T5W#140-Top 5 Cowboy Bebop Adult Swim Edits

Cowboy Bebop Month continues and this week im focusing on a subject I find fascinating.  Cowboy Bebop debuted in early September 2001 on Cartoon Network’s then recently established Adult Swim block.  However, while that particular block definitely provided entertainment not suitable for children, there were a few edits made to the first run of Bebop episodes, some minor and others were pretty substantial.  Now, while I know it’s been more than a decade since Bebop first arrived on Adult Swim and im sure some of these changes have been negated.  But as far as clever trivia goes, these 5 edits are the ones I find the most interesting.  So here we go, I present the Top 5 Cowboy Bebop Adult Swim Edits.

#5-The Small Stuff (Standard Stuff)

Like I said, some changes early on were minor and probably still are in effect even today.  Not that Bebop has a ton of swearing (fair amount but not a lot) but this is the real basic stuff like bleeping out “s***” and what not.  Also some bloodshed got toned down, especially in the later half of the series when some of the violence got upped.  There will be a couple of more in depth examples later on the list.  But I needed a 5^th option for this list…so ill admit I kind of winged this one.

#4-No Gay Couple in “Waltz for Venus”

Back in 2001 representation of gay couples in any medium was still criminally unrepresented…at least in the US.  During “Waltz for Venus” Faye’s own investigation into the whereabouts of the bounty head of the week leads her to an apartment where she interrupts a romantic rendezvous between two lovers.  Since we couldn’t even have two guys seen paused awkwardly in the middle of sex, one of the men was digitally taken out, making an already awkward situation all the more awkward.  I wonder if this has been fixed for broadcast after all this time.

#3-No Gren Boobs

Now this one probably hasn’t been and probably never will be fixed.  While Adult Swim has come a long way (frak it even has Black Lagoon relatively intact), one thing I know is probably still at a bare minimum (no pun intended) is nudity.  During the two part Jupiter Jazz, Faye discovers her new friend Gren is in league of series antagonist Vicious.  She confronts him in the shower only to discover…Gren has boobs, the result of an addictive drug he was on while in prison.  Faye’s blink and you’ll miss wide eyed reaction is still in but everytime we get to this moment we always see a major close up of Gren from the neck up. 

#2-Darkening of “The Real Folk Blues Part 2”

The series finale of Cowboy Bebop is one of the shows best episodes, an ending befitting the term “legendary”…I just wish when it first aired on Adult Swim that I could see it all clearly.  Given how violent Part 2 of The Real Folk Blues is from start to finish, it would probably cost a lot to edit out all of that blood.  So Cartoon Network took another approach, they just dimmed the crap out of the entire episode.  I mean the story and the feels are all intact but not being able to see the grand finale of Cowboy Bebop in all of its glory felt like a bit of a cheat.  Like I said above, if we can get away with having half of the chaos Black Lagoon is allowed to unleash on Toonami now, I hope The Real Folk Blues Part 2 can do the same outside of its excellent Blu Ray release.

#1-Initial Removal of Episodes 6, 8 and 22

This is probably the darkest of them all.  As unfortunate as circumstances were, Cowboy Bebop began its run a week before the attacks of September 11, 2001.  Cartoon Network immedietley began a reworking of its content schedule trying to tone down any images or sights that would remind us of the tragedy befalling the nation.  Toonami at the time had to remove anything Mobile Suit Gundam related in addition to a couple of other shows.  Cowboy Bebop, as a result, had to omit 3 episodes from its premiere run: “Sympathy for the Devil” was cut for use of a child as a terrorist (even though he was actually an ancient old man who had stopped aging) as well as Spike killing the kid with a headshot; “Waltz for Venus” was cut because the episode opens with a shuttle getting hijacked by terrorists before theyre stopped by the Bebop crew; and “Cowboy Funk” was taken out because of the main bounty head did manage to blow up a couple of skyscrapers as per his MO.  It was a very tough but understandable choice to leave this trio out at the beginning.  However, after the first run was completed, all three episodes did return to the roster and have not left since.