The Motion Picture Rating System introduced, October 7, 1968.

On this day in 1968, Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced that the movie industry was introducing a new rating code and rejecting the Hays Production Code.

The move was momentous and frankly has not been a success, even though the American public has become highly acclimated to it.   At the time, Valenti claimed that the movie industry would no longer approve or disapprove the content of a film, but would "now see our primary task as giving advance cautionary warnings to parents so that parents could make the decision about the movie going of young children".  In reality, it was a vehicle for the industry to bypass the restrictions of the Hays Code and introduce more permissive material.

The original ratings were G, M (mature), R and X. R required a parent to attend with a person under sixteen years of age, and X prohibited entry by those under age 16.  Given this, even the original restrictions contemplated allowing entrance to minors to the most restricted films.

The Hays Production Code of 1934 had been a voluntary code that the movie industry had imposed upon itself to prevent further regulation due to outcry of the moral content of early films, some of which were outright pornographic even when aimed at a general audience and even when camouflaged with supposedly religious themes with even such moviemakers as Cecil B. DeMille taking that approach.  The code had imposed eleven items that were outright prohibited in films, including nudity and associated sexual portrayals, but also banned such items as profanity, disrespect to the clergy, childbirth and willful offense to any religion or race.  It also included twenty-five items that filmmakers were required to be careful about in their depictions.

Actual adherence to the code had been breaking down by the 1950s, and the introduction of a new set of standards was likely inevitable.  Critics have noted, however, that the content of films changed extraordinarily rapidly after filmmakers were allowed to openly ignore the earlier restrictions on movie making and essentially make any film, as long as a warning of its content was attached to it.  Movie theater adherence to policing the code has been problematic and the original set of ratings has been changed at least twice in an effort to give them at least some teeth, largely unsuccessfully.