Weird attempts at making things "family-friendly"

[wildojinx]

What are some attempts at taking stuff aimed at older audiences and toning it down and making it "family-friendly"? For example, we all know about Mortal Kombat's movie and cartoon, but how about the live performances:



And also, getting this out of the way, what happened to the Ninja Turtles franchise in the 80s/early 90s as well.

[CMWaters]

Oh, I had a whole thread about something similar to this a while back with a bunch of R-Rated material being toned down.

Here's one example:

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Every attempt at a TV Robocop project.

[Tyrannosaurus Sex]

The Spider-Man 90s animated series replacing Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin's deaths with Mary Jane and the Goblin being sent into portals. Same with Carnage sucking soul essence out of people rather than murdering them.

[I'm Team Bayley and Indi]

Toxic Crusaders - it's crazy there is a kids cartoon based on a Troma franchise

[chrom]

Marketing FNAF in the 5 year old toy section

[camphor #BLM]

...despite the people doing it eventually realizing "wtf are we doing here" and nuking it from orbit before it was finished/released, this got far enough along that it's worth mentioning as the King of this trope:

1992 proposed cartoon, Operation: Aliens

[The Ichi]

Morbidly I wish this was still something they did today. Like a Saw animated series with non-lethal traps.

[wildojinx]

For a non-media example, I distinctly remember seeing commercials in the late 90s touting Hooters as a great place to take the family.

[James Fabiano]

Freddymania in the '80s. He didn't appear in sanitized shows or movies, and I'm shocked that no one tried a Freddy cartoon. Still, everything else marketed towards kids at the time...

[greyfmdan]

Do we count all the toys & kid-targeted marketing from WWE during the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression eras?

Oct 12, 2020 10:47:13 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

For a non-media example, I distinctly remember seeing commercials in the late 90s touting Hooters as a great place to take the family.

I remember at least one commercial probably from that campaign, with a Little League baseball coach asking his team where they’d like to eat after the game. One kid speaks up, “Let’s go to Hooters!” followed by the team having their meal there. (You know if that really happened, those coaches would have been getting some angry phone calls from parents.)

[thechase]

Oct 12, 2020 9:47:16 GMT -5 Tyrannosaurus Sex said:

The Spider-Man 90s animated series replacing Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin's deaths with Mary Jane and the Goblin being sent into portals. Same with Carnage sucking soul essence out of people rather than murdering them.

Semper seemed to have it out for MJ, he was so adamant about keeping her out of the series permanently after that episode that he substituted a clone in her place, and he somehow got away with actually killing her off in that instance.

[greyfmdan]

Oct 12, 2020 11:07:53 GMT -5 James Fabiano said:

Freddymania in the '80s. He didn't appear in sanitized shows or movies, and I'm shocked that no one tried a Freddy cartoon. Still, everything else marketed towards kids at the time...

They did have that Freddy’s Nightmares series for a couple years, which was tamed down from the movies but still a bit grisly for TV in its day. My friends & I used to watch it as kids, though looking back at it now, I’m like, “How did our parents allow us to watch that?”

[Paul]

Las Vegas in the early 90's.

[Savage Gambino]

The American dub of Dragonball Z is like a treasure trove of Bowdlerization: the dead being sent to another dimension, whole cities being conveniently empty when blown up, wacky editing to remove full contact punches and kicks, and the ever-infamous Home For Infinite Losers.

[James Fabiano]

Oct 12, 2020 11:15:25 GMT -5 greyfmdan said:

Oct 12, 2020 11:07:53 GMT -5 James Fabiano said:

Freddymania in the '80s. He didn't appear in sanitized shows or movies, and I'm shocked that no one tried a Freddy cartoon. Still, everything else marketed towards kids at the time...

They did have that Freddy’s Nightmares series for a couple years, which was tamed down from the movies but still a bit grisly for TV in its day. My friends & I used to watch it as kids, though looking back at it now, I’m like, “How did our parents allow us to watch that?”

It was still horror, perhaps PG-13 rather than R, but still horror. It did also lead to rules about not showing children being murdered on TV, IIRC.

[Fade]

Oct 12, 2020 11:17:22 GMT -5 Paul said:

Las Vegas in the early 90's.

Damn it, beat me to it haha. Can’t say I didn’t enjoy aspects of it as a kid but definitely weird looking back in hindsight.

[Sephiroth]

Oct 12, 2020 11:17:22 GMT -5 Paul said:

Las Vegas in the early 90's.

I’ll take some of the blue. And don’t get cheap on me.

[hassanchop]

Does this count?

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Oct 12, 2020 11:17:22 GMT -5 Paul said:

Las Vegas in the early 90's.

I took a vacation to Vegas in 1997 as a kid, and I can confirm they were trying to appeal to kids with stuff like the NY Hotel coaster and the arcade at MGM Grand. But there were a ton of porn phoneline fliers everywhere, the occasional pimp and entourage in the lobbies, and the Rivera with their statue for their burlesque show was right across the street from where I stayed.