Fred Rogers (bless his heart, he was an amazing guy) was not a fan of messy situations apparently. In an interview, he had this to say

"I got into television because I saw people throwing pies at each other's faces, and that to me was such demeaning behavior. And if there's anything that bothers me, it's one person demeaning another," he confessed to Amy Hollingsworth, author of "The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers." "That really makes me mad!"

Hmm...never herd someone get this worked up over pies before!

As a family we watched the original Mandrell episode with the pieing. My mom was so upset after the scene that she turned the channel and we never watched the Mandrell show again.

I think I read somewhere once (probably here) that the original Electric Company used a lot of slapstick humor-- including pies-- but after a year or so cut back on that a lot because educators were concerned about the "violence" inherent in it.

And some people claim that our society is more easily offendable nowadays...

The idea of a McCarthyite Reaganite moral crusade in the television industry against.... errrr (checks notes) people getting hit by pies is nowt short of amusing.

In answer to the question above, in complete opposition to Mr Rogers, I'm quite into this precisely cos its to me at least it all seems quite fun, relatively harmless and amusing

People have their own motivations. I've never approached it as humiliation or "getting" the other person. For me it's sensual and erotic, even though it's silly. I'd much rather see someone enjoy it or be turned on by it than humiliated.

Hmmmm.....every single pie scene I've ever watched had to intent to embarrass/humiliate.

Name it - Three's Company, Mandrell, Brady Bunch, Great Race.....every single scene was done with the sole intent to humiliate.

In popular culture, sure. When someone slowly rubs pies into your face and then rides it, there's a different intention. Some of the couples here who have posted videos and pictures, my favorite ones are more about a shared experience rather than "getting" the other person.

I'll say this. Any Hollingsworth is kinda cute.

That would not surprise me in the least. He had a Jerry Lee Lewis style penchant for young girls, besides. In The Great Dictator he indulges in his own mud scene where he wallows in a fairly-dunkable size top soil mud hole (having crashed into the ground from a plane). He was like silent film director Larry Semon (yes - his real name) who had a mud punishment tank included in his 1925 Wizard of Oz film.

I was sure Chaplin liked muck, but what I can't get over is that he got to sleep with Paulette Goddard (starring with him in that same film). Wonder if they played in that hole together. Geeze, I gotta go.

To be fair most humour is about someone being humiliated, or, at least, disadvantaged.

time at :30 says it all (I am such a sci-fi nerd)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7mBC9nZtiw

Weirdly, I went down a recent Larry rabbit hole on YouTube.... Far more than even the Stooges, a lot of his silent films have very violent and/or messy slapstick. LOTS of buckets and mess falling on people's heads, or folks falling into whitewash or mud or being thoroughly covered, etc etc. Worth checking out just for the way he pulls off the gags. But if he was into young girls.... He didn't act that out on film in any WAM-esque way, as basically ALL the targets in his films are men. (And usually the fattest actor, like Hardy, gets it the worst.)

Someone mentioned Chapin and Paulette Goddard.

Rumor had it thar Orson Wells, when marrried to Rita Hayworth, took advantage of the common-looking "ladies of the evening "at RKO and CBS. Jesus. I mean, when you're married to the hottest woman of her era.

I heard the story about Chaplin's casting couch: oh wait, I think he did throw pies at those women.

As to the Fred Rogers story:I have to come down on his side. It wasn't funny, when I was a kid, to see old washed-up or never-were comics wearing boiler suits and throwing pies. The world changed for us and for the better.

Not that, but in terms of children's programming... especially educational stuff... It is WAY more tightly reined in now than it was in the 70s.
When Sesame Street (and later Electric Company) started, no one really "did" educational TV. Children's programming was ventriloquist dummies and Soupy Sales getting nailed with pies over and over. SS and EC were both "winging it" to a certain extent.... so you'd have more slapstick elements (tossed water, falls, pies, etc) that eventually got toned down or eliminated.

Nowadays SS (and other educational programming) has a team of child psychologists and educators, and they're actively working to both keep children's interest AND prevent any negative habits.
Three early SS examples from my youth that they did away with:
1) The Beethoven Muppet banging his head on the piano when he got frustrated with the music. (Kids would emulate this and actively hurt themselves.)
2) Roosevelt Franklin disappeared because he was a "smart aleck" kid who talked back to his teacher and took the class over. (I loved Roosevelt Franklin too.)
3) Cookie Monster used to try to eat people, not just cookies.

Yep, the FCC got involed in kid's programming in the 1990s. That's the source of all of the changes.
Even the Chicago Bozo show had to have educaional elements...visits to the Lincoln Park
Zoo, blah, blah, blah.

I would be IMMENSELY curious to know how child psychologists & child educators today grapple with teaching young children critical thinking, abstract formal logic = logical consistency of treating evidence, & the importance of rigor in scientific testing, especially in medicine, in the face of oceans of conspiratorial & religious nonsense.

e.g. How do they teach kids not to listen to some moron on tv tell you to inject bleach or lysol to treat a virus or tell you to take hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 because it has not been proved to be effective for that & can make supplies low for those who actually need it for lupus or RA?

Somehow I think Sesame Street actors throwing pies at each other would be the least of their concerns.

I feel like we're REALLY off-topic here, but yes.... There was some kind of Sesame Street video uploaded where the Muppet characters DO talk to kids about COVID-19, as far as kid fears and practical medical advice and so on.

I doubt children actually have formed political opinions of the President or any of his ideas. I mean, when I was a kid I thought Reagan was cool because he invited Michael Jackson to the White House, but that was as far as it went.

I think educational shows aimed at kids probably did right not having pies thrown in people's faces. I'm not thing about game shows and stuff...but ones aimed at real little kids? Sure. A pie thrown in someone's face can be violence. Obviously depending on how hard or whatever, and even if hard if it's consensual its kind of like BDSM. But no need to have that stuff in shows for little kids.

It's like when people throw pies at politicians, and you see others saying it's a pie and not violence. But I'll tell you if someone threw an object in my friend's face or my face like that, then as far as I'm concerned they just started a fight.

I respect Mr. Rogers and can appreciate it's not for everyone. It actually turns me off when the pie recipient gets angry or upset, and I prefer when they enjoy it.

Me too. I definitely prefer when the models are having fun

Im wondering what the exact differences are with the FCC are coming into yankee television and sort of "doing away with slapstick" and that cos, im like fuckin 21 here in the UK and nearly every kids tv show when I was younger relied strongly on slapstick violence. Could be its different these days but nearly everything I used to watch on CITV and such was just people falling over or getting hit with pies.

That being said I dont recall there ever being "educational" tv as such over here. I can attest to learning fuck all from my tv as a kid anyway.

"1) The Beethoven Muppet banging his head on the piano when he got frustrated with the music. (Kids would emulate this and actively hurt themselves.)
2) Roosevelt Franklin disappeared because he was a "smart aleck" kid who talked back to his teacher and took the class over. (I loved Roosevelt Franklin too.)
3) Cookie Monster used to try to eat people, not just cookies."

It wasn't just the educational shows that interest groups took aim at. There is a great book (I think it was called) Saturday Morning Fever, that got into the problems that the 3 networks had in the 70s with all their Sat AM cartoons and the watchdogs. Things like the Fantastic 4 Cartoon having to replace the Human Torch with "Herbie the Robot" to prevent kids from setting themselves on fire.

Superheros in general were more trouble they were worth to the networks. Imagine telling the producers of the DC cartoons that Superman, Batman, etc can't solve problems with violence of any kind. No punching. Yeesh.

Oh well, the restrictions put on them, did at least give us those groovy Schoolhouse Rocks! PSAs

Well over here there might be kids shows, like cartoons...which could be like Bugs Bunny where characters shot each other in the face. Or regular cartoons or game shows or whatnot. And then we had educational shows, a lot of which played on our single government channel, PBS. Those would be for teaching kids numbers and ABCs and try to bridge differences between people. Like now apparently on Sesame Street, which was or biggest show, they have a newer puppet character who has autism.

President? I never said the President.

I remember my aunt not allowing my cousin to watch looney toons because it was "too violent".

I wonder if that's (at least partly) why you ended up a wammer. Your mom's outraged reaction signaled to your developing brain that people being pied was something taboo, obscene, transgressive and forbidden - and thus it suddenly became interesting...

No, I had been into pies well before the Mandrell scene, having got into it watching a girl get pied on the Mickey Mouse Club.

I haven't read the book, but that's an urban myth. What really happened is that Marvel had already sold the rights for the Human Torch to Universal for a live-action TV series (that never actually got made). So, NBC couldn't include him in the Fantastic Four animated series, and they had to substitute HERBIE instead. It's similar to the modern situation where the X-Men aren't part of the MCU because Fox had the rights to those characters.

However, there is a really good comic (Fantastic Four #285) about a kid who's inspired to emulate the Human Torch: it's available online via Marvel Unlimited and Comixology.

"Well over here there might be kids shows, like cartoons...which could be like Bugs Bunny where characters shot each other in the face. "

In the late 70s they censored those cartoons as well. The "Bug Bunny Road Runner Show" was entirely made up of old theatrical shorts made in the 40s-60s that were edited to remove the more violent slapstick - often making the gags and the cartoon overall incomprehensible to watch.