5 Warning Messages Forced on Audiences Overseas
When you watch an episode of TV, a screen at the start may warn you that the program contains “Nudity,” “Graphic Language” and “Strong Sexual Content.” This is the show’s way of telling you, “Strap yourself it. This is going to be a good one.”
Other countries have had their own warnings, which you’d never even think of. But if you found yourself in the right place on Earth at the right time, you might have turned on the TV to see...
The ‘Daily Show’ Parody Warning
From 2002 all the way to 2020, The Daily Show produced a weekly “Global Edition” that aired internationally. It consisted of segments taken from the regular show, as well as a new intro from Jon Stewart or Trevor Noah.
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The show would always start with this warning: “The show you are about to watch is a news parody. Its stories are not fact checked. Its reporters are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through.”
Based on the funny last line, you might think that this warning was itself a parody, something like how every South Park episode warns you that the show should not be watched by anyone. But this warning was genuine and was quite necessary, for the simple reason that in most of the world, The Daily Show: Global Edition aired on CNN International. CNN, you might know, is not a comedy network, and its international variant is generally more respectable than its American one. International viewers were fully capable of understanding satire, but some of them were probably slightly confused to see it airing on a news channel.
This issue no longer matters, though, because it appears that they gave up making The Daily Show: Global Edition around when the COVID pandemic really geared up and everyone got too frazzled to do much of anything.
The Special Romanian ‘Columbo’ Note
Columbo ran for nine seasons from 1971 to 1990, but it only aired 53 episodes during that time. That’s because, rather than airing weekly like so many other shows, new episodes came out once a month, adding up to seasons that had eight episodes at most and sometimes as few as three.
That might be confusing enough if you were in the United States and thought you were tuning into a normal TV series but instead got a monthly movie. It was a lot more confusing if you lived in Romania. The show was huge in Romania, and TV stations there aired episodes twice a week when they had new episodes to air, but then they quickly ran out. Given that the other American shows that came to Romania had many more episodes than that, Romanian citizens suspected the government was hoarding Columbo tapes and simply refusing to share them.
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The desire for more Columbo episodes could have led to riots, so the government of Romania contacted the U.S. State Department. They then got Peter Falk to record a special message to the Romanian people. “We would like to thank Romanian television for having put us on the air on Saturdays and Sundays,” he said. “I hope someday I can come to your country and enjoy the traditional culture and hospitality of the Romanian people.” After some more niceties of that sort, he confirmed that the show was done for the season but would be returning later, proving that the episodes weren’t ceasing simply because the Romanian government decided to pull the plug.
The way Falk would later tell the story, his message went further, telling the people that they should trust their government and that they should put down their guns. State Department transcripts don’t back that up, but we can forgive Falk for not knowing the exact content of the message. He delivered it in Romanian — and he did not know Romanian. His handlers had him read the message off cue cards, written phonetically.
Wham’s Anti-Dance Ordinance
China tends to be a little strict when it comes to bands coming and performing, even today. Zip back in time 40 years, and the wall blocking off musicians stood even stronger.
In 1985, two of the acts looking to be the first international group to come play Beijing were Wham and Queen. Wham’s management won the authorities over by visiting them and showing them two photos. One was of Wham, looking very clean and respectable. The other was of Freddie Mercury, striking a most flamboyant pose. Chinese officials decided to go with Wham.
As it happens, the members of Wham could also be a bit flamboyant, but officials didn’t quite pick up on that. When the concert started, a warning message blasted at the audience. There was to be no dancing allowed at the venue. Then, after a few songs of the audience remaining on their best behavior, the duo broke out “Careless Whisper.”
This song (rather than some of the earlier, more upbeat ones), got several audience members dancing. Security escorted these audience members away, and we are sad to say we have no information about what happened to these rebels after that.
Warnings of the Dead
Let’s say you were to see this message on Australian TV: “The following program contains images and voices of people who have died.” You might think that this is a gore warning. The part about voices may struck you a little odd, but maybe that means someone’s dying screams, and you’d like the option to avoid hearing those.
The full warning clarifies that this is directed at “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers.” Those cultures have a specific tradition where you’re not supposed to depict someone who’s died. This isn’t about corpses or death scenes — it’s about showing photos and recordings of when they were alive and even about naming the dead person. You can’t do any of that for a port-mortem period of perhaps six months. Sometimes, reporters will get around this by using an alternate name, which lets you know who they’re talking about without disrespecting the dead by naming them directly.
Even aside from respect, it might be best for all to avoid having to hear about someone who just died. George Carlin had a bit about how annoying it is listening to the media trot out tributes for dead celebs. We’re citing Carlin here instead of making that point ourselves because Carlin is dead now, and we know no one will disagree with him, for fear of disrespecting the dead.
The Aliens Who Took Over the U.K.
On November 26, 1977, British television audiences were tuning in to see the usual evening news program. Then the broadcast scrambled up, and a new voice spoke over it.
“This is the voice of Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, speaking to you,” said the unseen speaker. “For many years you have seen us as lights in the skies. We speak to you now in peace and wisdom as we have done to your brothers and sisters all over this, your planet Earth.”
The alien visitor offered us an invitation to “share in the great awakening,” but we would have to prove ourselves worthy. “All your weapons of evil must be removed,” said Vrillon. There would be other threats we had to watch out for as well, he warned. “Be aware also that there are many false prophets and guides at present operating on your world. They will suck your energy from you — the energy you call money — and will put it to evil ends and give you worthless dross in return.”
Investigators figured out how the interloper took the signal over. The network, ITN, normally used a rebroadcasting station (the Hannington transmitter) to relay their signal from its usual source (the Rowridge transmitting station), and someone had set up a separate transmitter that overwrote that source. But who was responsible? We don’t know, so we’re forced to accept the explanation that it really was a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command.
Sadly, not everyone did accept that explanation, so England didn’t heed the warning. Today, we’re all paying the price.
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