27 on 4 2

Well, Channel 4's premiere of Season 27 of The Simpsons started on the 4th November, and wrapped up on the Tuesday just gone. Before it started, I used all my mystic powers to predict what episodes might be censored, or even dropped altogether, and now it's time to look back and see just how accurate I was. I can't say this is a definitive list of all the censorship cuts, but it probably covers everything worth mentioning (I didn't manage to catch their showing of "'Cue Detective", but I can't think of any cuts they might have made to that anyway) December 2020 Update! I did see their first repeat of "'Cue Detective", and it was uncut.

Before we get started on episode-specific stuff: For the first week of new episodes ("Every Man's Dream" through "Friend with Benefit"), in any cases where there was something special going on during the credits, then there was no voiceover, and if there was video too then the screen wasn't squeezed either. Even the cello version of the theme in "Puffless" was heard uninterrupted. However, the second week onwards was more hit-and-miss; if there was extra footage or dialogue over the credits that was generally left alone, but if it was just alternate music that was frequently talked over.

TABF19 Puffless
As anticipated, all of the bleach scenes were removed; presumably Sky's edit was similar or almost identical. Cut material is in italics:

[HOMER enters the bathroom, and sees what looks like the top of Marge's hair peeping over the top of the shower curtain.]
HOMER: Hmmm!
[He removes his pyjamas and walks over to the curtain.]
HOMER: Hey, baby. How about that rain check for last night?
[He enters the shower. Both he and PATTY start screaming.]
PATTY: Don't look at me!
[HOMER makes various horrified noises.]
HOMER: You're everywhere!
[He ducks out of the shower, grabs a bottle of bleach from the cabinet above the kitchen sink, and starts pouring it into his eyes, screaming in pain. PATTY continues to shout over this.]
PATTY: Get out of here!
[HOMER stops bleaching his eyes and sighs in relief.]
HOMER: Thank God I'm blind!
[Cut to HOMER walking out of the bathroom, still holding the bottle of bleach. BART walks past in a bathrobe.]
BART: Yo, I'm next!
HOMER: No!
[He grabs hold of BART and pours bleach into his eyes. BART shouts in pain. All of this is exactly as funny as it sounds.]
BART: What the hell?
HOMER: I did that with love, boy!
PATTY [emerging from the bathroom in a towel]: What's all the hubbub?
BART [running to hug HOMER]: Oh, thank you, dad.
HOMER: It's OK, son.
[They both repeat these mantras to each other for several seconds, somehow managing to make the scene even less funny than it already is.]
PATTY: Alright, already! Just take your shower!
[Back at their apartment, SELMA is dragging on a cigarette.]

After the Selma scene, we return to the Simpsons' house. In the kitchen, enter Homer:
HOMER [clearing his throat]: Listen... about this morning... I'm sorry I... [his voice rising in horror] walked in on you! [He starts bleaching his eyes again, despite the fact this is the least funny thing to happen on anything, ever.] Oh, yeah!
PATTY: I'm about to say something I'd never thought I'd say to you. Something... nice. I only mock you because I'm jealous of what Marge has in you. I only have Selma... and now I don't even have that.
HOMER: Oh, Patty. I've waited so long for you to open a window of niceness.
PATTY: That was it! Window shut!
[The doorbell rings; PATTY goes to answer it, but then returns.]
PATTY: Ah, what the hell.
[She starts to make out with HOMER, but after a moment or two this is revealed to be a fantasy of HOMER's.]
HOMER: Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!
[He starts pouring bleach into his ear, because of course he fucking does. The thought bubble dissolves away. PATTY opens the front door to find SELMA there.]

These were all reasonably well done, and also improve the episode by a factor of approximately nine hundred and seventy six million; Homer walks in rubbing his eyes at the start of the kitchen scene, which looks odd if you don't know what's missing, but that's it.

Also note that there was an absolutely massive transmission error for the first ten minutes of this episode, with the picture and audio severely breaking up before there was a loud pop and things suddenly corrected themselves. So maybe worth catching the first repeat of this one.

TABF22 Halloween of Horror
Unlike Sky, Channel 4 were OK with airing this before the watershed... and what's more, they aired it more or less completely intact, too! There were only two cuts I noticed - the first was when the pop-up workers break into the house:

[HOMER and LISA run up the stairs. The workers remove their masks.]
THIRD WORKER: Give me a hit off that fog machine. We got a fat man to beat on!
[The three workers crouch around the fog machine and inhale. They breathe out; the third worker has a long, "ooh-hoo-hoo" reaction to the fog. At the top of the stairs, Homer and Lisa back onto the landing.]

Although "we got a fat man to beat on" survived, the video during that line looked a little odd, as if C4 were trying to disguise the edit by slowing down the footage. And later on, during the Adult Halloween song:

BERNICE HIBBERT: Sexy tricks!
BERNICE HIBBERT/DR. HIBBERT: And boozy treats!
KRUSTY: Drunken Hobbits hit on slutty crayons! Policeman dressed as bondage Frankenstein!
MOE: Your kid's teacher in a steampunk orgy! Grown-ups become monsters after nine!
[He points to PATTY and SELMA, who are smoking on a hookah.]

It's worth noting that, especially given this is a high-paced musical production with fast-moving visuals, this is excellently done, technically; if you didn't know, you'd be hard-pressed to tell that anything had been cut. But also, this is a very liberal edit by Channel 4's standards; the word "slut", Patty and Selma on the hookah, and (a little later in the song) Luanne declaring "boobs" whilst shaking them into the camera were all allowed to survive, as was the use of the word "scrotum" elsewhere in the episode. And it does beg the question: given C4 are generally more squeamish than Sky, what precisely was the latter's problem with this episode?

(December 2020 Update! In C4's first repeat run of this season, "Halloween of Horror" was skipped, but I would hope that was due to proximity of the repeat run to Christmas rather than an indication of anything more worrying. I await further repeats of this season with interest.)

TABF18 Treehouse of Horror XXVI
As we anticipated, this one was too much for C4, and was skipped in this showing of the season (likely to turn up in a late-night slot at some point in the future).

December 2020 Update! This episode is scheduled to make its Channel 4 debut (and, presumably, its uncut premiere on UK TV) at 12:55am on December 19th (technically very late on Friday 18th).

TABF20 Lisa With an 'S'
The two "drugged out" lines were cut, exactly as I'd anticipated they'd be to the word, although Moe's shenanigans were allowed to survive. There was one edit I didn't anticipate, though:

LISA: Look, I don't want to gush, but I have all your albums. "Laney Sings the Blues", "Electric Laney Land", "Laney Butchers the Beatles"... ooh, and my favourite, "Rehab Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"!
[LISA holds this last album up for a second as we cut to a wide shot. LANEY pulls up a chair.]
LANEY: I'll tell you what, Marge...

This is an incredibly obvious edit, especially since in order to excise any appearance of the second cover, they have to trim the wide shot where it's still visible. "Laney Butchers the Beatles" was presumably a casualty of C4's distaste for blood of any kind in the show, although it does beg the question: did "Rehab" only get cut because it was impossible to only cut "Butchers" without the edit looking even sloppier?

VABF01 'Paths of Glory
During the video of the steam-powered shaving machine:

[The machine successfully gives the GENTLEMAN using it the perfect shave, but then continues to try and shave him, its movements getting increasingly more violent. AMELIA is blinded by shaving foam in her eyes, and the machine decapitates the unfortunate GENTLEMAN. LISA and BART scream.]
BART: I want one!
LISA: A medical board diagnosed Amelia with acute feminine over-reachism...

When Bart and Lisa enter the asylum:

[BART and LISA step into the asylum, using their mobile phones as torches. They hear some sounds, and look over to a room where JIMBO and SHAUNA are making out on a destroyed mattress.]
JIMBO: The ghosts of a thousand lunatics are making me hot!
SHAUNA: Cuh! What doesn't make you hot?
JIMBO: Alcoholic stepfathers!
[BART and LISA continue to look; LISA finds a door marked 'PATIENT RECORDS & NAPOLEON HATS'. BART comes up behind her, wearing said hat and pretending to choke on one of those things you put in someone's mouth during electroshock therapy.]
LISA: Eeew! Stop that, you don't know who had that in their mouth!
BART: Sure I do! Some loono. [Tasting the thing.] Mmm... that's good crazy!
LISA: Eeew!
[Cut to LISA looking through a filing cabinet.]

This is a very odd edit, especially since all the Hooters stuff later in the episode was allowed to survive. Bart pretending to choke on the mouth thing might be over concerns over imitable behaviour, but is the Jimbo and Shauna scene really too much? But now we get on to the really interesting thing - the two tiny parts of the episode that weren't in the original US broadcast!

First of all: Dan Castellaneta is not credited as a consulting producer on the original version, but he is on Channel 4. This was the first time he received a producer's credit since Season 23 (budget cuts meant he no longer had this role on Seasons 24-26), so I suspect it was just an error when assembling the new producer's credits for this episode. This means the content of each credit after it is shifted by one in the version where Dan is credited, with the 'directed by' credit appearing where no credit was originally present.

Secondly, and far more interestingly: Sam Simon is credited as an executive producer on Channel 4's copy of the episode, and indeed every other episode for which he was not credited on the original US broadcast. This indicates the decision to reinstate his name was retrospective, and I suspect this version of the episode was seen in US repeats (or at least the ones after "Lisa the Veterinarian").

VABF02 Barthood
During Bart's house party, a scene which I think Sky may have censored completely as I can't remember it being in their original broadcast:

[BART backs out of the closet, into the hall. He sniffs, then looks up at the landing and, from his bedroom door, sees smoke which is clearly meant to be marijuana smoke even if you've cut out everything explicitly referring to it as such.]
BART: Uh-oh. Weed! That could get me in a lot of trouble.
[He walks up the stairs and bangs on the door.]
BART: Hey, idiots! The bong stays in the treehouse!
[He opens the door and sees HOMER using a bong.]
HOMER: Hey, boy! [He coughs up smoke and laughs.]
BART: Are you crazy? What if the cops come? [He looks over to a chair in the corner, where CHIEF WIGGUM is also using a bong, and hacking up smoke.] You're here too?
CHIEF WIGGUM: Yeah, must be weird for you. [He laughs.] Hey, think about this, man. The whole world is happening right now. I mean, India, China... it's crazy!
BART: Can you just leave me here with my dad?
CHIEF WIGGUM [getting up]: Alright, sure. [He goes over to the window and stands on the ledge, waving his arms.] I can fly! [He starts teetering and panicking for an unrealistically long time.] No I can't! No I can't! [And, indeed, he can't.]
BART: Dad, why is it you and I are never on the same page?
CHIEF WIGGUM [in the distance]: Officer down, man! Officer down!
HOMER: Boy, when you arrived, I was terrified!

Yes, my italicisation of "idiots" is absolutely correct - C4's edit tries to turn it into "idiot", making it look like he already knows it's Homer in there and he wants to talk to him. It's not very successful, but you've got to admire the effort. When Bart says "Dad, why is it you and I are never on the same page?", in the original version the bong was still in shot, so this was either very skilfully edited or the screen was zoomed in to remove it.

(December 2020 Update! It was the latter, unsurprisingly, as confirmed by a viewing of C4's first repeat; the screen was cropped to remove the marijuana smoke as well as the bong at the side. I would say it didn't look too suspicious unless you knew the truth, but then the scene has already quite obviously been censored elsewhere.)

This is a big ol' cut, but fortunately it's the only one for this episode: "Why is blood red?" (and its subsequent callback when Bart blasts Homer with the airhorn) and Bart making out with Sherri both survived uncut.

VABF07 Love is in the N2-O2-Ar-CO2-Ne-He-CH4
During the Valentine's Day party at the plant:

HOMER: There's one fantasy I've always wanted to indulge in. If you're willing...
[Cut to a shot of the door to Burns' office. Inside the office itself, we pan across a trail of HOMER and MARGE's clothing to where they are kissing on the desk. MR BURNS enters, and makes to light a lamp.]
BURNS: What are those frisky hounds up to now?
[HOMER and MARGE, hurriedly getting dressed, panic. BURNS flicks on the lamp; HOMER screams. He hits the trapdoor button on the desk, and BURNS falls down it with a yell. With a thud, he hits bottom.]
BURNS: Wait a minute... the contractor said this was a bottomless pit! I'll have his licence!

Given it's still obvious what they're meant to be doing in C4's edit, is there really much point in cutting this?

VABF06 Gal of Constant Sorrow
When Lisa first invites Hettie to stay:

HETTIE: You know, the first sound I ever heard was my daddy fiddlin'. His name was Baskin Lee Boggs.
LISA: [gasps] Baskin Lee Boggs? [Turning to a box of records] He played with some seminal Appalachian bands! [Holding up each record as she names it:] Like "Snug and the Cousin Huggers", "Lead Paint Larry and the Drooly Boys", "Howlin' Sue and her Vestigal Organ", and "Bloody Mary and the Coalmine Canaries"! Did your daddy teach you to fiddle?
HETTIE: No. He was going to start me out on the cigar box banjo, but before he could, he lost his sight.
LISA: Oh, no! I'm sorry.
HETTIE: Yeah, he got shot in the face. You know those puzzles where you slides the tiles, he looks a little like that now. My mother was an amazing banjo player. Unfortunately, she did also go blind.
LISA: Really?
HETTIE: Yeah, it was winter, and she was running a fever, and then she got shot in the face.
LISA: Oh, wow. Hettie, you've had such a sad life.

The records were cut because the last one shows blood on the pickaxe, I presume, and once one went they all had to go. Note that the rehab scene from the end of this episode survived uncut, which indicates that "Rehab Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in "Lisa with an 'S'" was cut to make the edit look smoother rather than because C4 found it objectionable.

Later, during Hettie's radio interview:

HETTIE: I mean, they would ask me to. They'd say, "Hettie, come over here and pick up the banjo and play songs with us," and, I dunno, I'd say, "No, I'm happy just to sit down by the creek and do my heroin," you know?
LISA: Wait, what?
RADIO SHOW HOST: Is it also true that you've been discovered by, and turned your back on, well-meaning supporters time and time again?
HETTIE: Uh, yes, that is a pattern I adhere to. And do you have any OxyContin? Now, if you got some, you don't have to say yes. You just got to blink.
RADIO SHOW HOST: Maybe we should take a break. For the record, I'm not blinking.
[HETTIE leaves the interview and walks into the room where BART and LISA are.]
HETTIE: He's holding, he just won't share.
LISA: No, no, Hettie, please tell me you're rehabilitated. Please tell me you're talking about heroin so that no one else will follow in your footsteps. Please reassure me, because I am frightened!
HETTIE: Oh, baby girl, I wouldn't let you down. You and me, we get each other, yeah? [She suddenly starts fidgeting and scratching herself.] But if I don't get something sweet, I might shoot someone in the face.
LISA [scared]: Are you saying you shot your parents in the face?
HETTIE: I don't know! That's not really the kind of thing you remember, you know what I mean? [Quickly:] Alright, I'm gonna go now, bye.
[She leaves.]
BART: Lis, if she shoots your face off tomorrow, just remember this is what it looks like. [He takes a photo on his phone and shows it to her; it bears the legend 'LISA WITH UNSHOT FACE'. He presses the 'SEND' button.]
[Cut to BART and LISA arriving back home.]
LISA: She is not going to let me down! She is not! I am saving her.

This massive cut - well over a minute - quite badly damages the conclusion to the episode, and they still leave in the first mention of heroin, presumably because otherwise it would be totally incomprehensible!

VABF08 Lisa the Veterinarian
When Marge enters the first crime scene:

[MARGE looks around, to find the scene apparently spotless. She makes a confused noise. She takes a step forward, and blood starts to drip from the ceiling, followed by some entrails, a heart, and the remains of a foot. She backs off.]
MARGE: Let me start with this filthy crime scene tape!
[She hums as she starts to clean the tape, occasionally glancing back nervously at the human remains.]

Dare I suggest that C4's edit actually improves the episode by not running the joke into the ground? (Although "Let me start with this filthy crime scene tape" is quite a funny line, and it's a shame to lose it.) Note that this delightful scene survived intact earlier in the episode, so I can only presume it's specifically the body parts or any implication of violence that C4 object to these days, rather than blood specifically:

(This was also allowed to survive, but is presumably way too over-the-top to be a problem:)

VABF13 Simprovised
Anticipated: C4's copy has the international/contingency plan version of the Homer Live scene.

Unanticipated: Wiggum getting the crossbow out of the evidence locker for Ralph was allowed to stay in, as was the awful "morning wood" pun later on.

* * *

So, shall we try and bring all of this to some kind of a conclusion, then?

One thing I will say is that C4 often left a lot I thought they might cut out in - and they deserve points for not having the same inexplicable problem with "Halloween of Horror" as Sky did, and bringing it to a wider audience. Even when they have made big cuts, such as the marijuana scene in "Barthood", there does seem to have generally been an effort to make sure the episodes are still coherent. (It must be noted that several of the cuts in the last few seasons have sometimes had frames of the offending scene still visible, or just looked incredibly sloppy and/or resulted in scenes not making sense - such as the scene where Bart gets electrocuted in Season 26's "Blazed and Confused", which cut out the electrocution itself but not the aftermath - and there has been nothing like as bad as that here. Even the rather choppy cuts, such as the marijuana scene, seem to have had a certain degree of care taken with them.) There is the age-old argument about the show being treated as one for children in the UK to be had here, and I wish for some of these episodes we'd get an uncut late-night repeat like they did for Futurama way back in the day.

And then sometimes we do get cuts that don't really make sense - mostly to do with blood. Is the album cover in "Lisa with an 'S'" really such a problem? The show is clearly not suggesting that Laney actually murdered all four Beatles, so why is that not okay, but a bunch of kids cracking their heads open on a wall in "Lisa the Veterinarian" perfectly fine? Presumably this is down to different people editing different episodes, and interpreting C4's guidance differently - but then sometimes we get cases of a lack of consistency in the same episode, such as Jimbo and Shauna's fairly tame make-out session being cut from "'Paths of Glory", but a few minutes later jokes about the kids' menus at Hooters being in the shape of breasts being allowed to stay in.

At least they cut out those sodding bleach scenes, though.