Adult Protagonists

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alkix1312

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Remember in the older times,where cartoons and anime back then star many adult heroes(human or otherwise)? Nowadays, lead roles have been taking over by youngsters. Of course, the reason is because so kids can have a main character to relate to, but still, don't you think they should have adult leads again? SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon is only an adult on the outside.

You know the weird thing about this? I think there more adult leads in baby shows(Postman Pat, Oswald,etc.Bob the Builder, Handy Mandy, etc) than shows for older kids.

I think there was, al least, one Shounen title that had an adult lead.
 
Most of the DC-verse cartoons of the 90s and 00s featured adult protagonists (obvious). Come to think of it, up until around the mid-2000s, it seemed like there was more of a balance between the shows that had kid or adult protagonists. Nowadays, adult protagonists today are mainly found in the Fox primetime cartoons, Adult Swim, and Comedy Central.

Avatar: the Last Airbender balanced the kid and adult roles. While the main protagonists were preteens/teenagers, adults weren't made useless or rendered as complete idiots.
 
To be fair, even if Spongebob is a kid on the inside, the show still lacks the formula that a kids show apparently can't live without:

1. The unobtainable love interest. Sure Krabs may have had a one episode crush on Mrs. Puff, and Patrick may have had a crush on Neptune's daughter, but the show lacks the regular love interest.

2. Spongebob is actually an optimistic individual. No whinning about how his social life or how embarassing his parents are.

3. Aside from one episode with Flats, the show lacks a traditional bully. I mean sure, Plankton antagonises Spongebob and Krabs, but he's more of the Saturday Morning cartoon supervillain rather than a bully.

I mean, when you watch the show, it comes off as an old Looney Tunes or Hanna Barbera short. Not an animated sitcom.

Now to be fair, CN and Nick are slowly breaking the mold. CN will be getting the upcoming Looney Tunes, Green Lantern, another season of Batman The Brave and The Bold and new seasons of The Super Hero Squad & The Garfield Show.

Nick has of course Spongebob, Barnyard, Penguins and the upcoming T.U.F.F. Puppy.

All that Disney will be getting on XD is the Avengers cartoon.

But really, I'd like to know how the networks came to the conclusion that kids find an adult protagonist to be a turn off. I mean aside from Spongebob, we've also had cartoons like The Batman and Jackie Chan Adventures which had a decent run. Now sure, you had Robin, Batgirl and Jade as cast members, but the shows still had a good focus on the adult members of the cast.
 
I'm not sure, because those newer cartoons were basically new gen versions of old shows from a decade where adult heroes were popular.

Well, yeah while Nickelodeon does have Ren Hoek, Stimpson J. Cat, Rocko Rala, CatDog, and of course Robert SquarePants at an adult age, all their human leads, from then to now, have been kids or teens.

Cartoon Network's fiction would also have this... if not for Johnny Bravo, Samurai Jack, Buck Tuddrussel, Sonny Bridges and the Con Carne Trio(Hector, Reginald Skarr, and Major Doctor Gahastly).

Unlike Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network isn't a channel solely dedicated to kids.
 
In Justice League/Unlimited, pretty much all the protagonists are adults in their 30s.

In Death Note, after the time-skip, Light is about 22, I think.

In all Batman cartoons, Batman is an adult. Same with Superman, not counting LoSH.

In Star Wars: Clone Wars, the protagonist is an adult, although his side-kick is a kid.

I think some of the Gundam anime had adult protagonists.

In Avengers: United They Stand, all the main characters are adults. Same with X-Men: TAS and Wolverine and the X-Men.
 
All of those examples are super hero/crime fighting action shows. I think that the OP was referring to non-adventure oriented animated series starring adults. There aren't as many of those, and the few that do exist usually have anthropomorphic animals (who are essentially human characters in animal guise) in the lead roles. Some examples:

SpongeBob Squarepants - A sponge living among sea creatures
Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Living food products
Beetlejuice - A magic powered ghost
DuckTales, Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers, Tale Spin, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop - Anthropomorphic animals

The few series to feature human protagonists who aren't crime fighters/adventurers and don't possess super powers or mad skills, King of the Hill, Family Guy, The Simpsons, are aimed primarily at adults.
 
It's also worth mentioning that Rigby and Mordecai are both anthropomorphic creatures, not human beings. Most shows with adult protagonists who aren't superheroes, crime fighters or adventurers usually turn up on prime time or late night; on kid-vid shows, most regular (as in non-super-powered, non adventure-seeking) grown-up characters will be rendered as animals or other things, as kid vid producers have this idee fixe that people are a lot more fun and appealing to kids when they're turned into animals.

One of the few kid-oriented series in recent memory in which the star was an adult who wasn't a superhero or a crime stopper was Sunny Bridges from CN's Class of 3000, and even then he was a larger-than-life superstar.
 
It was probably one of those stupid things that came to an executive's mind, like that whole "You gotta agree with the group, because if you don't, you're wrong" moralizing fad in the 1980s that Garfield and Friends eviscerated so well with the Buddy Bears.
 
Johnny Bravo is the most recent animated series that I know of in which the main character was a non-super powered, non crime fighting human adult, unless one counts characters from preschool shows such as Bob the Builder or adult oriented series such as Glenn Martin, DDS.
 
I did say that shows for a more preschool age tend to have more adult lead that shows for older kids.

And what other adult shows besides South Park have kids as protagonists? There aren't that many in Seinen titles, as well.
 
Perhaps. I mean as I've stated in my previous post, CN and Nick are slowly moving out of the need to center around tweens/kids/teens. Sure it's either action/adventure or funny animals, but compared to the middle portion of the decade, it's something.
 
The only excuse they really have nowadays as far as adult protagonists is when they create a show based on a popular movie where the heroes were adults, but kids still enjoyed it. They just decided to say screw it when it came to Iron Man though.
 
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