The main goal of television censors since the beginning of television broadcasting has been to avoid government censorship. Just like movie and radio censors before them, they turned to self-censorship in their efforts to avoid censorship from outside their industry.
The famous Production Code, promulgated by Will Hays' Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1922, governed television's depiction of family life and male-female relationships well into the 1960s. It was because of this ridiculous "moral" code that Lucy and Ricky, on I Love Lucy slept in separate twin beds and kept one foot on the floor at all times when kissing. .
The Hay's Production Code, that went to the extreme of forcing director William Wyler to use "clean" garbage in his portrayal of New York's slums in the 1936 film Dead End, was effective in avoiding outside censorship until changing community standards forced changes in the industry in the late 1960s.
The first incident of censorship on network television is considered to be a broadcast of a performance by Eddie Cantor on May 25, 1944 on NBC. During this time there was a great deal of controversy around the censorship of radio broadcasts involving both Fred Allen and Eddie Cantor. Many people felt that some of Cantor's songs, "Making Whoopee" and "If You Knew Susie" for example, were risqué.
Cantor was supposed to perform the song "We're Having A Baby, My Baby and Me" on the broadcast. Forty minutes before airtime NBC censors ordered Cantor to cut the song because its lyrics were offensive. Cantor argued that he did not have time to prepare another number. The censors relented and allowed Cantor to begin the number as a duet with Nora Martin.
Part way through the song NBC engineers shut off the sound feed, cutting the following lines from the song:.
Martin: Thanks to you, my life is bright. You've brought me joy beyond measure. .
Cantor: Don't thank me.
