Manufacturer Listing

Please forgive me if this has already been asked and answered lol

In my store I have a category that is disabled, hidden, but the products are enabled, this category is a special freebie category for our newsletter subscribers and there's only one place where the products still show which is the manufacturer listing.

Can I code it so that it prevents items from this one category showing in the manufacturer listing? And if so....how lol

I am using 1.3.8a, many mods and all patched lol

lol guess no one knows :P

Unless there's some important reason to have those products associated with their manufacturer, one way would be to remove the manufacturer from the products.

That would make it easier lol but I need the manufacturer still associated with the product