Though I Am Curious (Yellow) is a stand alone film, it is best viewed alongside I Am Curious (Blue), as the companion film fills in the narrative of the first. One making sense of the other. I Am Curious (Yellow) is the most well known of the two films, and is a film very much of its time. The controversy that surrounded it may seem an over-reaction when views through contemporary eyes. But it is an important film, not only of Swedish and to a larger extent European arthouse cinema, but as a snap-shot of the counterculture and socio-political movement of the late 1960s. And it is for that reason, rather than the infamy that surrounded the film, that it is deserving of its status as one of the key cult films of its period.

But, the twist of the story of dark Satanic cults and mass murder is all just a game, that the player's character is playing. A game within a game, where you are giving a choice. To become a real-life serial-killer or stay and have a full "normal" life in the game! The game set-out to outrage. It was banned in Germany, censored in the UK, and Australia did even ban it, they just didn't even bother releasing it at all. In the US, it caused consternation among the moral majority. Assuring itself a cult status. Clever stuff for what is essence an example of the tradition of exploitation cinema appearing in video game format.

By 1981, when the game came out, enough time had passed since WWII for the game to have humourous comic value, and in no way offend anyone. Especially with the traditional British stiff-upper-lip sense of self-deprecating humour that saw us through the war years. Dad's Army, a TV situation comedy about a bumbling troop of Home Guards, was one of the most popular TV shows of the period. So the release of this game should have gone without causing any stirs of unease among the great British public. On its release in June 1981, some corners of the media tried to stir-up trouble and controversy over the game, but to little or no avail. Most people at the time saw it for what it was, a silly family board game.

Another example of Internet word censorship was in 2004, when the whole Internet seemingly banned a unassuming museum in London, England. The Horniman Museum, which was named after 19th century tea magnate Frederick John Horniman, was pretty much unable to operate any business via the Internet. The anthropological museum, of great education and historic value had its emails rejected by spam filters, its website blocked by browsers, and even people trying to get to the website being sent to adult sites instead. All because a perfectly reasonable surname was interpreted by software as "horny man".

If you think that banned words is somewhat Orwellian, then you should check out the school in California that tried to ban the whole dictionary. In 2010, Merriam Webster's Dictionary was removed from classrooms after a parent complained about their child reading the definition for "oral sex." The dictionaries were ordered off the shelves at Oak Meadows Elementary School in Menifee until a committee could determine if they were "age appropriate" for fourth-and fifth-graders. After a few days of deliberation the books were returned, but under the watchful eye of a group of parents who made sure their little juniors didn't look up any other dirty words.

Weird Retro Fact: Read the blog, facebook banned, Weird Music: The Ladybirds, Not The Only All-Girl Topless Band In The 1960s .

Weird Retro Fact: Read about the the censorship of comics and one publishers attempt to fight against it, in our article Judgment Day! EC Comics Against Comic Code Racism.

The "topless" Ladybirds were a five-piece garage rock band, that were no novelty act. These girls learnt to really play, according to Dick Boyd's book, Broadway North Beach, The Golden Years - A Saloon Keeper's Tales, they originally simply pretended to play instruments but ultimately learned to play them. Anyway back in 1968 after being forced out of New Jersey for their apparently lewd costume choice, they headed west. They made it to Las Vegas, where they appeared with comedian Godfrey Cambridge at the Aladdin Hotel, and at some point they made it to California. In California the played at the infamous Blue Bunny Club in Hollywood and found a home at the Tipsy club in San Francisco. 

They were managed at various points by Voss Boreta (husband of topless dancer Yvonne D'Angers and manager of topless dancer, Carol Doda) and professional golfer Raymond Floyd. In his youth Floyd was known as a lunatic, lush loving  party animal who part owned a club.  It was through this that Floyd wound up managing The Ladybirds. In 1998, Sports Illustrated magazine ran an article that mention Floyd and the band, "He [Floyd] was part owner of a bar, Coke's, an investor in a topless girls band and one of Carol Doda's many admirers."

Satan's Angel's signature act was to light her tassels aflame, "then extinguishing the flames by means of strenuous mammary rotation". Hence her full stage name being Satan's Angel, the Devil's Own Mistress, Queen of the Fire Tassels.

Weird Retro Fact: The original American All-Girl Topless Band, The Ladybirds made into the Weird Retro Top Ten: Bands That Dress-Up In Weird Costumes.

Weird Retro Fact: Read about the storm an innocuous and inoffensive link to this blog post, posted on the Weird Retro facebook page resulted in the page and its admins being banned from facebook for a 30 days. Banned By Facebook: The Nipple Police Strike Again!

Weird Retro Fact: Read about the Wild, Wild World Of Jayne Mansfield (1968), the only known footage of The Ladybirds performing on screen.

Famed broadcast journalist and anchorman Walter Cronkite refused to say the phrase with the grammatical error, and thus correcting the phrase when he had to say it during his time on the CBS Morning Show. This angered the sponsors, which resulting in the use of a voice-over announcer being used to say the line how they wanted it to be said.