Winifred Treimer
Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2021 12:26 am
It is a bit odd in such an informative website that almost no mention of Winifred Treimer is made. Most writers that worked on kids tv be either cable or syndication tell you stories of the dreaded BS&P lady (It's always a lady for some reason.) Particularly in the 70's the censorship was at its most powerful. But I actually didnt come here to condemn her. I just wanted to contextualize her job, role and most impantly its importance.
An extract from an interview by Blast From The Past with Sydney Iwanter, head excutive of fox kids for X-Men.
BFTP: The first two episodes were fairly controversial in that the X-Men lost the battle, with Beast being captured by the Mutant Control Agency and Morph initially being killed by the Sentinels. Was there any problem with getting these episodes past the censors?
SI: The storyline was only controversial for its day because it appeared so mature for Saturday morning. Storytelling like this had never been attempted anywhere before either on Saturday morning or in kid's syndication. We had the brilliant story editing of Eric Lewald and his team. When you have writers of this caliber, you can push the envelope until it not only falls off the table, but crashes through the floor as well. The unsung hero of Fox Kids Boys Action Adventure was Avery Coburn, my Broadcast Standards and Practices person. I will say it right up front. Without her understanding of what we were trying to do, X-Men and most of the rest of the shows I worked on while at Fox would have ended up mindless Saturday morning fodder. Up to the advent of Fox Kids in the early 90's most of the Saturday Morning BSP (Broadcast Standards and Practices) personnel had the sense of humor of a rusty trap door. They did not censor scripts and action so much as gild, geld and garrotte them. BSP people have tremendous power to either enhance or destroy scripts because everything written must go through them. Don't believe anything you've heard about producers or writers galloping roughshod over the network and creating their own vision as if they were running the entire show. It doesn't work that way. If Broadcasting Standards does not want something in a script, it ain't going to be in the script. Period. End of statement. Without Avery, I could not have moved X-Men and other shows to the weekly level of writing that the viewing audience came to expect.
I wanted to know the challenges she and Jameson Brewer plus his writing staff went through with Battle of the Planets. Censors arent always evil people that set out to ruin scripts. They can give alternatives and help the script get done.
An extract from an interview by Blast From The Past with Sydney Iwanter, head excutive of fox kids for X-Men.
BFTP: The first two episodes were fairly controversial in that the X-Men lost the battle, with Beast being captured by the Mutant Control Agency and Morph initially being killed by the Sentinels. Was there any problem with getting these episodes past the censors?
SI: The storyline was only controversial for its day because it appeared so mature for Saturday morning. Storytelling like this had never been attempted anywhere before either on Saturday morning or in kid's syndication. We had the brilliant story editing of Eric Lewald and his team. When you have writers of this caliber, you can push the envelope until it not only falls off the table, but crashes through the floor as well. The unsung hero of Fox Kids Boys Action Adventure was Avery Coburn, my Broadcast Standards and Practices person. I will say it right up front. Without her understanding of what we were trying to do, X-Men and most of the rest of the shows I worked on while at Fox would have ended up mindless Saturday morning fodder. Up to the advent of Fox Kids in the early 90's most of the Saturday Morning BSP (Broadcast Standards and Practices) personnel had the sense of humor of a rusty trap door. They did not censor scripts and action so much as gild, geld and garrotte them. BSP people have tremendous power to either enhance or destroy scripts because everything written must go through them. Don't believe anything you've heard about producers or writers galloping roughshod over the network and creating their own vision as if they were running the entire show. It doesn't work that way. If Broadcasting Standards does not want something in a script, it ain't going to be in the script. Period. End of statement. Without Avery, I could not have moved X-Men and other shows to the weekly level of writing that the viewing audience came to expect.
I wanted to know the challenges she and Jameson Brewer plus his writing staff went through with Battle of the Planets. Censors arent always evil people that set out to ruin scripts. They can give alternatives and help the script get done.
