Michael writes in with an unfortunate coincidence:
I discovered last night that my Comcast Adult on Demand channel is 333. Easy buttons for a child to accidently press, particularly when Nickelodeon is 33. That’s right, one extra push, and my five year old gets the Playboy listings instead of Spongebob.
Yeah, I blocked Adult on Demand, but I only found it in the first place because I was searching the hinterlands of Showtime en español.
It’s nice that you have such a good sense of humor about it. We imagine that eventually Comcast is bound to get some calls from parents who aren’t so pleasant to deal with.
(Photo:rick)
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I’ll take “Channel Block” for the block
I just realized this last night when we where trying to go to food network and triple pressed 3 instead of 39. I thought to myself “jeez thats a really simple key combo to get to the adult site… thats kinda stupid”
Least they where smart enough to keep it out of the normal on-demand offerings though.
In other news, 10 year old billy is interested in hard core rock an roll, gets hard core porn. news at 11.
Seriously get over it next thing you know people will complain that channel 666 promotes devil worship.
and channel 13 is oddly…missing
We wouldn’t want the porn freaks to have to press more than one button. They should just have a button on the remote labeled “Porn”.
“Yeah, I blocked Adult on Demand, but I only found it in the first place because I was searching the hinterlands of Showtime en español.”
Sure you were ;p
uh – maybe the PARENT should be controlling the remote rather than letting a five year old have unfettered access to the entire gammet. Even if it’s easy to select in error.
Okay, quick: someone check that “3333″ doesn’t get Nick’s Naked Movie Star Game. Remember, it’s not ewwey, it’s synergy!
someone industrious enough will always find a way to accidentally correlate their children with porn. Either the remote is too easy to press, or the internet is too open, or they left their porn out and the kid found it, or whatever.
@jamesdenver: Dude you never had kids huh? I was playing with the remote when I was 5, and back then it was a big ass box with a three way selector that you then pressed the button corresponding to the channel you wanted and the whole thing was tethered to the “cable box” by a huge telephone wire like cord.
And there was no such thing as a cable block. It was called your dad beat the living shit out of you when he caught you watching MTV.
And, I’m assuming that you don’t see any naughty bits without authorization? So lil’ Timmy’s tender little psyche will have to wait until he and his buddies share a Juggs magazine after school anyway? Yup. Thought so.
On the bright side, Hostel parts 1-4, Passion of the Christ, etc., are playing the next channel over, in their unscrambled glory, with no controversy. Sigh.
@Skankingmike: only if channel 66 is the Jesus network.
oh, if only i got to choose the channel numbers.
What he meant to say is that he discovered Nickelodeon was channel 33 when he forgot the last 3…
Parental Controls, people. You bred, now at least exercise some iota of responsibility.
But getting POed at comcast over this is ridiculous. A miskey gets you pron. So? The same thing happens on the internet, and it can happen in NYC. Someone tells your kid that to find the comic book store, he has to turn left at the corner and not right, boom, he’s at Adult World instead.
File under: sh*t happens
Oh, a poor little kid might get subjected to X-rated listings because their parents couldn’t be bothered to lock out a channel!
Newsflash: if you don’t block it, they’ll find it. No matter what. We call this common sense.
I’m all for beating on some of these companies until they act responsibly, but get real. Anyone who gets upset about this needs a life.
@jamesdenver: Once my kid figured out how the remote worked, there was no stopping his channel flipping, even though he has no idea what he’s doing. Take the remote away, and meltdown. Much easier to enable my governemnt-mandated v-chip to only allow shows that meet a certain rating. Amazingly useful. Now, let’s tell the AFA to go to hell or turn theirs on, so they get the utopia they dream about giving everyone who doesn’t want it.
Awsome! Now you have the perfect excuse if someone catches you watching the channel! (Pressed 3 one too many times!)
This wouldn’t work with our Comcast remote. You have to type in ’033′ for channel 33. So I guess I’ll be able to sleep tonight.
The first thing you do when you get new cable service is put the pin number block on all the pay per view and adult channels. Duh.
@nutrigm: That’s exactly what I was thinking!
“No honey I wasn’t watching smut, I thought it was Hannah Montana gone wild” *innocent grin*
@Falconfire: Are you suggesting we all scrap channel blocking in favor of beatings?
@Hanke:
Meanwhile I just spent a week with my sister who controls exactly what my niece watches in her alloted daily hour. (All DVDs actually)
Call me a proud uncle but I think its cool that my niece actually comes over and flips through my books (that she can’t read)
Thankfully she abstains from using the television as a baby sitter.
and the remote? Uh – why not just put it on a high shelf.
To be fair Zoey 101 airs on both channels.
To be fair Zoey 101 airs on both networks.
@Shadowman615: Im starting to think the world was a much better place when you knew your dad was going to kick the shit out of you if you stepped out of line….
“This wouldn’t work with our Comcast remote. You have to type in ’033′ for channel 33. So I guess I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
All you have to do is press 33 and wait a couple of seconds, it will change the channel.
@jamesdenver: Our 4 year old has to operate the TV/Wii/DVD for my mother-in-law, as she’s pretty technically challenged. A 5 year-old could probably brute force the code to bypass the channel block.
@Concerned_Citizen: Best laugh I’ve had all day!
69 should be the universal adult channel number. No confusion or surprise there.
This reminds me of the parents who freaked out when they found out the Wii’s internet connection is a gateway to porn for little tykes and tykettes. Set the parental control password and leave the rest of us porn surfing adults alone!
waaaaaaaaaah…next story.
@joemono: This is probably due to your cable box not set to Auto-Tune. Most people turn this feature on, so they don’t have to enter three digits for a double digit channel.
The OP could always get a child friendly universal remote.
Well, porn channels can be viewed as good anatomy education… Sorta.
…To the very least it’s better than 99% of nickelodeon’s cartoons.
To all the commenters mentioning blocking, did you all miss the part where the OP said he had already blocked the channel?
Also, I’m not familiar with the cable listing software these days, but doesn’t it still show the listing even though the channel is blocked? If it does, I could just see little Johnny asking “Daddy, what’s Debbie Does Dallas?” because he could still see the listing.
At least the kid will still have access to all of the graphic violence he could never imagine …
@mduser: Under Parental Controls, there’s an option called ‘hide adult titles’, or something to that affect. When that is on, it turns the guide listing to simply, ‘adult program’ with no further details.
@IrisMR:
Perhaps. The images may make them strangely curious as to what they are seeing though. Ever had a friend [in elementary] wondering what “playing” they were doing with that other person? Funny memories…
This story makes me chuckle, because when I was a child, I accidentally discovered porn this way and probably jump-started my puberty at the tender age of 9.
Ironically enough, Nickelodeon was Channel 9, the porn channel was 99.
If anyone was wondering, it was lesbian sex.
And this happened 16 years ago *gasp*!
I don’t recall if blockers existed back then.
Anyway, in this day and age, I’d blame the victim for not putting locks on said channels. Especially virtually everything has what dragonpup has stated, hide adult titles.
@超外人: Wait how would you see lesbian sex if you didn’t pay for it first?
What are you watching little Johnny?!?!?!?
Spongebob No-Pants
Based on these comments, I’m not sure what’s worse…porn addicts pushing their moral views on everyone else or religious conservatives pushing theirs.
@lonewolf333:
Ask my sister or her boyfriend at the time, they were paying the cable. :O
Hmmm, I thought Inspect Her Gadget came on at 4:30….
Oh wait, Nick doesn’t show good cartoons like that anymore.
I’ll trade you. All I can get is broadcast TV via an antenna. I’d kill for Spongebob. Or porn. Or Spongebob porn. Rule 34.
I just found something out. channel 33 in the NJ comcast area is Christian broadcasting. 333, porn.
discuss….
Anyone else read this and start to think about what *USED* to be at whitehouse.com?
I really wouldn’t make a huge deal out of this. On my digital cable box, Playboy Channel doesn’t have any specific listings in the program guide and doesn’t show a video preview. Put the channel on block and it doesn’t even show in the guide. I used it to get rid of all the goddamn Espanol channels.
Be a good parent and block 333 channel with a password?
@Falconfire: nothing to discuss.
That Vanessa Hudgens is such a publicity whore…enough said
@dragonpup: Thanks for letting me know.
@Falconfire: But is it good Christian Porn (Missionary position, procreation only)?