Robinson Contraband

As a kid, there is always something that is contraband. Whether it's candy, a certain cartoon, or makeup, you still find ways around it and honestly it just makes it that much more exciting. Here are some of the things that were contraband in the Robinson household.

Pocahontas
Okay, so when it comes to this film the term "banned" was never actually used. I was never told that I couldn't watch it yet my parents did a pretty good job of never actually buying a copy for us to own and having us only see it a handful of times when we watched it at a friend's house.
Reason for Banishment: historical inaccuracy
What We Got to Watch Instead: Anything else Disney

2. Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman
I have heard no end to the lectures about this particular show. It is a powder keg for a dad rant.
Reason For Banishment: Historical Inaccuracies
What We Were Allowed To Watch Instead: Little House On The Prairie, Rough Riders, Bonanza, Anything with John Wayne (Most of these were forcibly watched and I really never cared much for any of them.)
No matter how hard my mother tried, I was never the slightest bit interested in Little House on the Prairie, Ann of Green Gables, or The Secret Garden. Sorry Mom.

3. Spongebob Squarepants
Do to this particular ban, I have forever grown up without the slightest grasp of the multitude of Spongebob references that everyone makes.
Reason for Banishment: I actually don't know
What I Watched Instead: Every Old Cartoon Ever, Pinky & The Brain, Fairly Odd-Parents

4. Power Rangers
Reason for Banishment: Too Violent
What I Watched Instead: Xena Warrior Princess, Dragon Ball Z, YuYu Hakusho, Jurassic Park

5. Samurai Jack
Reason for Banishment: Too Violent
What I Watched Instead: Rurouni Kenshin

6. Ed, Edd, And Eddie
Reason For Banishment: The hell is wrong with this show? (Only in parent terms)
What I watched instead: Ed, Edd, and Eddie (They couldn't win them all)

7. A Nightmare Before Christmas
When I turned ten (and so did the film) my parents finally allowed us all to watch this movie. This was also around the same time my parents gave up on the skull ban (see bellow)
Reason For Banishment: It's too creapy
What We Watched Instead: The Munsters, The Addams Family, Goosebumps

I'm sure there were more. I just can't think of them at the moment.

I just find it hilarious that I have seen a total of one episode of Spongebob that I saw last year when baby sitting my sister's boyfriend's daughter, yet the only requirement for me to watch Jurassic Park was for me to be six. (It was this whole big build up because they thought I'd have nightmares. I didn't. For the longest time, all I saw was the part where the baby velociraptor is born and just sat on the stairs behind the wall where I couldn't be seen listening to all the screaming.)

I know absolutely nothing about Power Rangers, but from a young age could give you in-depth plot summaries of various really violent and often bloody anime. I couldn't for the life of me actually tell you what Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman is about apart from what the title implies, yet spent a God awful amount of my childhood watching Xena which is to historical accuracy what Disney's Hercules is to an accurate portrayal of Greek mythology.

On top of the shows and movies we weren't allowed to see there were other things that were banned as well.

Fingernail Polish
I wasn't actually there for the events when it got banned. I was upstairs asleep and heard about it later.

When we were all still in elementary school, my sisters decided to paint their nails in the living room. They spilt the nail polish and for the rest of our childhood, preteenhood, and teendom, bringing nail polish into the house was a one way ticket to a dad rampage where the tiny bottle would be chucked into the rocks where years later it would be discovered during a climbing expedition with friends. I'm pretty sure there's probably some still up there.

Skulls
Now skulls were banned because well they were skulls (that's as much as an explaination as I'll ever get from my parents). They made a really big deal about it for the longest time.

The best part though was that it was during my older sister's middle school punk rock phase. That paired with the ban on nail polish made it really difficult for my older sister to be the true rebel that she totally was as an eighth grader listening to Sum 41 and Blink 182. I can't imagine how much money she spent on contraband black nail polish because she'd get to use it like once before my dad found it and it would go flying off to join it's friends in the rocks.

Anyways, I remember the exact moment when my parents completely gave up on the skull ban. We had gone to meet up with my Aunt at a mall and I needed new shoes. It was at a desperate level actually, they were barely held together and in no universe other than a Charlie Chaplin movie would they still qualify as shoes and maybe not even then. So my mom sent my dad to take me to get new shoes. We went in, I found a pair I liked right away, I put them on my feet, and they fit. So my dad bought them and I wore them out of the store, so there was no returning them.

When we met back up with my mom she right away commented on how quickly it went then noticed the fact that my shoes were covered entirely in tiny little skulls and cross bones. There was a moment of "Jim!..." and then it was gone and we were free to wear skulls to our hearts content forevermore.

Inscents and Candles
Another hinderance to my older sister's punk phase was that of the candle and inscents ban. My parents were convinced that we would burn down the house. Since, I've been lit on fire four times (well only three while I still lived there and only two of which were my fault and only one that was a candle) I can see their hesitance a little bit in my case. What I find funny is how when the "you'll burn down the house" much like the "you'll shoot your eye out" in a Christmas Story failed to make a difference, they switched their story to everyone being allergic to it. Seriously it's quite amazing how a house of formally fine people can suddenly develop asthmatic allergic tendancies.

Videogames
You couldn't pay my parents a million dollars to buy us videogames. They were convinced that we'd end up vegetables and the obsessive way we'd play them at my aunt's house or friends' houses (we had to cram as much in as possible before going home) didn't help our case much either. So, we were left to buy videogames for ourselves if we wanted them.

None of us actually bought any starting off until my parents finally entered the technology age and got a computer. It came with some old games that were pretty kickass like Journeyman, Spiderman Cartoon Maker (my personal favorite), and one that was a mutant rat battle game (seriously I have no idea what this game was but if anyone knows what I'm talking about let me know). That opened the doorway to computer games for us. So we started buying tidbits here and there and they got cooler and cooler as we went through different computer incarnations. Eventually one of my friends gave me his old Gameboy Advance and games to go with. At the time, I was seriously contemplating kissing the kid, but didn't 'cause ew I'd known him my entire life. (Literally)

Hair Dye
At some point everyone of us decided that we wanted to have a strange hair color. Interestingly enough both my sisters wanted theirs to be purple. Also both my sisters went for the beg my parents until they cave plan when it came to dying their hair. My older sister during her middle school punk rock phase spent months of begging and pleading to dye her hair temporarily purple before my parents finally said yes and she got to do so.

Likewise my younger sister spent months begging my parents to let her dye her hair purple once it had grown out a bit after she shaved her head. She started like four months before she shaved her head that's five months before she actually dyed it. It was a lot of effert for something that faded really quickly and gave her old lady gray hair.

In between both of my sister's dying of their hair purple, my junior year of high school, I just straight up did it without requesting even the slightest permission or giving any warning. (Really out of my siblings, I'm the bad influence.) It was quite funny since we planned several weeks in advance a trip down to the mall. It was a half hour or more away from everyone so planning was a necessity. We spent an hour at the park then went to the mall played on the escalators and elevators then went into Hot Topic where I said, "Hey, what color should I dye my hair?" Before we went to my friends house to do so.

I will tell you now and forever that the best sight in the world was that of my parents when I walked into my mom's work with bright green hair. Boy were they not happy. While it is horrible to say so, I was terribly entertained at my dad fighting the urge to yell at me and instead settling for refusing to call me anything, but the Jolly Green Giant.

On the car ride home, I definitely did get an earful, but it never resulted in any punishment other than my dad making nothing, but vegetable jokes and refusing to call me anything, but the Green Giant for the next month. My grandma being the most entertaining lady in the universe, had a conversation with me for about half an hour before she noticed my green hair and commented on it. Since then everytime I see her and have normal colored hair she tells me how glad she is that it's no longer green. I would not doubt it if everytime she sees me she just expects green hair.

My parents really tried when it came to banning us from watching or doing things. They get an A+ for effort, but honestly we were just too stubborn, me especially. I always have been and most likely will forever be the type of person to do now ask forgiveness later.