• St0ner@lemmy.wtf
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    2 days ago

    These are some of the best episodes ever. Boo on them for being censors

  • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Imagine going to thrift stores for 15 minutes after work and ending up with all of these on DVD?

    • But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Problem is shows like “it’s always sunny” that i wanted to do this with, stopped making physical dvd releases after like season 10. Disney + also removed a bunch of episodes for “being offensive” which if that worries you, why are you watching its always sunny?

    • Psythik@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      Imagine going straight home after work and steaming whatever you want instantly because you have Stremio + Torrentio?

      • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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        18 hours ago

        Imagine pirating all that, not paying for it, AND having Blurays?

        What else are you doing with those 15 minutes, working on world peace?

        • Psythik@lemm.ee
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          16 hours ago

          Well with Stremio you don’t need to do that, because it’s laid out like Netflix. That’s why I prefer it over Plex; no downloading, no transferring files over (and if you add a Debrid service to the mix, no waiting on seeds, either). Just pick what you want to watch with your TV remote and enjoy. It’s convenient enough that your Boomer parents could navigate it with ease.

  • Omega@discuss.online
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    2 days ago

    Apparently it’s because of Paramount Germany. Those episodes had, to quote them, “anti Semitic commentary”

    • ghen@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      It’s only Germany as well, other countries get all of them. Including the United States. This reaction to a Twitter post is overblown. Germany has laws that must be followed that’s all

      Everyone here is reacting to a random person on Twitter as if they are telling the truth.

      • Omega@discuss.online
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        2 days ago

        No, paramount blocks it in the US too if it gets blocked in Germany, so whilst the right thing to do is to block it for German accounts only, it’s not what happens

  • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    When I discovered South Park studios, I legit stopped pirating south park. It was great. Good (enough) quality, access to every episode afaik, and easy to use. Then they switched to Hulu for sps and it went to shit: ads, videos failing to load, ads failing to load in the middle of the video causing it to reset from the beginning, only a few seasons available at any particular time, etc.

    Fuck all that shit.

    • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It’s especially funny given what Trey Parker and Matt Stone said when they started the South Park Studios site in 2008. From the press release announcing the launch:

      When asked about the launch of the new site, Stone and Parker said, “We got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time so we gave ourselves a legal alternative.”

    • TwistedTurtle@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      I remember that. Deleted all the seasons I had to free up hard drive space, since their website was so good. Ended up being another valuable lesson on why I need to self host my own stuff even if convenient alternatives are available.

      Nowadays I never trust a company not to pull the rug out from under me.

  • C1pher@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Dont support the service. Plain simple. Well, I know you guys dont, but yea… just my 2 cents nobody asked for :D

  • fishos@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This is legitimately the exact example I cite when explaining to people why I pirate. It’s not just about about stuff being moved around across an ever increasing amount of services. The ability to pretend entire episodes don’t even exist(super best friends and 200/201 have been banned for awhile now, long before this) is why I returned to piracy.

  • teft@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    The stupidest censorship I’ve seen like this is Community’s first DnD episode. Chang dresses up as a drow and that is considered “blackface” even though they address it in the episode that he isn’t black but a drow. So goodbye episode on streaming.

    • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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      3 days ago

      I mean, I guess if you’re a drow and see this, you might be offended.

      Not because it’s drowface, but because it’s a human, therefore not drow, and thus is beneath the drow.

      They kind of have an extreme isolationist, and borderline racial superiority thing going on.

      • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        But they are also praying to a giant spider and kill their own children, so not exactly nice people.

    • orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      Oh, man. A Drow in a long-sleeved Guayabera. That’s an insult to my Cuban heritage. Keep it banned. /s

      • teft@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        He’s one of those weird seldarine drow that hangs out with the humans.

    • Zess@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Do you think this isn’t an obvious reference to blackface? The joke doesn’t make sense if blackface had never been a thing, so it’s a joke about blackface. And that’s bad.

      Community is my favorite show and this episode is fantastic. But pretending it’s not blackface just because “he’s actually a drow!!!” is so stupid.

      • snooggums@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It is a setup to a joke about how anything vaguely similar to a terrible thing is assumed to be the terrible thing, and that Change is too clueless to catch on.

        The drow makeup is not blackface any more than black face camo is blackface.

        • tomenzgg@midwest.social
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          2 days ago

          You’re right but it seems like most people still missed that as the majority of comments think the joke is that it isn’t blackface (rather than very clearly too close to blackface and Chang, somehow, not registering that).

    • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      they could have avoided this crap by just choosing grey. drows and variants come in various shades. it’s so fucking stupid

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        The joke wouldn’t work as well if they did that. They joke about blackface, so you need black. This doesn’t look like a black person does anyway, so I don’t see how gray would make it better.

        • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          They joke about blackface, so you need black.

          Yeah, making a racist, bad take joke was so worth it. It surely wouldn’t have made Shirley look out of touch that way, making a different joke that wasn’t as SUPER EDGY.

            • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I guess I’m out of touch with the race politics jokes of 1890s, so the parody seems out of time for me.

              EDIT : Maybe if they threw in a tin pan alley, player piano or travelling curio joke, I’d have gotten it a bit better.

              • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Well, the first problem is that you think the Drow makeup is blackface or that Shirley being out of touch is a bad thing. Shirley’s character was out of touch initially and she developed over time as part of her character arc. Yvette Nicole Brown knew it wasn’t blackface and that the joke went over some people’s heads.

                Cast member Yvette Nicole Brown mentioned that it did not seem the joke was understood by those criticizing it, as there was context that in her view made it different from blackface.

                The joke was that it was a passing resemblance, Shirley makes an assumption, and everyone else moves on because it isn’t actually blackface. This is very different from the other shows like 30 rock and always sunny where the characters were in actual blackface while mocking blackface. I still think those shouldn’t have been removed since they were mocking blackface, but this is completely different.

                • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  OK. Let’s break it all the way down explicitly.

                  The joke is that Chang’s character is in Drow makeup, and because Shirley is out of touch with games, she thinks that the Drow make up is blackface.

                  The depiction of the Drow makeup has chosen an “ambigious” shade of black/grey that made it seem to some viewers or people who want to see it that way , as blackface, in real life, not as a character in the show. This caused problems.

                  The suggestion, is that if they chose grey or some other ashy shade , and or gone more elaborate with the make up, like red contacts, or pointy ears, they could have done EXACT joke, but made it not “ambigious” and avoided the heat that the episode has actually gotten.

                  I would even say that having a LESS blackface looking make up would further accentuate Shirley’s out of touchness, making it funnier, as it would be more ridiculous that A) She would think that make up is blackface and B) Shirley thinks that’s what Chang thinks making himself look like a black person would entail, red eyes and pointy ears and a non human shade of darkness.

                  Furthermore, expanding on my other point which was not adressed in your post :

                  I guess I’m out of touch with the race politics jokes of 1890s, so the parody seems out of time for me.
                  Maybe if they threw in a tin pan alley, player piano or travelling curio joke, I’d have gotten it a bit better.

                  What the fuck are it’s always sunny et al doing making fun of this outdated shit in the first place? Did they get that mad at Spike Lee making Bamboozled and using blackface as an analogy of people acting up to stereotypes to get ahead in life , that they had to address it as a commentary on blackface, an “artform” from the 1890s as a target?

    • Charlxmagne@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Reminds me of how that musician Michael Jackson did whiteface 😮‍💨 I was beyond offended, we need to address behaviour like this more often, absolutely deplorable.

      • Szyler@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Michael Jackson had a skin condition called vitiligo, which causes patches of skin to lose their pigmentation, resulting in a lighter skin tone. He used makeup and skin-lightening creams to manage the appearance of his skin, which led to public speculation about his changing appearance. He never did “whiteface”, his face was literally white.

  • BlueLineBae@midwest.social
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    3 days ago

    Has anyone watched the most recent season of The Rehearsal? Nathan mentions that an episode of his previous show “Nathan for You” was taken off Paramount Plus because it had a segment where he started a fashion line where the profits would go toward holocaust education and remembrance. So even though this was a positive thing, it still brings up the holocaust and is therefore too sensitive subject to air. He then proceeds to paint Paramount Plus as literal Nazis in proceeding episodes to drive his point home. Highly recommend if you haven’t seen his new show yet.

    • fossphi@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      That was such an amazing clip, I was absolutely howling.

      By the way, have you managed to convince anyone to watch The Rehearsals or Nathan for you? I like both these shows but it’s so hard to describe them to someone and make them even consider watching it

      • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        Rehearsals really is impossible to describe. I watched the first episode, and the last 2 minutes hit so hard, that I seriously questioned if the show is attempting to genuinely help the people or is it for the comedy. He walks the line so well. Can’t wait to watch more.

        • fossphi@lemm.ee
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          3 days ago

          I really like the second season till now. It had some hard to get through moments, but the interconnected nature of the episodes gives it a bit more depth than season 1

      • criticon@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        How to with John Wilson is the same vibe. I want to recommend it but it’s very difficult to explain why it is so funny

        • exasperation@lemm.ee
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          3 days ago

          I recommended it, too, during the first season, and my wife joined me on the couch just as the topic veered to circumcision and the dude who invented a device for stretching his foreskin and she noped right out of the show forever.

        • fossphi@lemm.ee
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          3 days ago

          I love love this show. To me, it’s more like a comfy/slice of life kinda experience. I mean it still is funny, but it’s becoming one of my comfort shows

          • exasperation@lemm.ee
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            2 days ago

            The COVID episode with the landlord really catapulted the show into a top tier show, at least in my own mind. It was sweet and funny and a perfect slice of actual life in those uncertain first weeks of the COVID shutdown, that just happened to be taken in the city hit hardest.

      • pootzapie@lemy.lol
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        3 days ago

        Familiar with the shows but I’m now going to try both based on your recos, thank you!

  • Genius@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    I was super confused when I got to the second D&D episode of Community. Turns out, streaming banned the first one because an Asian man wears drowface. He appropriated dark elf culture. Eventually I pirated the episode and was very happy. Good story.

    • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      That one pissed me off because the whole joke was him being blissfully unaware of the potential racial connotations of his dark black face makeup and everyone being like “Woah what the fuck man.” Like the joke wasn’t “Haha look at this caricature of black people” it was “Haha look at this dumbass doing something racist by mistake.”

    • Dozzi92@lemmy.worldM
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      3 days ago

      The first D&D episode is so good, and it’s unfortunate that you miss what was an excellent story because of overreaching insensitivity.

      • barnaclebutt@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It’s the best and most heartfelt episode of the series. I feel bad for the actor that played fat Neil.They even address the blackface in the episode. I don’t know who are the mental midgets who make these decisions. Also, the cut episode of Bob and David is also idiotic.

      • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        I really disliked the first D&D episode, because (a) why are they pretending D&D is a turn-based game, it’s not like they’re in combat. (Nobody ever portrays D&D accurately on TV.) (b) this is actually peak Pierce-being-an-asshole. I rewatched the series and didn’t hate him nearly as much as my first watch, and I believe this episode’s omission is why.

        Not saying it should have been removed, but I wouldn’t have picked any other episode over this one.

        • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Thought I’d get a pic for reference:

          aaand, I can see why it’s offensive. The joke is that he’s tonedeaf about blackface, and he didn’t wear any other elf clothes… so at first glance, it’s a guy in blackface with a white wig…
          p.s. in a lot of modern depictions they’re a dark blue, or grey… I always played a drow in D&D and I never imagined my character as completely black.

          • shalafi@lemmy.world
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            Yep. And that’s the joke.

            Anyone notice that we never see All in the Family or The Jeffersons media, and haven’t for a decade or two? How odd. Two of the most popular sitcoms of all time just… disappeared.

            Those shows taught my young self more about racism and it’s ills than anything else in life. Yes, Archie and George were racist AF! And they were the buffoons, always losing because of their boolshit. (OK, maybe it was too heavy handed for today’s audiences, I’ll grant that.)

            Liberals: “NAOOWW! THAS RACISTH!”

            Conservatives: “WOKE!”

            What a damned shame. Fucking meatheads.

            • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 days ago

              i feel that… it’s becoming a thing that can’t be talked about anymore.
              on the other hand, if allowed more it’d be an excuse people make to make racist jokes… stuff like, “no the character is racist, and i’m showing why it’s bad”.

              also worth noting, they kept making Chevy Chase’s character racist on that show and he hates the writers for it and got in a lot of arguments.

            • socsa@piefed.social
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              3 days ago

              Not every joke lands. I think this is one of those where there’s some obvious intent behind it but the joke is a bit too high concept (and not really that funny tbh) in relation to the controversy. And I say this as a big community fan - they went for shock value and it didn’t really work because there was no punchline besides “it looks like blackface but technically isn’t blackface.”

              • Genius@lemmy.zip
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                3 days ago

                Anyone who thinks a drow looks like a black person is racist

          • Dozzi92@lemmy.worldM
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            3 days ago

            Meanwhile, Aerodynamics of Gender is good to go:

            One of the best episodes of the show though for sure.

  • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    Never watched this show, but isn’t the point of the show basically to be saturatingly offensive? Why would you remove a shotgun-scatter subset of episodes?

    • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      They were always riding on the edge of being censored by the network. In some cases the network literally censored them right before airing (the Muhammed episodes) and in others they were just restricted after the airing (like the list above)

      And Paramount also probably has a slightly different “that’s still ok” standard than comedy Central had/has

          • snooggums@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Nothing is wrong with Big Gay Al.

            Most likely there is some misunderstood joke in the episode that is getting the whole episode pulled. The football game announcers have a banter about one saying unacceptable things and it is probably one of those, but instead of censoring the one thing they just pulled the entire episode.

            • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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              2 days ago

              I did some googling, apparently its a holocaust joke that most networks are scared will attract litigation.

              Most of the other banned episodes are due to jokes about real life child death or acts of terrorism that the studios are concerned will either attract litigation or copycat killers.

              • snooggums@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Censoring the one joke instead of banning the entire episode including the overall positive message about acceptance would be a far better approach than this bullshit.

                Clearly they don’t understand that the show is mocking the character who says the holocaust joke, but at least they wouldn’t be dragging down everything else that is good with their overreaction.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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          2 days ago

          Omg they must’ve felt so good when they got that domain name back when URLs mattered