Reading Time: 10 minutes

The Impact and Controversy of the “Banned from Television” series

Exploring the “Banned from Television” Phenomenon

Initial Encounter with “Banned from Television”

While watching TV with friends late one night back in 1998, a TV commercial appeared on screen featuring a big bold black square zigzagged with the words: “Banned From Television.”

Needless to say this grabbed our full attention.

What could be so shocking that it was banned from TV?

The “Banned from Television” title graphic remained on screen for the rest of the commercial. It effectively concealed the majority of the footage being shown.

We squinted to try to catch any glimpse of what was being hidden from us.

But while the videos played, audio from each video provided enough clues to piece together what we couldn’t see.

The Power of Audio in Marketing

Instead of muting the commercial, like we normally did, we turned the volume to hear the voiceover.

The narrator seemed to be speaking directly to us now as he said:

“The video so shocking the censors won’t even let us show you this commercial. These are the most unbelievable real-life events ever caught on tape. All raw, all real, and all banned from television. Witness horrifying car crashes, rampaging animals and the carnage they leave in their wake. See how police pursuits really end; not the censored version they show you on the evening news. See what really happens when sex clubs get busted. They won’t show you; but we will!”

Banned from Television TV Infomercial, 1998

All of this was told to us in less than 10-15 seconds while gunshots, screams, a scuffle, and thumping sex club music could be heard.

It was hypnotic.

Youthful Curiosity and Hesitation

Our 18 year-old brains were reeling as we tried to process all of this.

The next thing we know we hear the sound of a train approaching at high speed, blaring its horn. Then the narrator says:

“And don’t forget about that train crossing that everyone’s been talking about. Warning, this video contains the most shocking footage ever caught on tape. To order you must be over 18. Call now!”

Banned from Television TV Infomercial, 1998

What did we just watch?

Was this video legit?

How bad could it be?

Hey, we’re 18; sweet, we can actually watch this.

But wait, do we really want to?

Reflection and Decision-Making

After the initial wave of bewilderment passed, my friends and I looked at each other and let out a nervous laugh.

Then we started talking about whether we were interested in watching something like this or not.

We all stated that: yeah, we would definitely watch something like this.

But it was obvious that we were all trying to act tough, cool, and unfazed by what may be contained on the VHS tapes.

However, none of us had a credit card.

Not to mention none of us wrote down the phone number or the website.

Oh well, we thought, and we carried on with our evening by popping in one of the movies we had rented from Blockbuster as we returned to our regular weekend routine.

Ongoing Intrigue and Marketing Success

Over the next few weeks, I would see pieces of the commercial a few more times.

It seemed to be taunting me.

It was tantalizing.

But I figured that I’d never have an opportunity to see what “they didn’t want me to see.”

The people behind the marketing of this video series definitely knew a thing or two about creating hype.

I, like a number of other people, got sucked into the allure of wanting to see what was forbidden.

The Forbidden Fruit Marketing Strategy

I’ve since come to learn that this technique is a well-known advertising strategy known as “the forbidden fruit” technique.

Apparently it’s not just kids who want things more when they’re told they can’t have them.

It seems like this is the case for people of all different ages.

A lot of people don’t like being told what they can and can’t do.

They like to use their own judgement and exercise their own autonomy.

Societal Trends in the 90s

Evidently lots of us also like to push boundaries and test limits, even just a little bit.

The 90s was a time, at least in the Western world, that seemed like a lot of limits being tested.

Societal norms and the limits of acceptable media content were stretched beyond what was previously deemed acceptable.

Banned from Television didn’t just stretch boundaries though; it smashed right through them.

And though it was wild, extreme, and extremely graphic, Banned from Television was perhaps the culmination of the exploration of the limits of acceptability.

Remember that by 1998, The Jerry Springer Show had been on air for 7 years and was notorious for its explosive episodes featuring fights, infidelity, and outrageous personal revelations.

The Jerry Springer show regularly pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable daytime TV content.

Beavis and Butt-Head (1993-1997) and South Park (1997-present) were popularized by their crude behaviour and anti-censorship spirit.

Personalities like Howard Stern became wildly famous for their sexual and scatological humour and a general disdain for authority.

The movie Natural Born Killers (1994), directed by Oliver Stone, drew large crowds and satisfied an appetite in those who approved of its violent content.

As the 90s bore out, debates about the media’s role in sensationalizing violence and its effect on society were ever-present.

While not everyone sided with those that pushed the boundaries, there was a significant swell of support for relaxing the moral limits, and allowing people to decide for themselves how much sex, violence, and explicit visual content they were comfortable with.

Personal Experience and Reflection on Watching the Series

While I was by no means a rebel or even a rule breaker, I did crave being the first to see things, particularly those things that were more on the fringe of society or that pushed boundaries.

I remember thinking: hmmm, I wonder how “shocking” it could really be?

I mean, surely if it was too graphic or disturbing it wouldn’t be allowed to be shown off-air video either.

However, after watching the commercial, a seed was planted. Over the next few months, I caught the advertisement a few more times and I fell for the bait. I wanted to see what the hype was about and whether I was tough enough to handle watching the video.

I wasn’t about to ask my parents to order it though. And as I mentioned earlier, neither my friends or I had a credit card.

I figured somewhere, somehow, someone I knew would probably get a copy and I could borrow it. Or at least I hoped.

For a time, I kinda forgot about the video, but then, during one of the weekly Friday night Blockbuster stops, I spied a copy sitting on the new release shelf and snapped it up.

Holy F, I thought, how could this just be available to rent in amongst the rest of the mainstream titles.

I was pretty pumped to get it home and check it out.

That night, my brother and I popped the Banned from Television VHS into the VCR and, gripped by nervous excitement, waited to see what would happen.

The Impact of “Banned from Television” on Viewers

Unveiling the Reality

So, if you’ve seen any of these videos, you’ll know what was on them.

If you haven’t seen them, I will tell you that they definitely delivered on all of the things that the infomercial claimed they would: rampaging animals, police chases, sex clubs getting raided, and the “train crossing that everyone has been talking about.”

There was a 1 second clip on the infomercial that I forgot to mention earlier.

For a brief moment just before the 1-800 number and ordering details were displayed, there was footage of a person who was tied up and had a bag over their head and someone walks towards them and holds a gun to their head and then the screen goes black and you hear the bank of the gun being fired.

And yeah, that was shown in all of its graphic detail on the actual film.

Personal Reflections on the Viewing Experience

To say the footage was intense would be an understatement.

I’ll try to describe to you what I felt watching it and you can tell me if you felt the same.

I experienced anxiety, dread, nervous excitement, shock, and bewilderment.

I think that I even laughed inappropriately at one point when what was on screen was definitely not funny, but I didn’t know how to react.

A knot formed in my stomach during some segments, my body tensed up in others and there were times when I just shook my head in disbelief.

My brother and I both uttered audible reactions more than once as we either said “no way,” or “holy *&%$!”

To be honest, while writing this article and thinking about what it was like to watch Banned from Television, I could feel these same feelings wash over me.

Long-Term Effects and Cultural Impact

Analyzing the Influence

If you want more details about exactly what was shown on each of the three Banned from Television films, check out this in-depth summary: Banned from TV Synopsis.

It was obvious that these videos stuck with me over the years.

I say videos plural, because I did in fact watch all 3 of them.

In a strange way it was like a badge of honour to be able to say that I had found and watched these taboo videos.

I’m sure that I felt like I was cool.

Did I enjoy watching these movies though?

I don’t think so.

Am I glad I watched them?

I think so?

In some ways, watching parts of the footage felt like bearing witness.

I honestly don’t really know what I think about these videos.

It feels wrong to say they were entertaining, but in reality, they were.

It wasn’t wholesome family entertainment, but it was wildly captivating and like nothing I had ever seen before.

The Broader Societal Reflections

At the time, I didn’t consider what effect viewing these videos would have on people.

I don’t know what effect they had on me.

Did it desensitize me to visual violence?

Probably.

Did it change my opinion on what was morally acceptable?

No.

Did I think that there was a role for censorship?

Yes, I don’t think everyone should watch this, especially not minors.

Although I think that watching it did help me to understand how fragile life is and how evil people can be.

I also made it abundantly clear, that one bad decision can have dire consequences.

As the internet was taking hold, this series could be a cautionary tale that there is always a chance that you can be caught on tape, and that you have less control over what and how your image is used, then you think you do.

I have since experienced a fairly safe existence.

Banned from Television did help me understand the potential perils of engaging in risky behaviour.

Do I seek out this content out anymore?

That’s a tough one.

In a way, yes.

I enjoy the True Crime genre, and did watch things like Live PD and other media of people behaving badly.

Does that make me a voyeur?

Ummm, unfortunately, I guess it does?

The Evolution of Media and Viewer Sensibilities in the 90s

Technological Advances and Media Trends

The continual growth in the use of personal recording devices and things like CCTV is something the 90s is known for.

Sometimes this growth outpaced meaningful conversations about who could create content and what that content could show.

By the time Banned from Television was released, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” had demonstrated that it was pretty darn interesting watching the lives of ordinary people having minor accidents, slips and falls, and getting whacked in the crotch by any number of projectiles or child-sized baseball bats.

The accessibility of camcorders also contributed to the success of shows like “Cops,” which showed humans behaving badly and real danger as police engaged in high-speed chases, SWAT Teams kicked down doors, and people threw punches, kicks, and any number of aggressive actions.

Other shows like “World’s Scariest Police Chases” were successful because of the real high-speeds, high-stakes nature of its content.

And as good and as exciting and interesting as all of these shows were, they all had limits of what they did and didn’t show.

These trends set the stage for productions like Banned from Television, which capitalized on the era’s appetite for uncensored and raw content, for the things that were not being shown on regular cable.

The Controversial Figure Behind the Series

When a group of people are doing wild things, there’s always that one person that says: “oh, yeah, you think that’s wild, well watch this.”

In this case, that person was Joe Francis.

Francis is the creator of Banned on Television.

While serving as a Production Assistant on “Real TV,” a syndicated cable TV show that aired between 1996-2001.

Real TV often showed footage of things that weren’t covered by mainstream news outlets.

The show played a variety of videos that involved danger, speed, bad behaviour, and people breaking the rules.

However, it cut the most graphic parts and censored content so that it was appropriate for TV standards.

While working on Real TV, Francis often viewed the footage in its entirety and was able to see the things not aired on TV and he came up with the idea to license this material to compile it together and sell it directly to consumers in what he would later dub “Banned from Television.”

Closing Thoughts and Community Engagement

Reflecting on the Impact and Legacy

The Banned from Television series included 3 compilation videos which were all released in the same year.

No sooner had they started to be sold, leveraging infomercials that had become popular during the era, the criticisms and complaints started to flood in.

From what I found out online, Francis was accused of misappropriating the idea for the series, not securing the proper licenses for the videos, misattributing some of the footage, not obtaining consent to show people’s faces, and not adequately ensuring all of the women shown topless were of legal age.

After 1998, Francis decided to focus on his other business ventures, mainly the Girls Gone Wild series which he actually founded in 1997.

If you don’t know, this franchise sends camera crews to college party locations and captures footage of college females engaging in “wild” behaviour, particularly exposing themselves.

Expert Analysis: an Invitation to Readers

Wait, what do the experts say?

So, when I set out to write this article, I was sure that I would include a section about what psychologists and sociologists have to say about the effect of watching these videos.

However, I find that there isn’t any definitive agreement on this.

It seems that the effects are largely personal, and are different for different people.

I shared some of my feelings earlier about what I think the effect was on me.

I’m curious to know what you think the effects were on you if you watched any of these videos.

I think the personal stories will help us understand more about the topic than sifting through contradictory studies of something that can’t really be measured in terms of cause and effect.

Which brings us to the close of this article.

I’d love to hear from you about your memories of Banned from Television.

To its credit, it did what it claimed it would do and that was to shock you.

Apart from that its impact on those who viewed it appears to be largely a personal experience.

Given the context of the preceding pop culture personalities and visual media creators who were anti-censorship, Banned from Television seems like a logical next step (albeit a large step), in challenging cultural and societal views of what was acceptable to be shown on screen.

FAQ

Is “Banned from Television” available online?

Yes, you can still purchase new and used copies of the videos online. The films are also archived in the Internet Archive.

What happened to Joe Francis?

He declared Girls Gone Wild bankrupt in 2015 and has been convicted and accused of a number of crimes since 1998. Most accounts online indicate that he resides in Mexico now and is wanted in the  US to stand trial for a number of civil suits that allege that he owes a lot of people a lot of money.

Was the footage actually “never-before-seen?”

No, some of the videos were broadcast in news outlets in other countries outside North America and at least two clips were shown on World’s Scariest Police Chases.