A scandal could break out.
In the 70s and 80s, many new TV programs appeared on Soviet screens. Surely many people remember the program “Alarm Clock”, which was shown every Sunday. There was one unfortunate incident associated with this program.
The fact is that in the mid-80s, the alarm clock changed. Now, instead of a painted red-haired boy, they began to show a mini-cartoon made by director Alexander Tatarsky. In addition, instead of the usual song from VIA “Gems”, a new composition began to play, which was composed by Grigory Gladkov and Yuri Chernavsky.
Tatarsky by that time had already come under the special attention of officials: his cartoon “Last Year’s Snow Was Falling” made a lot of noise and was released on the screens only thanks to the intercession of Eldar Ryazanov. Therefore, the management examined the new screensaver of “Alarm Clock” performed by him under a magnifying glass. And they found something to cling to.
The commission noted that the mouth of one of the characters resembles a dollar sign. If the censors had gone further, a huge scandal could have erupted. But in the end, the screen saver was still approved. And Soviet children and teenagers did not even pay any attention to the references to the dollar, because they did not know what it looked like.
