13 "Offensive" TV Episodes That Embarrassed Their Creators

1. "Pingu Runs Away" - Pingu

If you grew up in the 1990s, you were most likely exposed to Pingu at one point or another. The adorable animated series revolves around the cute titular penguin as he heads off on adventures with his family in Antarctica, and thanks to its absence of spoken language, it had an easy global appeal.

Unfortunately not every episode quite nailed the gently sweet, inoffensive tone expected of children's TV, and the 1990 episode "Pingu Runs Away" came under fire for a sequence where Pingu is spanked by his mother and subsequently runs away from home, after which he encounters some terrifying ice monsters.

The combination of the emotionally fraught material and the episode's "scariness" caused the rights-holder to ban its re-airing in the U.S. and later the U.K. also, though it was eventually made available on DVD in the mid-2000s.

When even Pingu isn't safe from censorship, what is the world truly coming to?

Were these controversial TV episodes worthy of all the fuss? Shout it out in the comments!