Television censors labor to strip away naughty bits from your favorite television shows.
Do they also exist to protect President Obama’s reelection chances?
The fall premiere of ABC’s “Last Man Standing” sitcom starring Tim Allen felt the censor’s sting, and the censoring had nothing to do with George Carlin’s infamous seven dirty words.
On Last Man Standing’s Season 2 premiere, set to air November 2 – four days before the election – Allen’s character, a Romney supporter lobbies his daughter, Mandy, to vote for the Republican candidate. On the other side, Mandy’s older sister makes a push for Obama. “It’ll be something regular people care about, so our characters should care about it,” says exec producer Tim Doyle….
Doyle and Allen did have to fight the network and studio on some content. Specifically, Allen says the standards department took issue with his character calling Obama a communist. Allen fought to keep that in – noting he finds it funny when conservatives paint the president with that label – but it appears he lost that battle as none of the references made the final cut.
Allen, thanks to his box office successes and “Home Improvement” fame, should have plenty of show biz clout at this point. Apparently, it wasn’t enough.