Has the cartoon industry gone more "kid-friendly"?

T

twatllama

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Anyone who follows the WWE will know what I mean...in the late 1990s in pro wrestling, you had constant violence, sexuality, etc., and since then the company has moved in the direction of child-friendly entertainment.

Have mainstream animation networks (Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, etc.) decided to do the same? Not to say that they ever presented fans with anything radically violent or sexual, but I'm thinking in terms of the early '90s "gross out" humor of Ren & Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, or even the more innovative episodes within the original late '90s CN shows.

It seems like today the shows on both networks don't have that "umph" they once had. Are they trying to reach out to a really young market? Are writers just not as good as they once were? What is the problem exactly?
 
I think it has stayed around the same. I think that the lack of "umpf" you feel comes from you being an adult and not a kid. I know that CN is definately not going for a younger audience with the glut of PG-rated comedies they have.
 
Cartoon Network's programming is as edgy as ever if not edgier; the only difference is that now they're given mild TV-PG ratings as opposed to pushing the limits of TV-Y7. And Nick just hasn't been doing much in animation in general lately. So I think you're imagining things.
 
I don't know, shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Spongebob seem have a lot of adult humor hidden within the jokes. I think the problem is there are just a lot less cartoons than there used to be.
 
Maybe you're right. In all fairness, I'm not nearly as familiar with the cartoons on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network in 2011 as I am with the ones of the 90s and early 2000s. But, when I go back and watch the older shows I still enjoy them. I suppose it may be nostalgia.
 
I was going to point out Regular Show's dialogue. While I know "Crap" and "Hell" aren't necessarily bad words, you would get in trouble for saying them at a young age, so why they're in shows for a station advertised for that target audience is weird.

We can't forget the ultimate non-kids show on the ultimate "We want to be family friendly!" network: Dan Vs.

I feel like shows and stations have gotten a bit more liberal than they ever have been.
 
What alot of it boils down to, based on what I've read, and heard personally from writers I know, is creative freedom. In the seventies and eighties there was virtually no creative freedom at all. Once the nineties hit, a new trend of trying to return to classic style cartoon humor, many producers allowed their writers and storyboard artists more freedom. This let them push boundries. Since then, producers have stopped this, they go a safer route.
 
I don't know, I've seen a lot of psycho scenes in Flapjack, scary visuals and all. There's an entire episode of Flapjack based around K'nuckles addiction to drinking candy, an allude to alcohol. They even have a scene where K'nuckles eats too much and ends up becoming affectionate, angry, and then cries in front of Flapjack.

In a more recent episode of Dan Vs., Dan goes as far as to almost chop a woman with a tree axe, to which she responds, "What are you, a psychopath?!". And it was an actual, lethal threat too, not a light-hearted, cartoon pain threat.

And can anyone forget the entire episode based around Pops naked in Regular Show?
 
Yup, that's all very true. People think today is getting more edgy because of the increase of TV-PG, but honestly today's PG is like yesterday's TV-Y7. What i think the difference is is the diversity. I live with two little sisters so I see and am fairly in touch with today's cartoons, and I always see for the most part the same formula. There's not as many cartoons being made as there were in our days, and the ones that are here are pretty much the same with a few differences, but of course there have been a few gems in the last decade. So I don't think they're being more kid friendly just...less creative or a lack of cartoons in general.
 
I feel that the medium may have found the proper balance. The shows on CN like Adventure Time and Regular Show have some kiddie jokes, but they'll have a joke or sequence that there's no way they would fly on another network. However, Nick and Disney Channel, with a few exceptions, tends to be too kid-friendly with their cartoons. But for the most part, it's evened out. For now.
 
I don't think cartoons have gotten any tamer than they were in the nineties or the 00's. You just gotta know where to look. Nick's cartoons are pretty tame (sans the Avatar franchise), but Disney's has begun packing a slight edge and Cartoon Network . . . I don't even know where to begin with that. Adventure Time, Sym-Bionic Titan, etc . . . there's a lot there.
 
Wow, is that show actually a kids cartoon? I mean, that particular scene was obviously intended for adult viewers, but, like, is the show as a whole aired and promoted as a childrens cartoon?
 
I don't see what's so "edgy" about that Ren and Stimpy scene, I mean, they're talking animals. Now if Ren had really been doing that to Stimpy with ultra-bloody results, then I'd be surprised.

The Sym-Bionic Titan scene didn't really shock me either. I mean, I've seen worse stuff in cartoons past and present.
 
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