A few nights ago, I was sick with a nasty cold. I had no energy to speak of, so there were really only two options available to me: I could either lie in bed like some kind of Edith Wharton-style invalid, or I could cuddle up on the sofa with some blankets and watch television. So as not to feel more pathetic than necessary, I chose the latter. I flipped around awhile, but nothing much interested me until I hit AMC and saw the opening credits of Animal House. This has always been one of my favorite movies, so I made sure my orange juice was within reach and settled in to watch it.

But something was terribly wrong with this version. Dialog had been clipped out, scenes were abbreviated, and overall there was about as much bawdiness as you get watching coverage of the House of Representatives on C-SPAN. The scene with Mandy and Greg in the car, her with the latex glove? Removed. The scene where Larry debates what to do when his girlfriend passes out? Gone like yesterday's pancakes. But the real kicker, the thing that made me momentarily doubt my own sanity, was this—they put pants on Donald Sutherland.

If you've seen the movie, you know exactly what scene I'm talking about. Boon comes over to Katy's house, hoping to make up with her after their estrangement, but instead he storms off in a huff after seeing her professor in the kitchen without pants. And then comes a sly, hilarious moment. Donald Sutherland is standing there with his creepy-curly hair, that awful mustache, and an even more awful cable-knit sweater. All at once he reaches for something in a high cabinet; the sweater hikes up, and you see his bare backside, gleaming white and pale as a freshwater oyster shell. This scene is not about prurience. It's just funny as hell.

So I was lying there, watching this scene, and all of a sudden I realized that the first shot of the professor in the sweater had been entirely eliminated. All you see is Boon glancing to the side, the shock registering on his face, and then a shot of Katy saying, "Boon, I don't know what to say." If you'd never seen this movie before, you'd be thoroughly baffled by this. You'd be asking yourself, what could Boon have seen to make him storm out of the house this way? Was it one of those hideous avocado-plaid sofas? The remains of a goat sacrifice, perhaps? A poster for the John Birch Society? What in the name of all that is holy could it have been? You see my point. Thanks to the puritanical inclinations of AMC, this scene now makes no sense.

And then I saw it. Donald Sutherland in the kitchen . . . wearing pants. I felt like I had fallen into some kind of alternate universe, one in which Salvador Dali was a prominent physicist and Stellan Skarsgård was the King of America. The pants looked so authentic it was freaky. Just your average khakis. You would never know that they had been added in after the fact, and this completely creeped me out. I suddenly thought of that guy in 1984 whose job it was to revise history in order to comply with the philosophy of the current leadership. Yuck.

This got me thinking. If AMC is going to run a fairly tame movie like Animal House through the car wash, then I have some suggestions for other films that might likewise be sanitized for public consumption.

1. Risky Business—Put pants on Tom Cruise.
2. Basic Instinct—Put pants on Sharon Stone.
3. Showgirls—Just tape over the whole mess with a National Geographic special or something.
4. American Pie—Delete the famous pastry scene, and replace it with a scene in which Jason Biggs goes to church.
5. There's Something About Mary—Ben Stiller's character should now work in a bakery, which explains how he got that donut glaze behind his ear.
6. Life of Brian—Brian gets pants.
7. Secretary—All BDSM scenes are to be replaced with footage of James Spader playing laser tag.
8. Lord of the Flies—Even though they are stranded on an island and are forced to resort to primitive modes of survivalism, the boys get pants.
9. Dance with Wolves—Kevin gets pants.
10. Planet of the Apes—While standing trial in ape court, Charlton gets pants.
11. The Full Monty—Place CGI Playboy bunny tails over the men's bare butts. The title should reflect this change (i.e., partial monty, not full).
12. Pollyanna—The little boy who is skinny-dipping in this G-rated Disney movie should now have pants.
13. Y Tu Mama Tambien—Make liberal use of pan-and-scan technology to camouflage nudity/and or sexual situations. If this means focusing on a lampshade and overdubbing dialog from Henry V throughout the entire feature, so be it.
14. The South Park movie—Just run a clip from Laff Olympics when things get questionable. When you run out of those, move on to Schoolhouse Rock. During the musical numbers, play the theme from Mighty Mouse.

That's just to get you started, AMC. I'm sure you can come up with plenty more films to destroy with your antiquated views of propriety. As for me, I'll take my movies ungarnished and hot off the grill, hold the pants.