“You have to be an adult” fights against the censorship authority to show a toilet on television
Censorship on network television was pretty strict in the 1950s and 1960s and left little room for sitcoms. That’s why Rob and Laura Petrie forced to sleep in separate beds To The Dick Van Dyke Show. And probably why Rob never uttered the F-word while nearly killing himself on that damn ottoman week after week.
Somewhat shocking, even the squeaky clean family program Leave it to Beaver He, too, once had to fight with the censorship authorities. And somehow the dispute had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Ward and June Cleaver named their son “Beaver.”
In the series’ originally planned first episode, “Captain Jack,” Beaver and Wally attempt to order a pet alligator from the back pages of a comic book. When that plan fails, they get an alligator from a shady local scumbag instead, which was apparently just something kids did in the ’50s.
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Further proof that Episode Three of Leave it to Beaver It was supposed to start with a visit to Child Protective Services, then the boys steal some of their father’s brandy to give to the alligator, and Beaver decides to try some himself.
So, CBS’s Standards and Practices Department had issues with this particular episode and prevented it from being broadcast – not because it was about the exotic animal trade and a 7-year-old boy who was drunk during the day, but because of a scene in which the alligator is stored in a toilet. That’s because toilets simply weren’t shown on television in 1957.
In fact, television shows were not even allowed to bathroom on the air. I guess everyone just assumed that characters like Lucy and Ricky Ricardo peed out the window during every single commercial break?
Because Leave it to Beaver The bathroom scenes couldn’t be avoided, the show’s creative minds argued with the censors and eventually a compromise was found. The scenes were allowed to stay in the show, but only the back of the toilet tank was allowed to be shown on television, not that scandalous bowl where all the dirty bits go. So America’s children were spared the trauma of seeing the ceramic object they all used several times a day.
Jerry Mathers, the former child star who played Beaver, once boasted to Fox News: “Leave it to Beaver actually set some precedents for the television industry. We were the first show to show a bathroom.”
Because of these behind-the-scenes problems, a different episode was aired first this season (in which there were no bathroom breaks at all).
This meant that the episode with the most bathroom trips was appropriately number two.
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