What limits would you put on yourself if you did an adult animated series?

I would ban any "jokes" revolving around rape.Was the best way to illustrate the apparent uselessness of Aquaman in that Family Guy episode to show him unable to stop a rapist on the beach? :mad:
 
Not always about budget. Family Guy could do soooooooooooooo much better with the money they're given to animate. If they can afford that cell-shaded animation, they can afford mire than a few different poses and expressions being recycled over, and over again.
 
I'm definitely in favor of no current events/references in the show. I hate watching shows, like The Simpsons, and they have a year shown in it. It makes it feel like it was only meant for one or two airings.

Plus, many jokes and references don't even make sense anymore. I know in one Family Guy episode, Brian was singing that a guy having a cell phone makes him cool. Now, that's not the case.

Plus, some of them aren't as funny, because you have think back on it. By the time that happens, many times, the joke's ended or isn't as funny. It's like knowing the punchline of a joke.
 
The only limit I'd put is that the stuff has to be good. There can even be really crude jokes about things like the My Lai massacre, but they would have to be actually funny in order to get pass the pre-production phase. And since it's next to impossible to make a horrible war crime humorous, I find that this rule would work.
 
The stereoptypes are more annoying. Including a gay character opens up poptential for annoying stereotypes. Part of it is how common it is for gay characters to be in production compared to many productions of the past.

There are a few other limits I'd have that I didn't mention earlier, though some might sound more ridiculous.

I would not want any regular characters to have body piercings (besides earrings on women, and even then I wouldn't want them drawn unless when neccessary) or tattooes (I'm sure the animators wouldn't mind that; I'd expect that to be part to animate). I feel it's too common these days in real life.

I wouldn't want men or really hideously ugly women to be shown in revealing womens clothing. To me that's usually gross. Sure, I'd want women to frequently be seen in really sexy outfits for the sake of pleasing the young male audience (including myself) and to open up sexual harrassment jokes from other characters, but I only want to include my opinion of good-quality disgusting humor.

I really don't want any recurring characters to be killed off. It's okay for a character to die in his/her introductory episode, but I really am a character person, and don't want them to die.

I wouldn't want nipples to be drawn on men when not wearing shirts (I would obviously want them drawn on women, but we know the censors won't allow it). To me nipples on male cartoon characters usually look freaky (though not too big a deal on The Simpsons).

Not that it's common on animated sitcoms, but I wouldn't want there to be many long storylines that last several episodes, like most of today's live-action sitcoms. I wouldn't rule out occasional two-parters, and I might not rule out the occasional mini-storyline during a season (and I have thought of one such idea), but I want to keep most of the episodes self-contained.
 
Precisely. I'd only up the budget if needed for an action scene or if large amounts of CG was needed. Heck I'd have roughly six studios to outsource to for the series, with three different designs for the characters (one for the South Korean studios *Akom and Dr. Movie*, one for the Japanese studios *Studio 4C and Madhouse* and one for Rough Draft and my studio, Philmation *note the pun*) and whenever I'd animate, it'd be for much lower then whenever the outsourcing was needed.
 
The way to deal with that is to portray your black or gay characters as actual characters and not over-the-top stereotypes. Don't think of them as black characters or as gay characters, but as characters who just happen to be black or gay.

I don't like it when ethnic characters are portrayed solely as ethnicities (EX: black character who are portrayed as ciphers who's only character is the color of their skin), but at the same time time, I don't like it when TV shows act as if non-whites don't exist. Too often, white writers and directors are so worried about portraying ethnic characters in a negative light that they simply choose not to portray them at all. I'm personally tired of seeing blacks constantly being portrayed as nothing but hip-hopping, violent, streetwise caricatures (yes, some blacks are like that, but a lot aren't and I'd like to see more of them on TV), but at the same time, I don't want to see blacks not being portrayed at all; I want to see black character who actually have a character and isn't just some walking talking black stereotype. Similarly, you can have a gay character who has flaws and personality quirks other than who he/she is sleeping with. Just consider your characters' personalities first and their ethnicity/sexual orientation second.

And I personally usually don't write characters as being any specifically stated religion or political affiliation. That just separates my intended audience and leads to too many problems.
 
Including ANY character opens up potential for annoying stereotypes. If you can actually WRITE CHARACTERS, then why should there be any problem if a character is gay or straight or whatever?



Seems a bit arbitrary.



No crossdressing? What about old Bugs Bunny cartoons?

And sexual harassment jokes? Can potentially be funny (see Haruhi), but it seems kind of odd you think that's OK when other things equally or less iffy aren't.



First off, why are the male characters going around without shirts in your show in the first place? Second, why the double standard about men vs. women? Seems kind of odd. Nudity in animation in general tends to look pretty odd whether or not there are nipples, but if women have nipples and men don't, that's just going to look even odder.
 
I didn't say no crossdressing, just no men wearign really revealing dresses. Most of the dresses Bugs Bunny wore seem kind of tame, whether worn by a man or woman (and also, Bugs is a rabbit, not a human).



Just say I'm weird. Or a hypocrit. I can't really explain why, though, but I think some kinds of innappropriate subjects (sex, rape, abortion, racism) are funny but others not as much.



Maybe if a scene takes place at a pool or beach. Or if a scene invovles professional wrestlers. Or if a man and woman are in bed together.
 
I would make sure anything I did serviced the story and characters, not have the characters and story service the content. Anything goes, but it needs to make sense for the character or situation.
 
I don't want to take this thread off-topic (after all it's about our limits, not what we would do), but I wonder if anybody ever thought about making a series in which various characters act the opposite of their stereotypes. Like giving all african american characters jobs that african americans aren't normally associated with in media, maybe give a mexican or itialain (or white american) character a job normally considered stereotypical for an asian, maybe even have one young white male character written as a bland personality-less character.
 
Wait.

Rape is funny?

So you're not disturbed by possibly the worst thing that could happen to you while still alive but nose rings and male nipples offend you?



Oh, there are plenty of those out there. Not sure why you'd want any character to be bland and personality-less.

And you still haven't explained why you would refuse to have any gay characters.
 
The problem with this strategy is that you're still basing your characterizations on what your characters are and what color/race that they are rather than who they are. For a moment, just forget about the characters' skin color, ethnicity or sexual preference, etc and concentrate solely on what sort of person said character is. Their desires, their likes, dislikes, their quirks, their obsessions, etc. Also, I have no idea why you'd want a character to be written as being bland and personality-less, white male or not. That strategy is itself midly racist.
 
I'd be disturbed if it actually happened to me, but wouldn't be disturbed if it was mentioned in a production for laughs. I'm sure there's many things that are funny to everybody except the victim.



Mainly as a joke. A character could have amost no personality, and jokes could be made at that characters expense, for example.



I can't really explain, but I thought I just said I'd limit gay characters. Though with most ideas I've had for animated shows, very few of them have any characters invovled with relationships unless they were a married couple or parents/grandparents, though the men would hit on the women constantly (and most likely vice versa).

Also, I stated my limits, as we were asked, and now I have a bad feeling that things might get out of hand. I didn't question anybody else's opinions, after all.
 
You could ask about this in real life. For the most part it's considered okay for men to show their nipples in public and on television but not women, and women showing nipples can be arousing while if men show their nipples most people don't really care. When it comes to women I don't know if it's really the nipples or the breasts (which really fat men also have and don't go censored) that are more arousing, but if a woman on television is shown topless the nipple parts have to be covered while more of the boobs can be shown. And it's considered okay for women to wear clothing that show a bit of their breasts as long as the nipples are covered.

In this regard I guess my logic is the same as the logic for general decency laws.
 
Wow, I think this threads gone off topic a little. I wouldn't have swearing. It's a personal thing, I hear it every day, every movie, every TV show, I'm sick of it.
 
How come some people don't like blood? I've always found that blood adds to the intensity of a scene. Makes it more carnal.


If two guys are fighting to the death (which frequently happens in stories, usually without much blood loss unless it's an R rated movie or an anime), isn't that what you want? Passion and intensity? Why is blood considered a "bad" or "taboo" thing to show?
 
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