During the course of my research for The Box, the one person who surprised me the most was NBC’s longtime censor, Stockton Helffrich, NBC’s censor. I remember taking the subway to Stockton’s house in Queens and thinking as a longtime civil libertarian that I was really going to dislike him. Well, not only was he a wonderful, warm fellow, but I came away from the interview if not in total agreement with his work, with a real respect for his beliefs and the way he went about his job.
Of course, part of Stockton’s work was making sure breasts were covered up properly and certain words didn’t make it onto the air (He did insist that Elvis be shot above the waist when he appeared on NBC but was not entirely responsible for the incident that prompted Jack Parr to briefly walk off his show in protest over the censoring of a joke that used the words “water closet.” If I remember correctly, Stockton was off that day.), but I also learned that he was fearless in taking on advertisers who insisted on their right to make unsupported and often outrageous claims. He also clamped down on scripts that he felt were racist or depicted mental illness in inappropriate ways. He lobbied forcefully, but unsuccessfully, to keep “Amos ‘n’ Andy” off television, though he was more successful in keeping astrology advertising off the air. Stockton (a direct descendent, by the way, of Richard Stockton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence whose role in the founding our country were so properly acknowledged when a rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike was named for him) also worked hard to limit the violence in NBC’s programming.
Stockton Helffrich behind a very suave mustache
Helffrich told me that his feelings about his work changed over the years. “I used to argue about this with the ACLU,” he said. “They took the position that there ought to be built into this thing self-obsolescence, that we should eventually cease to exist. As time went on, I began to find my own views broadening, and I came to that conclusion myself at the end of my career, that even a little bit of censorship is bad.”
For ten years, Helffrich published a weekly in-house report on the work of his office. They provided a literate, witty and often critical look at NBC’s programming practices — too critical for his superiors at the network who eventually put the kibosh on them. Sixty years later, the reports offer a fascinating and nuanced view into the thinking that helped determine what would be broadcast on commercial TV during its earliest days and in the years to come. Click on the page below to download two of his reports from 1948.
