For as long as there has been art, there have been arbiters, people who decide what is and isn't valid. As art continues to grow more commercial, those arbiters play a bigger role. They stand between the public and some imagined scandal. After all, we wouldn't want art that truly challenges or provokes, would we? That might go against shareholder values!

Codes and conduct developed over the 20th century, crystallizing into powerful censors who deem what's fit to view. These often "traditionalist" judges can get in the way of a creator's vision, and—more importantly—they rarely actually improve anything.

In a 1999 interview with the Los Angeles Times, a sitcom legend and one in the making spoke about their famous shows. Carl Reiner, creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, was profiled alongside the newer TV star, Ray Romano, and their shows and contributions were compared and contrasted. Specifically, Reiner was asked about new sitcoms and how the content on television might seem "pretty raunchy." Given Reiner's age, his answer might come as a surprise to anyone expecting a more conservative opinion.

Watch The Dick Van Dyke Show on MeTV!

Sundays at 12 AM

*available in most MeTV markets

"We [the creative team on The Dick Van Dyke Show] weren't left alone. They stopped calling them censors, because censoring people was a terrible thing. So they started calling them continuity acceptors. And the continuity acceptors were not accepting."

For a bona fide comedy great, there was probably no greater insult than having to submit a script to a board of know-nothing network suits. Here's Carl Reiner, one of the greatest television writers ever, and he'd have jokes shot down by people with zero comedy experience. Worse still, these censors would often miss the humor entirely. After all, what more humorless occupation is there than that of the censor?

"I quit the second Dick Van Dyke Show [The New Dick Van Dyke Show] based on censorship. But on the first show I remember I was so angry I was going to quit, but I said, 'Wait, I don't have enough money yet.'

"The first year of the first show we had a joke where the kid says 'Where do I come from?' And the line I wrote for Dick was, 'Well you come from Mommy's belly.' And the kid says, 'No, I know that, I just mean am I from New Jersey or New York.' And the network said, 'No, you can't say that.' And they won."

Oy vey!