When and why were cartoons as labeled as just for kids

Y

yeun

New member
When I was growing up in the 80's, cartoons were proceived as just for kids. The cartoons were all aimed at children, there was no cartoons in prime time or late night. That changed with the Simpsons, and since than cartoons are once again for all ages.

Shows like South Park, Family Guy, Robot Chicken, they have continued what the Simpsons started.

Anyway that wasn't always the case, the old theater cartoons were not just for children, some of them were only for adults. Later there were cartoons on prime time in the 60's.

But at some point in the 70's or 80's, cartoons were only aimed at kids. There was no more prime time cartoons. When did that happen? And why did that happen?
 
In the 70's there was still stuff like Fritz the cat and Heavy Traffic but in the 80's that was the beginning of the "soft world" where alot of people became more aware of issues and stuff was being more safe like smaller, more aerodynamic cars.
 
I guess when they started making cartoons as a connection to toy lines (the 80s?). Somebody who knows more than me would probably have a better answer.
 
Back in the 1950's, when television was becoming the predominant form of in-home entertainment, there was a big push to fill time slots as television stations all across America expanded their broadcast times to 18-24 hours a day. Networks and production companies invested heavily in adult programming, since this was seen as the most profitable, but the budget for children's programming was much smaller. Remarketing old theatrical short subjects, such as cartoons and live action shorts featuring the Three Stooges and Our Gang, was seen as an affordable alternative to making new programming. TV stations started programming these shorts heavily in the time slots most frequently watched by children, and this led to the perception that cartoons were for kids.
 
I think Television was the biggest factor. Once cartoons dominated afternoon and Saturday morning timeslots, the idea that they were kids fodder become cemented to them.
 
Cartoons become commercialized and marketed towards kids a lot. Most cartoons before the 1980's, while they could be watched by kids, had some pretty mature situations and humor, but not so much that they were deemed unwatchable by the general audience.
 
When Ren and Stimpy came along in the 90's I guess cartoons weren't considered just for kids anymore because of all the gross-out humor in it making adults love it as much as kids. Two other shows that made cartoons not just for kids anymore are South Park and Family Guy. I think cartoons are made for everyone now.
 
When executives realized when they could use it as a market to sell kids action figures and the birth of the 80s/90s marketing blitz hit (and earlier). Luckily, we're pretty much over that aside form Japanese shows.

Uh, no, Ren and Stimpy didn't affect that at all.
 
Look, Gryph, just because you don't like a particular cartoon doesn't mean that it doesn't have some importance on things.

Although the Simpsons and Roger Rabbit had slightly bigger influences on the cartoons-for-adults movement, it's pointless to argue that Ren and Stimpy wasn't part of that.
 
Agreed, Ren and Stimpy did have an effect in the cartoons for adult movement, not as big as effect as the Simpson because they came first.

I think Ren and Stimpy would not have had the problems with the network cesnors had it been created a few years later, when there was something like an Adult Swim or a more establish Comedy Central as a platform. It never belong on Nickelodeon in the first place. But that is another story.

But my question how did we did the problem start, not what how did it get resolved.
 
One could turn that around and say the same thing about you.

How exactly did Ren and Stimpy shape the way of adult cartoons when the show itself was for kids? Any sort of "adult appeal" one could argue the show had is moot, because you could argue that about any show. There were plenty of cartoons before it that had "inappropriate" humor, many with much more than Ren & Stimpy could hope to ever have.

All you could really argue was it may have helped more gross-out humor in kids shows, but not animation for adults. The Flintstones, Frtiz the Cat, The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead, South Park, Family Guy, those are understandable and obvious. Someone will have to explain to me what Ren & Stimpy did, or provide some proof.
 
Ren and Stimpy's big breakthrough wasn't content, but it's production. It was still a kids show, but it was one of the first kids shows that was creatively overseen by a professional cartoonist rather than a network executive. A trend which would influence later shows, improve the quality of animated programming, and help make it cooler for adults to watch.
 
^ Don't know if there are ratings reports out there from the early '90s to confirm this, but I've read in numerous places that Ren & Stimpy managed to regularly gain viewers outside its "target audience", such as teens and young adults. So it must've been doing something right for that to happen.

(I say target audience in quotes because I got the impression that John K. and crew never really wanted to make a show just for kids, but something all-ages like the original Looney Tunes. Yes, there was gross-out humor in R&S, but that certainly wasn't its only source of humor and appeal, so it could appeal to more than just kids)
 
Personally I sympatized on where John K.'s was coming from, from this prosepctive. Nickelodeon knew what show they were getting when they picked up Ren & Stimpy. If you buy a lion and it bites your head off, I am sorry but you should know what you are getting into.

Unless he lied to them, and said his product was aimed at kids, and was very G rated. But from seeing the pilot episode "Big House Blues", I doubt that.
 
Sadly, I can't shake the feeling they always were. Maybe not during Windsor McKay's day, but certainly just after that. Sad, sad stuff. I guess anything that has talking animals is in danger of being called a "kid's medium" to begin with.

Sad thing is, no matter how many shows like the Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park come along, it's still considered Kid's stuff, and absolute juvenile garbage like Survivor (oh yeah, adults backstabbing each other and behaving like poorly behaved children- very mature) and America's Funniest Home videos (no comment- Poit!) are considered adult fare.

And just when, to turn the question around, did adult media come to mean X-rated videos and sex? Just something to chew on there.
 
In the UK it was shown on terrestrial TV in prime time, which is pretty rare for cartoons that were originally targeted towards kids (The Tick and Rocko's Modern Life are the only other examples I can think of)
 
No it was not for kids, yet it was aimed at kids. Some of the humor could never be understood by kids.
..Yet the explanation that in the 50s and 60s the use of theater shorts to fill a Saturday morning time slot probably is a good beginning of this idea. As animation became cheaper, this medium helped to fill that time slot.
... Yet throughout recent history, it is not just Animaniacs that appealed to adults.
Films like the Yellow Submarine, Allegro non Tropo, and many more could be considered adult films..
 
I think that a lot of it came from the Saturday morning cartoons that were made for kids. Up until recent 10 or 15 years there was only a few exceptions.
 
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