I was watching C-Span, but it could have been Monty Python's Flying Circus. Attorney General Janet Reno thought the best way to get a voluntary solution was by threatening government intervention. And of course, they said they were extremely unwilling to have the government step in but were forced to by an irresponsible and perverse entertainment industry. Would-be censors change their instruments now and then, but they always play the same old tune.
Trouble is, the hysterical jig they whip through lends itself more to demagoguery than deliberation.
A review of previous moral panics makes the TV-violence hearings seem like just another sad song. In 1930, the Hays Office adopted the Production Code, written by Jesuit priest Daniel A. Lord and publisher Martin Quigley. With no enforcement mechanism, however, the new code had little effect. Cicognani's complaint struck a chord with many Catholic leaders and, by April 1934, the Legion of Decency was formed. Groups such as the B'nai B'rith, Elks, Knights of Columbus, Masons, and Odd Fellows supported it.