heard about it. Setting my DVR now...
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:33am

Re: Re: PTC should ban Animal Planet
Or perhaps a maximum of half of them will. The other half need only to take a look down.
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negruvoda (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:47am

When i hear the word culture.... I release the safety on my Browning
And what Michael said
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mrong (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 6:57am

Re: Re: Re:
Oh man, I hope I don't have to watch the HR penis video again. It's bad enough it's only me and the director in a basement closet watching these graphic information videos on his iphone. I mean why do they have to teach employees about penises anyway? I could look that stuff up myself. But hey at least they always have those nice scented candles lit and all those chocolate covered fruits available. Oh plus all those comfy air mattresses. I wish my office was as nice. Oh well, at least it kills two hours every Tuesday afternoon. I don't quite get the "only bike shorts" dress code thing, but whatever. I will admit they are quite comfortable.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 7:01am

I bet these are the same parents that use the TV as a babysitter.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 7:02am

In Australia, those nut job Parent groups are even outraged by shows like Glee, because "They teach children to be gay"
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 7:14am

Is it Pricks? Please let it be Pricks!
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PaulT (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 7:20am

"the online counterpart makes available mind-blowingly explicit parodies of cartoons beloved by millions of children"

In the same place where REAL porn is available to those same children (not to mention hentai, etc). Unless of course their parents can be bothered to parent and supervise/monitor their online activity, install their own filtering or blocks, etc.

Sorry guys, "I can't be bothered to parent, just get rid of anything I don't personally like just in case" is still not an answer.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 7:30am

What I want to know is what will these people do for their soft porn fix if they manage to clean up the TV?
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Michael, 8 Aug 2013 @ 7:31am

New 6 Strikes Plan
I have a new 6 strikes plan:

If you try to censor the internet 6 times, you lose your internet connection for life.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 7:34am

Re:
Just used their website feedback form to say basically the same thing. Hope they don't mind the thoughtful criticism I gave them.
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Call me Al, 8 Aug 2013 @ 8:00am

I believe this is the solution
"all without any parental controls or age restrictions whatsoeve"

Parental control - ensure the parent has the remote control

Age Restrictions - parents send child to bed before program begins
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Alt0, 8 Aug 2013 @ 8:01am

Thank you
I will now be expecting at least one seriously funny adult cartoon every Thursday.
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Michael, 8 Aug 2013 @ 8:06am

Re: Thank you
With Prenda and Carreon news apparently ramping up again, you are likely to get funny adult cartoons more often than weekly.
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Alt0, 8 Aug 2013 @ 8:29am

Re: Re: Thank you
Unfortunately those guys are lacking penises.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 8:41am

Re: Re: Re: Thank you
Win....
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 8:44am

"all without any parental controls or age restrictions whatsoever"

Both TV and computers have parental controls available. Maybe they couldn't figure out how to turn them on.
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Just some guy, 8 Aug 2013 @ 8:54am

Wrong time...
I see that the author discusses the late night programming but fails to mention that Fox ran these, at least in the NY market, in prime time on a Sunday night. Is this any worse than the other stuff Fox has on, no. They did label it as the Cleveland show and ran it before the Simpson's. If they were going to run it prime time they should have played it with Family Guy.
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Zos (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 9:14am

To be fair-
the article you linked seem to indicate that the issue wasn't the show on tv, it was explicit web content being linked to the names of easily searchable kids cartoons, with no agegate. which makes at least a little more sense, if you start from " i can make people not see things i don't like".

which obviously is nonsense, but they don't know any better.
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Rich, 8 Aug 2013 @ 9:16am

Re: Re:
Your Schwartz is as big as mine!
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raindog469 (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 10:43am

Well, actually...
Billy Ray Cyrus is a board member of the PTC, because a guy married multiple times with children outside of wedlock is super in line with conservative family values.

Since "conservative family values" are essentially a charming blend of hypocrisy and 'unique' definitions of morality based on highly selective reading of an inconsistent, politically edited and often mistranslated book, Billy Ray Cyrus is indeed in line with "conservative family values".
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BearDogg-X, 8 Aug 2013 @ 11:05am

Reminder of PTC being proven liars
People should be reminded that the PTC(or the Parent Trash Cult) had to pay Vince McMahon & WWE $3.5 million and publicly apologize to WWE for to settle a defamation lawsuit WWE filed against them for lying about the content of WWE Smackdown when it was on the UPN broadcast network(PTC used footage of Undertaker throwing Mick Foley off the top of the Hell in the Cell at the 1998 King of the Ring Pay-per-view almost a dozen times and footage from Monday Night Raw on USA Network in a fund-raising video) to get advertisers to pull ads from WWE programs(PTC then lied about companies pulling ads when they either didn't withdraw ads or they never advertised on WWE programs to begin with) and made the false claim that WWE caused the deaths of four children from other people imitating the moves, specifically the infamous Lionel Tate case where a then 11 year old Tate murdered a 6 year old girl a third his size, then made the false claim that he watched WWE(in the appeal of his murder conviction, he admitted he didn't watch WWE, but was watching The Flintstones and Cow and Chicken at the time of the murder).
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 12:03pm

Re:
I can't claim to fully understand the psychology of the PTC, but I grew up in an extremely conservative part of the country. My suspicion is that they aren't worried about censoring their own children; I assure you that these people have already installed all the available filters and blocks. "I can't be bothered to parent" isn't an issue for them; if anything, they go to the other extreme. What concerns them is censoring everybody else's children.

I think the basic notion is that children share their knowledge and "corrupt" one another. If content like this is available, unsupervised children will watch it; if those children then have contact with the children of a PTC member, it could burst the perfect ideological bubble that the PTC works so hard to maintain. Growing up, I saw this sort of motivation cited a lot as a reason for home-schooling. For every parent who home-schooled so that their children wouldn't be exposed to evolution/sexual education/history/the existence of other religions/critical thinking, there were two or three parents who didn't want their children to be "ruined" by interacting with "bad" kids.

The PTC's problem is that, in America, the concept of "don't tell me how to raise my kids" is enshrined on a fundamental level. Culturally, it's far more ingrained than anything in the Bill of Rights. The PTC is smart enough to know that it wouldn't get anywhere by telling parents how they should parent, so they try to soft-sell it as "protecting the children". But really, what they mean is "We don't trust your ability to parent, so get rid of anything I don't personally like before your bad parenting allows your children to see it."
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egghead (profile), 8 Aug 2013 @ 3:08pm

Re: Re:
Add another request for the 'Sad but True' button!
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 3:11pm

degenerates
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 3:17pm

so I guess its cool to watch porn with your kids too? awesome!!!
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Anonymous, 8 Aug 2013 @ 3:58pm

Re: PTC should ban Animal Planet
Why is it they can show on TV animals explicitly mating, but can't show humans doing the same thing?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Aug 2013 @ 4:03pm

Re:
Could it perhaps be...PUSSY?
Naw, you people think of penises, pricks...shows what's on your mind.
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Incognito, 10 Aug 2013 @ 12:01pm

Re: To be fair-
As a parent this is what worries me more than adult oriented cartoons on late night TV.
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suda nina, 3 Dec 2015 @ 10:04pm

children sharing knowledge
Most of time I think the basic notion is that children share their knowledge and "corrupt" one another. If content like this is available, unsupervised children will watch it; if those children then have contact with the children of a PTC member, it could burst the perfect ideological bubble that the PTC works so hard to maintain. Growing up, I saw this sort of motivation cited a lot as a reason for home-schooling. For every parent who home-schooled so that their children wouldn't be exposed to evolution/sexual education/history/the existence of other religions/critical thinking, there were two or three parents who didn't want their children to be "ruined" by interacting with "bad" kids.
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suda nina, 11 Dec 2015 @ 12:39am

WWE
I think that the WWE series is in very safe hands with 2K Games. hwatch-wwe-smackdown-121015/
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