Parental Bonus Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

discussion leading up to creation of the entry

Yet another concept without a name: the way a lot of kid's TV shows have hidden in-jokes for the adults. (Sesame Street is just the most famous example.)Maybe this is a subset of Multiple Demographic Appeal, or maybe this is a trope, or maybe a device?

Double Entendre seems to touch on this.

That does cover it, but Double Entendre tends to imply sex jokes, and this is more than that. I'm thinking of characters like Sherlock Hemlock and the Count from Sesame Street, or the moment in Square One TV (a kid's show about math)where the heroes are in an airport and we hear "can miss Amelia Earhart please come to the front? Miss Earhart, we have your luggage."

//Ah. Huh. That is tough to name. Some spitballing: Over The Head, Overtext as a play on Subtext, an Adult Line ...

BT The P: I've spent some time reading the blog kept by a few of the main staffers on American Dragon Jake Long, and it occurs to me that these types of jokes are more for the writer's benefit than the parents.

Idle Dandy: I have recently discovered a downside to the Parental Bonus. Children of a certain age (about 5-7 years old) interrupt the program to ask why the adult is laughing. I recently watched Toy Story 2 with my niece, who wanted me to explain the various things that were cracking me up. Try explaining to a 6 year-old why you shriek when Emperor Zurg's ion blaster settings go to 11. Perhaps the best crafted Parental Bonus joke is one that is simultaneous to a kid-oriented joke.

Tabby: Maybe it's just me, but it seems like all of a sudden in the last couple years there have been a disproportionate amount of Talking Heads jokes in animation. No real comment on that, just that it made me go "hunh."

Looney Toons: Really? Cool. Like what?

Tabby: Only two spring to mind at this very second, although I'm (retroactively, having only been introduced to the band a year or so ago) sure I've seen more. An episode of The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy started with a dream sequence that culminated in Grim yelling, "This is not me beautiful house! This is not me beautiful wife!" and being woken up by Billy running around him chanting, "Same as it ever was! Same as it ever was! Same as it ever was!" A subtler nod came in a conversation between the Senors Senior in an episode of Kim Possible: "Junior, this is not a party. This is not a disco. This is not...'fooling around'!"

Travis Wells: Homestar Runner too, in 3 Times Halloween Funjob

Ununnilium:

Usually in regard to daily habits, while others drew reference topicals, such as "Sadman Huszany".

...what? @.@

Wiki: Three words: "Heart-burp", "High-cassorol", "Sadman Huzany".

Ununnilium: See, that was the only part of the sentence that wasn't confusing.

Zander Schubert: What's so bad about the Prince reference from Animaniacs that it shouldn't've gotten past the censors?

Shandrunn: Fingerprints. Let that one sink in for a while. —- Psyclone: Removed:

And another surprise, somewhat ill-recalled:
Dot: What's a pianist?
Yakko: Goodnight, everybody!

And replaced it with the actual skit.

Nyperold: Okay, I'm not sure if these fit here or if they'd be more like an Obscure Knowledge Bonus, but:

In the Garfield And Friends episode "Star Struck", a director named Federico Fettucini gives Garfield work as a stunt cat. As a child, this name is just randomly Italian, and a food reference. As someone who has since been exposed to movie knowledge, the name can be easily identified as a reference to Federico Fellini. In one scene, Jon asks if the shark pursuing Garfield is mechanical, but Mr. Fettucini says he wants "only realism" in his films. This is an interesting statement considering Fellini's work in Italian neorealism.
In an episode of Arthur, Buster smuggles a dinosaur footprint out of a park where he and Arthur found it. They later return it, and afterward, are told that Doctors Marsh and Cope have differing opinions on the identity of the print. One can only hope these fictional counterparts weren't jerks to each other like their historic surnamesakes.

Furi Kuri: Seems to me that the Garfield one would be parental bonus, the Arthur one more obscure.

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