Up next
Where is Ken Jennings?
You may be positively shocked to hear this, but back in the 1950s, people used the toilet from time to time. They were even installed in people’s houses! Of course, network TV executives in those days went to great lengths to avoid admitting that, but a plot point on an episode of “Leave It To Beaver” forced CBS’ hand, in a manner of speaking.
To set the scene: There was a time in American history when you could order live animals from ads in the back of magazines and comic books. As IMDB explains, in the episode “Captain Jack,” Beaver and his brother Wally ordered an alligator, thinking they were going to get an adult specimen. Instead, they got a baby one, and needing to hide it and put it in a place where there’s water, they settled on the toilet, which was to appear in a few frames.
According to the Saturday Evening Post, that caused considerable hand-wringing in the CBS boardrooms. The “Standards and Practices” committee, which was in charge of, well, censorship, had the episode shelved for a while so matters could be discussed, and eventually a compromise was reached. They showed only the toilet tank, and not the, shall we say, business end of the appliance. It was the first time even a part of a toilet was ever shown on network TV.
