It’s astonishing to think of how far television has come in terms of what’s acceptable to air to the masses. “The Boys” has numerous scenes that were almost too gross to film, and “South Park” has been pushing the boundaries of good taste for several decades now. It’s hilarious, then, to think that back in the 1950s, merely showing a toilet was enough to sound the sirens of censorship.
In 2014, Jerry Mathers, who played Beaver Cleaver (and is one of the only “Leave It to Beaver” actors who is still alive), told FOX411 about the show facing pushback for wanting to show a toilet on the air. He explained how back then, TV shows couldn’t portray toilets or even bathrooms, and in the episode “Captain Jack,” Beaver and his brother, Wally (Tony Dow), gets a pet alligator that they need to keep in water from the house’s toilet. “[The producers] fought with the censors, and that was our very first show,” Mathers explained. “And they said, ‘Well, they could show it in the back of the toilet tank. So that was some way that ‘Leave It to Beaver’ actually set some precedents for the television industry.”
It’s humorous to think of a show as wholesome as “Leave It to Beaver” getting into any kind of censorship trouble. But it was a vastly different time with wildly different sensibilities. Ultimately, thanks to some clever camera angling, the series was allowed to proceed.
Leave It to Beaver set the stage for toilet humor
While Jerry Mathers says “Captain Jack” was the first episode of the series that they shot, it was actually the second to air. The actual “Leave It to Beaver” pilot is “Beaver Gets Spelled.” The alligator episode’s delay was likely due to needing to get the episode past the censors, and it’s somewhat debatable as to whether “Leave It to Beaver” can really claim to have shown the first toilet on television. Technically, it shows the first toilet tank, which isn’t quite the same. Still, it’s part of a toilet and the rest of a bathroom, which was still a massive step forward in breaking free of some of the conservative values of the 1950s.
The next step toward toilet acceptance on television would occur in 1971’s “All in the Family” episode, “Success Story.” This is the first time the sound of a toilet flushing was heard on a TV series, arguably a far bigger move toward broadcasting racier content. Showing a tank is one thing, but flushing a toilet (and all the implications that action comes with) is certainly more scandalous, at least by the standards of the 1970s. But with that flush, direct toilet humor became far more commonplace, with the bathroom fixture becoming regularly featured in many sitcoms to follow, from “Married with Children” to “The Simpsons” and beyond.
In the modern TV era, a series like “Rick and Morty” can dedicate an entire episode to using a toilet, and nobody bats an eye. All these shows owe a debt of gratitude to “Leave It to Beaver” and its dedication to showing a toilet on camera, one way or another.
