Parents Television Council. Learn more how you can get involved and help to protect your children from entertainment’s negative effects.
Arm Yourself with Information
The PTC aims to provide parents with the tools they need to make informed television viewing decisions. They do this by monitoring primetime television shows on broadcast TV and reviewing many PG and G rated movies. They log all content that could be considered questionable by parents and give them traffic light ratings according to the amount of sex, violence, and profanity incorporated into the series or film.
PTC also writes a short summary of the series or film and list specific content examples to let parents know what they can expect when viewing the show or movie with their children. However, their traffic light ratings are not meant to take the place of the parents’ discretion. Each parent should carefully… Learn more about PTC
3 porn stars on Stern's show. One of many times he featured porn stars.
[Warning: Adult language used in this post]
This 41-year-old, father of one, will not be watching NBC’s America’s Got Talent this season due to the hiring of new host, Howard Stern. This is a show I have watched along with my family every year since the first. Bottom line, Howard Stern adds nothing of value to the show, is a black eye for the program, and actually puts the family show at jeopardy. The first question that comes to mind – will they now be bleeping out the host of this show as FOX regularly does for their hosts on the “family friendly” American Idol show?
There is not enough bandwidth here on this site to list all the controversial things Stern has said over the years. Here is just a brief sampling. He really is a funny guy.
About the gunmen at the school massacre in Columbine:
‘Did those kids try to have sex with any of the good-looking girls?…If you’re going to kill yourself and kill all the kids, why wouldn’t you have some sex?'”
“[She is] the most enormous, fat black chick I’ve ever seen.”
About the recent scandal on American Soldiers Urinating on Dead Taliban Fighters:
“He’s shooting bullets into you, you’re shooting back, couple of your bodies died, you get done with an intense battle, you’re alive, you get out of it without a scratch, you’re f***ing crazed, you’re scared out of your mind, but you defended your country. You take out your c*ck and you piss on the enemy. You know what? So what. That’s war.”
On the 1st Amendment and the Republican Debates:
“The amazing thing to me–I’m watching these debates, the Republican debates–this Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, they are the two worst people on the planet. They get up wherever they can and they still feel comfortable getting up in front of an audience in 2012 and f***ing saying s**t about gays.”
About Ted Nugent, who has made controversial statements about President Obama:
I love that guy. He’s nuts…He’s one of those guys who kills deer, so he thinks he’s like, a tough guy…During the Vietnam War, he admits that he peed his own pants and s**t his pants for a week and went down there and got out of the draft. If he’s so tough, why don’t you go in the f***ing military…He talks about fighting for his freedoms. Who is he fighting,…deer? I mean who is he fighting? As far as I know he’s fighting deer…Why doesn’t he sign up for Afghanistan?…He should be playing Cat Scratch Fever at some fair, which is probably what frustrates him most…Just a big p**sy with a f***ing gun.
On former American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino:
“Hey Fantasia, you’re not getting little boys hard. Nobody’s beating off to you. Little boys want boners. They want a Britney Spears or a Rihanna.”
Do we need to re-read the Columbine comments again:
‘Did those kids try to have sex with any of the good-looking girls?…If you’re going to kill yourself and kill all the kids, why wouldn’t you have some sex?'”
Howard Stern is a “comedian” and a radio host. He has been very successful in his career, because there is a large enough audience that supports his type of humor and overall presentation. I don’t agree with it, but everyone has a right to their opinion and personal preferences.
A family-friendly show should have family-friendly hosts. Not hosts that you never know from one minute to the next what they might say and what they might have to bleep out.
How many excellent and talented celebrities are out there that would have fit the bill? There are plenty, but instead NBC chose Stern, who now gets a tremendous amount of free exposure to reach a new audience.
I turned on Disney for my two-year-old daughter this past Sunday morning because she was asking to watch “miss mouse.” I found two channels on the Verizon Fios guide. Had never heard of either show, so I simply choose one, something called Phineas and Ferb.Meanwhile my daughter had migrated to another room in the house. I quickly went back to what I was doing on the computer, when I heard my wife call down from the upstairs hallway, “do you know there is an old man in his underwear on the tv?”
“Huh?”
I looked up from my laptop to see a cartoon character of a creepy old man in nothing but underwear.
What has society come to in this country? A parent can not put on the Disney Channel on a Sunday morning without worrying about what their child may hear or see? To me this is simply mind boggling.
Phineas and Ferb is a show that I was unfamilar with, but upon doing so Internet searches, I learned that this is a popular Disney production that appeals to not only children but also adults. Hmmm.
In the Wikipedia description, with Phineas and Ferb “Much of the series’ humor relies on running gags… Aspects of the show’s humor are aimed at adults, including its frequent pop-cultural references. Co-creator Dan Povenmire, sought to create a show that was less raunchy than Family Guy—having previously worked on the show—but had the same reliance on comic timing, metahumor, humorous blank stares, expressionless faces and wordplay. Povenmire describes the show as a combination of Family Guy and SpongeBob SquarePants. Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, the other co-creator, said the show was not created just for kids, but simply did not exclude them as an audience.”
Awesome.
So here was a parent on a Sunday morning simply tuning into the Disney Channel for their young, impressionable daughter, only to be presented with a cartoon character of a person that no reasonable parent would let their child be around.
Phineas and Ferb is a huge money maker for Disney, as there are all sorts of off-shoot products that have been derived from this show. Only a couple of years ago, Disney announced that the show had become the number one primetime animated television show for the demographics 6-10 and 9-14.
Nice.
The irresponsibility of the Disney Company is incredible in this day and age when scandals of sexual abuse (such as what occurred at Penn State University) seem like an every day occurrence. But it comes as no huge surprise to this author, since Disney has a checkered past that most in the public are unaware.
Disney also owns numerous companies including the ABC Network, which puts out some of the worst trash on network television. Their latest project is a show re-titled “G.C.B.,” which stands for the original name “Good Christian Bitches.” The show is even more offensive than the title, if that is possible. But more on that later.
When I was a child, I grew up watching shows like Tom And Jerry and Donald Duck. Not creepy old men in their underwear.
Not cartoons geared towards adults but aired during children viewing hours.
Editor’s Note: The Parents TV Council (PTC) is your family’s voice in Hollywood, and they need you to help make it stronger. If you want to support the Parents Television Council,join the nearly one million active memberswho are helping the PTC to bring responsibility to the entertainment industry.
“I know why we are doing all this [shopping for new clothes]. It’s because your Mom feels sorry for me.”
“No, it’s because my Mom wants to screw your Dad.”
“Doesn’t your Mom screw your Dad?”
“No!”
This was the dialog between two teenage girls in the Pilot episode of Suburgatory, the latest trashy televison production from the ABC Network. The show revolves around the life of a young girl, Tessa (Jane Levy), who has moved from the big city to the burbs. Why? Because her father George (Jeremy Sisto) is a single dad who finds a box of condoms — not hers, of course — in her bedroom, and decides that the city is no place for a single father to raise a daughter. So, the two of them move to the suburbs. Right. That makes sense.
From there the stereotypes begin, starting with the mom next door who is “overly” friendly to the new father in town. This despite the fact that the mom, portrayed as a dumb blond who has had more than her fair share of plastic surgery, is married with family. That leads to the dialog presented here between the two girls in the dressing room of a local department store.
With scripts like this, there is little doubt “the family hour” — also known as prime time television — is a misnomer.
You know when a show’s title is mocking a religious term that there isn’t going to be much hope for it, at least from a moral perspective. Being responsible has never been high on the list of television executives, as guys like Chuck Lorre of “Two and a Half Men” fame have illustrated time and time again.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, “purgatory” is a Roman Catholic term for “1. an intermediate state where the souls of those who have died in grace must atone for their sins. before attaining heaven. 2. a place or state of temporary punishment or suffering.”
Regardless of your religious beliefs, it is exactly this type of show that should offend most Americans, whether or not you are a parent.
With titles such as “Suburgatory,” $#*! my Dad Says,” “The Playboy Club,” and “I Hate My Teenage Daughter,” Network television is no longer even trying to hide their agenda. It’s right there in the open for anyone with eyes, ears, and an ounce of common sense.
An educational study recently concluded and published by TIME magazine states that children who are exposed to profanity on television are much more likely to show negative consequences. What a shocker, but it is nice to see evidence of what many of us already believe.
“Using statistical models, the researchers calculated that exposure to profanity had about the same relationship to aggressive behavior as exposure to violence on TV or in video games. In addition, they found that the more children were exposed to profanity, they more likely they were to use swear words themselves, and those who used profanity were more likely to become aggressive toward others.”
“Toddlers and Tiaras” is a TLC production that has hit a new low for cable programs. Learn more about the disgusting show TLC is promoting and airing on your cable programming.
