I just started wondering something; when the original TMNT was broadcast in Europe, it was censored heavily in many countries (albeit due to the fact that most other countries got their versions pre-censored from the UK), so wouldn't it be perfectly viable to had this happen to the original Transformers cartoon as well?

If so, what was cut out? Does anyone know?

 

Off hand the only censorship I know of is the omission of Spike's infamous cuss in the movie.

I know from owning VHS copies and the later Rhino DVD copies that most of the major arcs (More than Meets the Eye, Ultimate Doom, Key to Vector Sigma, Return of Optimus Prime, Rebirth) were unaltered.

 

In Germany it wasn't censored, but they showed G1 not in particular order and not all episodes. Episodes from S1, S2 and S3 in a kind of random order. And the movie not until 1994.

 

As far as I know, TMNT was censored for two reasons: 1. The word "ninja" was considered too violent, so they were actually the "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" in the UK. 2. The nunchaku was banned over there, which caused all sorts of editing problems with the show, since they had to cut it out often. This is why Mikey is using that dumb grappling hook in later seasons so that they wouldn't have to do so much legwork across the pond.

For those reasons, I would assume "Enter the Nightbird" would have been chopped to hell in the UK. I think she uses a nunchaku, and don't they use the word "ninja" in it?

 

Nightbird is the "first female ninja robot", according to Doctor Fujiyama the Famous Scientist!

 

"When they turn it on, it'll probably blow the lights!"

 

Wait, what?!

 

Yep, here's what it sounded like.

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Theme Intro 1

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Theme Intro 2



Even GI Joe got altered...here's the "Action Force the Movie" version:

Action Force ( G.I.Joe ) The Movie UK Intro - English (UK)

A "season 2" version intro theme:
ACTION FORCE (G.I.Joe) Intro - English (UK)



Wasn't the G1 Dinobot Slag's name altered for UK as well?

 

This was back in the day when the word "Ninja" was connected to evil and apparently some people didn't like the heroes being refereed to as such. Thus we had movie titles like Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke that had a ninja as a main hero changed to Samurai Spy because Samurai are more heroic figures. Other example is an old ninja anime titled Sasuke. In the Italian dub they referred to him in the theme song as a Samurai instead of a ninja.

 

Probably, since over there a slag is a word for slut.

People make my head hurt some times...

 

Slag's name did get changed to Slug in FOC. At first I thought it was because "slag" became a curse word for Cybertronians. Maybe it had something to do with UK's censors too. I wonder if it was edited out when Beast Wars was airing in the UK. I do remember seeing Prowl's death skipping the closeup of smoke coming out of his mouth when the animated movie was on TV.

 

Um, read my post directly above yours. Slag is a slang word in Europe that means slut.

 

I literally just made the connection between Action Force and GI Joe, granted I haven't thought about Action Force in twenty years, but still mind is now blown.

 

The theme song isn't bad, but the movie intro was supposed to have a lot of "pop" to it. I wonder if the episodes had to remove all the American flag decals on the vehicles?

 

In recent times maybe. He was intact as 'Slag' all the way through the UK run for me in comics and cartoons and toys as a kid.

And yet the Michelangelo figure I bought in WHSmiths back then still had the nunchaku accessories with it which I always thought was weird.

I do remember watching the UK VHS release of the first Turtles movie and realising something had been cut out where Mikey would've had his 'chuk-off' with the Foot guy. The flow of the scene suffered a jolt that stood out to me as something missing. Thankfully the original scene was later restored for the UK DVD release.

 

Still really don't like that Slag's name was changed. He was my favorite dinobot as a kid and I can't see any triceratops TF without thinking of Slag.

 

The Italian dub of Beast Wars was butchered to hell. It had a narrator over every scene with no dialogue, changed the order of some episodes (for example, "The Probe" aired before "Gorilla Warfare", and to make the order correct the latter episode begins with narration stating that Optimus Primal and Dinobot's mission is happening after Primal failed to contact the probe) and Rattrap's "We're all gonna die" became "We'll be destroyed".

 

Not to mention that the title "Beast Wars" had bad implications in Canada (and elsewhere?), so it became "Beasties" there.

 

This actually lead to a lot of instances in Animated where someone says 'Slag' being cut. In Three's a Crowd, apparanlty they cut one of Bumblebee's 'slag' lines, so when Dirt Boss responds to him, he'd talking to no-one.

DOTM Crankcase had his elongated middle finger cut short, which COULD have been censorship, though it was most likely some safety or durability reason.

And let's not forget the infamous PCC Spastic incident.

 

And yet Slapper gets a free pass. lol
OH i forgot about the Spastic thing.

GI Joe was changed to Action force primeraly due to the nationalisem isue it was realy just changed to an international force. (Whitch i prefere.)
other than that Transformers wasnt changed at all.
prime still died and Carbomya still happened.

the big reason for the TMNT change was more from perents groups worried about violence not so much from the B.B.F.C. im not so sure they have the power to infuence US companies.