Bill Doolittle’s powerful lamentations in a previous post encouraged me to write this. If you’ve ever wondered how and why TV censorship got started, this article will open up your mighty eyes. Read it and weep.

During the battle over “The Last Temptation of Christ,” Wildmon claimed victory in another controversy when the creator of the “Mighty Mouse” cartoon agreed to cut 3 1/2 seconds of an episode that Wildmon had protested. The creator, Ralph Bakshi, had fallen under suspicion because of his role in making an X-rated animated feature, “Fritz the Cat.” However, Bakshi had also won an award for “Mighty Mouse” from Action for Children’s Television. In the disputed episode, Wildmon charged Bakshi with portraying Mighty Mouse as experiencing drug-induced exhilaration after inhaling the petals of a flower. Mighty Mouse had sniffed cocaine, Wildmon contended. Bakshi defended his cartoon, insisting that Wildmon had interpreted the scene out of context. However, Bakshi said he was removing the scene because of his concern that the controversy might lead children to believe that what Wildmon was saying was true. Wildmon interpreted the cut differently. “This is a de facto admission that indeed Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine”. Wildmon said. “We have been vindicated.”

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A month after his defeat in the Mississippi House race, Wildmon made another effort to win backing for his advertiser boycott. He met with the Reverend Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia. Falwell, the leader of The Moral Majority, was then at the peak of his career as a spokesman for the movement of conservative church groups known as the “Religious Right.” As Wildmon later told the story, he held up before Falwell a dollar bill. “The networks don’t care about your moral values, but they do care about this,” Wildmon said. According to Wildmon, Falwell didn’t require much persuading. “Great,” he said. "Let’s go with it." Wildmon said later that he believed he had reached a turning point. As he sat in his motel room that night, he was sure of victory. “Now I have the numbers,” he recalled thinking. “Now I have the clout. After three years of wandering in the wilderness, I’ve found a road to the Promised Land.”

Two months later, in February 1981, Wildmon announced the organization of the Coalition for Better Television (CBTV), the group that would bring him national recognition. His alliance with Falwell enabled Wildmon to claim that CBTV represented 200 organizations with a combined membership of over three million. These three million people were prepared to back a boycott of the three advertisers who sponsored the worst programming on television, he announced. The targets of the boycott were to be selected following three months of monitoring by 4,000 members of the coalition. The monitors would rate the offending shows on the basis of “sex incidents per hour,” scenes of violence and uses of profanity.