When I said I'd be back sooner than you might think with more, I'll bet you weren't thinking I'd be back the very next day. Yeah, well consider this your Christmas present because you're going to hate the socks I bought you.
I chose not to inlcude this show in Part two of "Classic shows long gone" for a very good reason that I don't think anyone can argue with: it sucks. Hey, being old doesn't automatically make you a classic. Anyway, the main reason I chose to do a write up on You Can't Do That On Television, is the fact that after re-watching a few episodes, I realized just how unbelievable it is that this show was ever on the airwaves to begin with. Not because it was lame, but because it would be way too controversial for today's audience. We're only going to look at one episode today, because I don't feel like watching any more of this insipid crap, but I think it'll do the show's reputation (that I just built) justice. It's a little something called "episode 98." I've gone through this episode twice now. The first time, I got the idea to do an article on it, and the second time, I brushed through it again for content and screen caps. Let me just say this one more time: there's no way this one would have flown with todays standards. You're probably wanting me to get on with the reasons why, and I'll get to that, but first I think I should give you a little background on the show itself.
You Can't Do That on Television was created as a childrens' program for Canadian television stations back in 1979, where it served as a low-budget local comedy show. After a short run on Canook TV, Nickelodeon picked it up in 1981, and the show went multi-continental. Over the next few years, however, ratings began to decline in Canada, and by 1985, it was only shown once on weekends. The situation was entirely different in the States, with the sketch-comedy show playing a whopping five times a week. The show was mostly slapstick, and centered around a group of kids in a TV studio, who would put on small skits that somehow related to the topic of each episode. In-between, the kids were involved in some kind of random sub-plot that took place entirely within the studio. Oh yeah, as I mentioned in my last article, this was also the show that more-or-less brought green slime to Nickelodeon (I'm pretty sure they still use it too). As time went on, the show's original cast members began leaving and the show began to take on more a kid-friendly attitude. Because of low ratings and the fact that Nick wanted to start producing its own shows out of Orlando Studios, the show was canceled in 1990, but continued to re-run well into 1994.
Now on to why You Can't Do That on Television would be so controversial in today's world. Like I said above, we're looking at episode 98, which centers around the cast of children (and one crazy adult) preparing for a communist invasion (which later involves the children, wearing full military gear, carrying around WWII WP 40s). Let's see...in the first two minutes of the show alone, we've got a skit where kids are roaming the halls of their school, carrying firearms and wearing camouflage, and another with a kid being executed by a firing squad under the supervision of a Latin American military officer. It's hard to believe that this was once on television, but I suppose that's just because school shootings have become commonplace in today's society. Maybe if we had shows like this one around that showed would-be shooters how ridiculous they look in a school hallway with their camouflage and military-grade weaponry, they'd think twice about going through with their massacres in the first place, but I don't know for sure, as I've never had the mind of a teenage-psycho-killer.
The entire episode is filled with things that would never work today. We've got a skit that takes place in a dungeon with a skeleton who murders someone, then turns his gun on a kid, who's locked up and chained to the wall.
We've got a school principal who barges into some poor kid's house with a machine gun, trying to kill him and his mother.
And let's not forget this little gem, when the weird adult guy who hangs out with the kids in the studtio, turns to one of the children (who just got slimed) and says:
Oh, the episode also has a doctor belching on a mostly-naked kid, wearing a diaper.
I don't think I even have to say anything else in this article. Expect part 2 of "Classic shows long gone" next Friday. In the mean time, you can check out the infamous Episode 98 (conveniently divided into three segments below) for yourself, courtesy of Youtube, if you've got the extra free time on your hands, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it (the only reason I included it with this article is so that you wouldn't think I was making all this up). What I would recommend is that you check out the games off to the right of this page. I've added Frogger, Simon, and Snake to the mix today.
