ABC Says Sex Okay, Calling Obama a Communist is not

ABC Censors Spike Characters Calling Obama a Communist on Tim Allen Sitcom

Michael Schneider reported about campaign plot lines showing up in network sitcoms in the October 15-21 edition of TV Guide. NBC's gay sitcom "The New Normal" had an "Obama Mama" episode, and ABC's Tim Allen sitcom "Last Man Standing" will debut in November with an Obama-fan-vs-. Romney- fan plot.

In an age in which the networks can't seem to censor anything -- and in which ABC can put on a show like "Good Christian Bitches" (oops, let's abbreviate it) -- the censors will spike some things...like joking Barack Obama is a communist:

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.

Helping to balance the show is the fact that Doyle leans left, while Allen leans slightly right of center. Allen says the episode goes “back and forth, weighted so it’s like a teeter-totter. But at the end, I wanted it off balance.” He won’t say how it finally tilts.

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.

"We all really love Archie Bunker," said Allen of playing a Bunkeresque character. "And that's where we're going. I push every button and love pushing them." ABC won't allow certain buttons to be touched. It's almost funny that the censors would be so lax on sex and violence, but will clamp down like Bonnie Bluehair on Obama jokes. Is this their only Thou Shalt Not?

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