Why Are Western 'Adult' Cartoons So Childish? - A History

A big thank you to @fxllxngofficial for helping with audio editing and for supplying most of the background music!

End song "Sailing On A Wave" composed by the lovely @SurelyDraws

TIMESTAMPS:

Intro - 0:00
The Hays Code - 2:12
MTV & The Rise Of Streaming - 9:58
What Have They Become - 16:31
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[jacobh]

"People still think of animation as a genre instead of a medium" is a perfect encapsulation of the thesis

[sebastianherrera]

The irony of adult animation being more childish than most kids shows never ceases to amaze me.

[funfromabove]

It blows my mind that Bluey has more mature themes than animated shows meant for adults.

[ellag]

I swear with adult animation you can hear the creators yelling, "LOOK AT THIS! IS THIS FOR KIDS? LOOK!" through the screen at you at all times and it's extremely grating.

[FrankenTuz]

“Why don’t you care about animation?!”

Adult cartoon writer: “BECAUSE ANIMATION KILLED MY GRANDMA, OK!?”

[NoiseDay]

Alternative to the "adult cartoons are made for edgy teens" argument, maybe a lot more adults have really immature taste than we think.

[Bread]

I feel like most adult cartoons have a edgy middle schooler's sense humor.

[serenatsukino]

Moral Orel was such a good show but it got cancelled for being too serious. I think if more companies had taken more risks, that would help people see that adult animation can be serious.

[vividdaydream]

Being "mature" does _not_ automatically mean "inappropriate for children, " which is where a lot of writers (not just in animation, but across the entire media landscape) miss the mark. It's telling how stories that _maturely_ handle serious topics are more often found in family-friendly animation than so-called "adult animation."

[cookimaus]

I always said phineas and ferb had adult humor, but not in the family guy way (ironic because dan povenmire worked on family guy). Instead its in the way where it has smart humor and jokes about lightly grown up, mundane issues, like insurance, jury duty, alimony, etc

[jeepmega]

Bojack Horseman and Smiling Friends are the only animated adult shows from the last 10 years that actually feel written by adults.

[chengliu]

This reminds me of when someone asked if the anime Princess Jellyfish was appropriate for kids. I was like "yes and no. Yes as in there is nothing objectionable, but no because I don't feel like most kids would be interested in an anime about mental/social issues and gentrification". I can't imagine saying something like that about any western animation.

[SirFailsalot]

One of the biggest problems with adult cartoons is, why is everyone so damn awful to each other? It's as if being a miserable jerk is supposed to be some form of enlightenment and being a polite considerate person is just blissful ignorance or childish stupidity - why would you live with a family who hates each other and verbally abuses one another on the daily, or hang out with "friends" who only humiliate and belittle you while you do everything to make sure they stick around? That's the kind of scenarios we have with Family Guy, Rick & Morty and Velma, and logically you'd be advised to seek help for being in abusive relationships like these in real life, but I guess it's the norm that groups are horrible to one another by default to writers of shows like these.

At least with Moral Orel, it's played for irony that he's so positive and cheerful while everything in his life is actually awful and he looks past it because "Nothing can be bad as long as you put your faith in God, " and only in Season 3 during his camping trip with his dad does he finally break and lose his positivity, but seeing it be the norm for an adult cartoon to make everybody so miserable and malicious as if *_that_* is where the humour comes from just doesn't make any sense.

I just really don't understand why a cartoon cast for adults can't at least have some form of familial or platonic compassion and love for each other, why nobody can just be polite to one another or why they can't have a positive outlook on life without being treated like a blissful idiot - everything is just too malicious to make me laugh, but maybe that's just because I "don't get it" anymore when it comes to humour.

[classydays]

The worst part is the Simpsons was so influential, people came around to capitalise on the family sitcom trope by redoing it over and over again without realising people watched it because it had deep and thought provoking storylines, NOT because it was a family sitcom.

[abadyr_]

I hope the likes of "Arcane" will inspire more animated series and movie of such quality.

[D_Specs]

Professional animator here who's animated on things including Robot Chicken. You hit a lot of key points, but also one of the reasons these things come about and can feel homogeneous is because the people making these things - directors, creators and crew members (myself included) - tend to be all the same people. People working in animation jump from one thing to the next due to the gig based nature of this industry, and if these people are well liked by people in higher positions, we get largely the same kinds of crews working on all these projects. By nature, these groups have things they've come accustomed to and techniques they like using that they then bring from job to job, which end up being present in multiple projects as a result. Couple that with how big networks and businesses have been absorbed/merged in recent years, leaving fewer and fewer places to pitch ideas to that were traditionally there, or a single/tiny group of executives curating what gets made, and you get a lot of shows in "main stream" avenues of media coming out that either seem really similar or aren't really doing much to differentiate themselves.

This isn't a complaint necessarily on my end, but rather what I've observed in my time in this industry.

[nathanwithrow]

I find it fascinating that children shows meant for kids can be more deep and mature then most adult cartoons nowadays.

[StonetheDestroyer]

Bob's Burgers is a good example of taking an "ugly" art style, and the sitcom format, and actually handling it with respect and heart. They don't use edginess to get their audience, even if there are some dirty jokes in there, they use a relatable and warm family dynamic. I almost didn't watch it because it looked like it was going to be more of the same, but I'm glad I did, because now it's one of my favorites.

[vulcanhumor]

King of the Hill did a FANTASTIC job of being an adult-oriented animated sitcom that actually had heart, dignity, complex characterization and poignant social commentary. Unlike its contemporaries The Simpsons and Family Guy, I don't think it had much of an audience outside the US. Even within the US, I think its humor got lost on a lot of people because it was more subtle than other shows in the genre...sometimes it took you a second to even realize a joke had been made...and it was usually character-driven. Instead of setting up punchlines, they'd just put a couple of characters in a particular situation together and let their personalities play off each other. It was never mean either; while every character got their chance to be the butt of a joke, their humanity always remained intact. Even consistently awful characters like Cotton would have their moments of grace. It's also been called "the last bipartisan TV comedy" in regards to poking fun at different political perspectives, and it took a very even-handed, non-preachy approach to discussing hot-button issues.

[brianwalley]

When I was a child Japanese animation appealed to me more than american because the stories were more sophisticated and dealt with real emotions