Basic Trope: The audience is told that what looks to be an alcoholic beverage is not.
- Straight: Bob, who is The Alcoholic, usually drinks what is clearly a beer, but thanks to pressure from the censors, he has a line describing it as root beer.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob drinks what is clearly a beer, but thanks to pressure from the censors, he has a line describing it as really dirty tap water.
- Bob describes what year and vineyard his "grape juice" is from.
- Downplayed:
- Bob drinks what is clearly a beer, but thanks to pressure from the censors, he has a line describing it as non-alcoholic.
- Any instances of underaged drinking are removed, but adults are still shown drinking alcohol.
- Instead of alcoholic beverages, Bob originally drank coffee. His coffee was changed to hot chocolate due to pressure from the censors.
- Justified:
- The censors have Bob written as a teetotaller who tries very hard to hide the fact to avoid looking soft (to the point of making his soft drinks look like something harder).
- The beverage is a children's substitute for New Year's Champaign. But don't tell the kids, please?
- Inverted: Bob is animated drinking clear liquid from a plastic bottle, but the dub changes it to vodka even though he shows no signs of getting drunk.
- Subverted: It's made to look like Bob's drinking's being covered up by censors, but it's later made clear it was an In-Universe lie on Bob's part to hide his drinking problem.
- Double Subverted: However, the censors do insist that Bob ends up going teetotal after this, and all later instances of him drinking have this trope.
- Parodied:
- The dub has Bob drink "water", but doesn't change the fact he plainly gets hammered.
- The dub has Bob's regular bar have an additional tab labeled Board of Standards and Practices water that all agree tastes terrible.
- Zig Zagged: Bob frequently drinks beer but the dub ends up being inconsistent on what he actually supposed to be drinking.
- Averted:
- Alcohol isn't mentioned in any way.
- Alcohol only comes up in the context of a Very Special Episode in which the characters learn about the evils of drink (which naturally would have to be cut or left as is in a dub).
- Characters drink alcohol and nothing is done to censor it.
- Enforced: "Hey, watch what you drink! This is a family show!
- Lampshaded: "Alice will never find out I'm actually drinking beer!"
- Invoked: The show has No Fourth Wall. Bob needs some really dirty water to defeat the Monster of the Week, so he picks up a beer to use, knowing it'll become dirty water in the dub.
- Exploited: The show has No Fourth Wall. Bob The Teetotaler happily drinks beer knowing it will become something else in the dub.
- Defied: "I'm sick of overbearing moral guardians. This show is meant for teenagers - why don't they realize that such teenagers have probably already heard about alcohol?"
- Discussed:"That doesn't look like tea..."
"It is tea...Long Island Iced Tea!" - Conversed: "I bet that 'tea' was was beer in the original dub".
- Played for Drama: The show tries to have an episode about addiction, but the censors wouldn't allow them to put alcohol in the show, so Bob becomes addicted to root beer.
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