In-universe
The Homestar Runner: OH NO!! My final fear!! A half-decomposed raccoon being carried around by a family of wet pigeons!!
Strong Bad: Said the Homestar Runner in a children's book.
Strong Bad: Said the Homestar Runner in a children's book.
— Homestar Runner, The Homestar Runner Enters The Spooky Woods
Alfheim Online Cover: Choose from one of nine fairy races and learn valuable life lessons such as sharing, table manners, and aerial combat supremacy.
In the skies of Marshmallow Island, children will make lifelong friends with fellow fairies, or lay them to waste with the game's intricate spellcraft system.
Also, coloring.
Get ready for a world of Learn-venture™ as you make your way through nine amazing biomes like forest, desert, cave, another forest, and circus!
Alright sir. That's about the most positive write-up I can think of for back-of-box stuff. Considering the game has been the biggest soul-sucking shitshow of my career, I think this sells it pretty well!
But at least it's all over now. I can finally get back home and sleep in my own bed again! A bed that is now empty because DEBRA LEFT ME! SHE TOOK THE KIDS, MAN!
But what the fuck ever. Can you just look this over and get back to me with any changes/corrections ASAP? I just wanna wash my hands of this weeping anal fissure of a "game".
Kirito: (reads the first paragraphs) Who is this for?!
Tiffany: My guess would be the cast of Lord of the Flies, but I doubt that's a big enough market.
In the skies of Marshmallow Island, children will make lifelong friends with fellow fairies, or lay them to waste with the game's intricate spellcraft system.
Also, coloring.
Get ready for a world of Learn-venture™ as you make your way through nine amazing biomes like forest, desert, cave, another forest, and circus!
Alright sir. That's about the most positive write-up I can think of for back-of-box stuff. Considering the game has been the biggest soul-sucking shitshow of my career, I think this sells it pretty well!
But at least it's all over now. I can finally get back home and sleep in my own bed again! A bed that is now empty because DEBRA LEFT ME! SHE TOOK THE KIDS, MAN!
But what the fuck ever. Can you just look this over and get back to me with any changes/corrections ASAP? I just wanna wash my hands of this weeping anal fissure of a "game".
Kirito: (reads the first paragraphs) Who is this for?!
Tiffany: My guess would be the cast of Lord of the Flies, but I doubt that's a big enough market.
"He died? And this is supposta be a kid's movie!"
— Rizzo The Rat, Muppet Treasure Island
Rizzo: Whoa, that's scary stuff! Hey, should we be worried about the kids in the audience?
Gonzo: Nah, it's alright. This is culture.
Gonzo: Nah, it's alright. This is culture.
"Well, that's a little graphic for children, wouldn't you say?"
—Elim Garak, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Improbable Cause"
Linka Loud: Lexx, not every girl is — wait, how do you know about periods?
Lexx Loud: I learned about them when Mom took me to see that magic panda movie.
Linka: That's where you learned it from? Sheesh, family movies are a lot different than they were when I was a kid.
Lexx Loud: I learned about them when Mom took me to see that magic panda movie.
Linka: That's where you learned it from? Sheesh, family movies are a lot different than they were when I was a kid.
— Peeking Through the Fourth Wall, Episode 38
The Director of Child Protective Services was aghast, and needed clarification, “Let Me Get This Straight...—You were rocking your baby on the tree top, and when the wind blew, the cradle rocked and the bough broke, the cradle fell, and down came baby, cradle and all?”
— John Tracy, Palm Desert, CA. Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2022
"Are you trying to soothe the baby to sleep, or traumatise her?"
—Seven of Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, "Human Error"
"I've always found it fascinating how cheerfully morbid children's rhymes are."
—Lisa Loud, Peeking Through the Fourth Wall, Episode 27
"I thought this was going to be like Centipede! WHEN DID VIDEO GAMES BECOME SO VIOLENT AND SCARY?!"
— Ralph when he pretends to be a soldier NPC in the Hero's Duty sequence
"After we had won the battle, the first big challenge we faced was clearing the battlefield of fallen warriors. Before we knew it, the Pikmin and Ridley had already harvested all the corpses to create more Pikmin. Seriously, how are those games rated E for everyone?"
Reviews of works
On Anime & Manga
Can we really still call this a kid's show? We've got Beelzemon nearly plummeting to his death, tentacle-like cables tying up Jeri and Calumon, the ungodly mass that is Mother D-Reaper, an uncomfortable discussion on gender identity, a puppet-assisted suicide attempt, crucifixion, and the hope for humanity boiling down to quantum physics. Oh yeah, and the bio-merge kids are still naked.
—Digimon: System Restore on Digimon Tamers
RK_Striker_JK_5: I think I forgot how effed up Sailor Moon could really get...
ANT Pogo: Yeah. "Cute show for little girls about a sailor-suited pretty soldier of love and justice who in reality is a ditzy middle-schooler and OH GOD OH FUCK WHAT WAS THAT WHAT DID I JUST SEE OH GOD!"
ANT Pogo: Yeah. "Cute show for little girls about a sailor-suited pretty soldier of love and justice who in reality is a ditzy middle-schooler and OH GOD OH FUCK WHAT WAS THAT WHAT DID I JUST SEE OH GOD!"
A already creepy Joker mentally scarring and guilt tripping a child, and was about to impale her with a sword......You know
On Comic Books
The Knuckles stories were just as weird as the mainline Sonic series. In the fourth issue, Knuckles was given a love interest named Julie-Su, whose soul had become linked to his the first time she laid eyes on him — this is apparently how echidnas mate in Sonic’s world. Several arcs would attempt to tackle the subject of fascism, which infamously led to Penders rewording Martin Niemöller’s “First they came …” to be about Dr. Robotnik persecuting hedgehogs and echidnas. There was also the issue where a friend of Knuckles’s ally Charmy Bee dies from eating a chili dog laced with “Lemon Sundrop Dandelion.” While investigating the LSD epidemic, Charmy and friends absentmindedly eat more of the tainted food and get high as a kite. This leads to a hospital scene in which an echidna doctor operates on Charmy and his insect blood spurts all over the place. Remember: these comics were ostensibly aimed at preteen kids.
—Bobby Schroeder about the work of Ken Penders, How a Legal Dispute Wiped Hundreds of Sonic the Hedgehog Characters From Existence
On Film — Animated
Narrator: Get ready for a G-rated movie filled with domestic abuse...
Scar: (slapping Sarabi) I'M TEN TIMES THE KING MUFASA WAS!
Narrator: ...a child raised by a same-sex couple, not that there's a problem with that, and the most dramatic death of a parents since Bambi's mom got shot in the face.
Scar: (slapping Sarabi) I'M TEN TIMES THE KING MUFASA WAS!
Narrator: ...a child raised by a same-sex couple, not that there's a problem with that, and the most dramatic death of a parents since Bambi's mom got shot in the face.
On Film — Live-Action
Servo: [As the kid] So evil wins, Grandpa?
Crow: [As Grandpa Borgnine] That's right, even your tiny soul is doomed.
Servo: No, Grandpa Borgnine, leave light and hope for me! Please!
Crow: Get out from behind that cushion, Billy! It gets worse!
Crow: [As Grandpa Borgnine] That's right, even your tiny soul is doomed.
Servo: No, Grandpa Borgnine, leave light and hope for me! Please!
Crow: Get out from behind that cushion, Billy! It gets worse!
"A faaaamily picture!"
—The Nostalgia Critic, talking about the terrifying special effects in Son of the Mask
"At one point, the evil Rat King (John Turturro) has his troopers snatch toys from the hands of children so they can be tossed into furnaces... You may be in disbelief. I was."
"Man, you gotta love the childhood adventures of a future world-murdering psychopath! It's a magical romp following a young pod racer who learns he has the power to kill his friends and loved ones, choking the shit out of people with his force thoughts! Gather around little kiddies and see this young bastard's initial relations with a royal cougar! DON'T YOU GET IT?! Star Wars is fun for the whole family! ITS A FAMILY MOVIE ABOUT A CHILD-KILLING MANIAC! WEEEEE!!!"
—A comment on this article showing a kid-oriented trailer for the 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace
for the 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace"After all, these are just simple movies made for kids and not adults at all. That's why they have: Assassination attempts. Sexual innuendo. Decapitations. Kidnap, torture, and suggested rape. Hookers. Boring political dialogue. Forced amputations. Drug dealing. Mass murder..."
"My biggest problem with this movie is that it has no idea what its audience is. When you go to a movie that's rated PG about a talking cat that's trying to convince his daughter that he's still a good father, you expect it to be for kids or families, right? Yeah, except 75% of this movie is just business meetings (...) and all of this bullshit that has nothing that a kid would enjoy seeing! There were other kids in this theatre with me who looked bored out of their minds! (...) There are two security guards there that decide it would be really funny to taze the cat! Yeah, let's taze the cat and kill it! Let's just, let's kill this cat! What a great PG family movie! Let's just go taze cats! My God! (...) When Kevin Spacey's son in this movie realizes he can't save his father's company from this evil exec, he decides to commit suicide! He wants to jump off of the roof of the building that they're trying to build! Suicide? In this kids' movie? Oh, my God! (...) It is so painfully unfunny and so horrifically boring and completely unaware of its demographic that I am positive that kids and adults will leave this movie wanting their money back."
Silver Quill: Soooo...this is a kid's movie, yes?
Dr. Wolf: (long-suffering sigh) In theory.
Dr. Wolf: (long-suffering sigh) In theory.
—This riff of The Hugga Bunch
riff of The Hugga Bunch"HOW THE HELL DID THIS LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR GET INTO MY PG DISNEY MOVIE?! Guys, I’m serious, this isn’t 80s PG! This film was released in 2000!"
—Josh Scorcher on the surprisingly violent opening scene of Mission to Mars, "Top Ten Gruesome Disney Deaths"
Producer: Well, you know, I think it sounds like a pretty good horror movie.
Screenwriter: Oh no, this is a kids movie.
Screenwriter: Oh no, this is a kids movie.
On Live-Action TV
"Nothing says 'kid's show' like Patrick Warburton casually ignoring an ice-cream man's screams as he's eaten alive inside his own truck."
Mary: Eff it, I don't care if it's a show for small children! I gotta watch Kamen Rider Gaim!
Caption: By Episode 25
TV: We may be forced to wipe out 6/7 of the population with chemical weapons.
Mary: 8 AM on Saturday, people. Welcome to Japan.
Caption: By Episode 25
TV: We may be forced to wipe out 6/7 of the population with chemical weapons.
Mary: 8 AM on Saturday, people. Welcome to Japan.
On Literature
Occasionally, adult readers grimace at the events documented in Out of the Dust. They ask, how can this book be for young readers? I ask, how can it not? The children I have met during my travels around the country have astonished me with their perception, their intelligence, their capacity to take in information and apply it to the greater picture, or take in the greater picture and distill it down to what they need to know. Young readers are asking for substance. They are asking for respect. They are asking for books that challenge, and confirm, and console. They are asking for us to listen to their questions and to help them find their own answers. If we cannot attend always to those questions, to that quest for answers, whether our work is that of librarians, writer, teacher, publisher, or parent, how can they forgive us? And yet they do, every day (...)
—Karen Hesse, her Newbery Medal acceptance speech for Out of the Dust in 1998
On Music
The Royal Guardsmen: Snoopy fired once, and he fired twice/And that bloody Red Baron went spinnin' out of sight
Ben: Wait, this is a kids' song, right?
Ben: Wait, this is a kids' song, right?
On Rides
Chuggaaconroy: There is a Ninja Turtles roller coaster called Shellraiser, and it's one of the most extreme roller coasters in the world, and it's so bizarre that they marketed it toward kids. It holds... world records for how extreme it is; I'm not joking.
ProtonJon: That sounds awesome; I want to ride it.
Chugga: Yeah, it has the steepest drop; it's over 90°.
Jon: THAT SOUNDS AAAWESOOOOOME!!!
Chugga: Yeah, it has the steepest drop of any roller coaster, and it's, like, really freaking intense! And yet, it's marketed towards kids, and people are like, "Dude, this is more extreme than, like, anything at Six Flags."
ProtonJon: That sounds awesome; I want to ride it.
Chugga: Yeah, it has the steepest drop; it's over 90°.
Jon: THAT SOUNDS AAAWESOOOOOME!!!
Chugga: Yeah, it has the steepest drop of any roller coaster, and it's, like, really freaking intense! And yet, it's marketed towards kids, and people are like, "Dude, this is more extreme than, like, anything at Six Flags."
On Video Games
"Is this game rated E for horrific imagery and gore?"
"This is for kids! This is a kid's game. 'That is your soul'... This is a little kids' - little baby game, isn't it?"
[Flowey reveals his Establishing Character Moment]
"So as you guys can see, this is not a kid's game..."
—videogamedunkey on Undertale
"Rated E for everyone, guys!"
—Chuggaaconroy in Super Paper Mario, when Mimi explodes and pieces of her body scatter across the room.
"This is a 7+note game with child beating!"
"This game is for kids, and we have an exhibitionist."
"Come to think of it, I just realized you're playing an NES game... where you shoot your wife. I can't see that going over well with parents: 'Hey, son, what are you playing?' 'I'm playing Nintendo!' 'Oh, that's nice.' 'Yeah, I just shot my wife!'"
—The Angry Video Game Nerd on the NES adaptation of Total Recall (1990)
"'Don't be sad,' said Pikmin 3 tweely, 'we can have just as much fun with unjustifiable murder as those grown-up games.' And you know what? It was right. It's like the fucking trenches of the Somme in there, except the Allied soldiers are physically thrown at the German war machine by their commanders, and every German casualty gets dragged into the Allied trenches to have their flesh minced up and converted into rations. That'll teach me to pre-judge. Thanks, Pikmin 3, you fucking monster!"
"Shantae and the Seven Sirens, as well as being a title tailor made to get the maximum amount of spit all over my laptop screen, is a retro-style platformer by Wayforward Games with an art style reminiscent of a certain genre of Japanese anime, the kind that projects a wholesome, upbeat, innocent vibe, but is somehow at the same time, unrelentingly horny. Shantae's thesis statement is made in the very first frame of the opening cinematic, which is a zoomed-in shot of the main character’s bare midsection as it writhes about like a freshly neutered cat trying to lick its own balls. But while anime styled, I had a hunch that it wasn’t actually Japanese, which one quick google search later, was proved correct; Wayforward are based in California. What gave it away is, while the horniness of Japanese anime isn't in dispute, in the family friendly sector it’s always had this air of plausible deniability. If you told the animators of Sailor Moon for example that people were jerking off to the transformation sequence, you might expect them to at least feign surprise. Shantae has no such subtlety. Not when all the female NPCs are wearing bikini tops and stand around jiggling like they’re desperate for the loo, as do about 50-60% of the monsters."
"When in the fresh hell did they turn Minecraft into a horror game?!?"
— Markiplier on Minecraft's infamous cave sounds
"Barry takes his fork and...seductively...sticks it up her- are we sure this is a children's game?!"
In any case, so concludes Metal Gear: Ghost Babel. A title approved for ages six and up involving serial killings, dismembered siblings, exploding teenagers, self-immolation suicide orgasms, threats of nuclear holocaust, government sponsored destabilization of the greater African, fratricide, attempted filicide, French swearing, and assorted other kid friendly activities.
Antdude: I spent an ungodly amount of time dealing with phonics problems, I never wanna go back. But eventually, I did pass, I did it, it's a miracle… oh man, we're not done?!
Magician: [What rhymes] with… "death"?
Antdude: …Pardon?
Magician: With… "fear"? With… "blood"?
Antdude: Am I hearing this correctly?
Magician: With… "killed"?
Nitro Rad: What is happening?!
Antdude: I… can't believe this! I-I'm stunned! Alright, listen, this level is filled with a lot of garbage, right? That-That's totally fine, we've got enemies coming out of nowhere and whatnot, it all sucked. But I can't get over the words it's telling kids 6 to 9!
Nitro Rad: "Death, fear, blood, killed"! Oh my god, that is crazy! It doesn't even look like "killed" is the last word! What came next?
Magician: With… "enough"?
Nitro Rad: …Okay, I think someone legitimately for tortured during this game's development, the ERSB just did not care. But I guess that's just the magic of video game development, huh?
Magician: [What rhymes] with… "death"?
Antdude: …Pardon?
Magician: With… "fear"? With… "blood"?
Antdude: Am I hearing this correctly?
Magician: With… "killed"?
Nitro Rad: What is happening?!
Antdude: I… can't believe this! I-I'm stunned! Alright, listen, this level is filled with a lot of garbage, right? That-That's totally fine, we've got enemies coming out of nowhere and whatnot, it all sucked. But I can't get over the words it's telling kids 6 to 9!
Nitro Rad: "Death, fear, blood, killed"! Oh my god, that is crazy! It doesn't even look like "killed" is the last word! What came next?
Magician: With… "enough"?
Nitro Rad: …Okay, I think someone legitimately for tortured during this game's development, the ERSB just did not care. But I guess that's just the magic of video game development, huh?
—Antdude and Nitro Rad, playing Rayman Brain Games.
On Western Animation
"We have a pitch for a new song for this animated kid show. It's filled with innuendo about genocide, insurrection, and anarchy underscored with not only occasional fits of high-pitched, psychotic laughter, but is also occasionally peppered with blank-eyed hyenas giggling in unison (to the tune, mind you), all while giving it a looney circus feel more along the lines of whatever freakshow Pennywise came out of than Cirque du Soleil."
"Jones . . . It's brilliant. I want it done, and I want it done yesterday."
"Jones . . . It's brilliant. I want it done, and I want it done yesterday."
— A YouTube user (on the official upload of "Tonight We Strike" from The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar)note
of "Tonight We Strike" from The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar)note On Other
I'm 12 years old and what is this?
—A YouTube user (after viewing porn disguised as a Jonas Brothers music video)
