Parents, just because it is a cartoon doesn't always mean it's for kids, as many of these examples contain sex, violence, and tons of swearing.
- Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (considered the great-grandfather of adult animated sitcoms, particularly the ones FOX airs that center around dysfunctional or semi-functional families trying to make it in a dysfunctional worldnote ) was a Hanna-Barbera production from the early 1970s and often aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang (usually during primetime with late-night reruns) so people get the impression it's for children. However, it's more like a watered-down All in the Family mixed in with a 1970s version of King of the Hill, containing issues that would be too complex or inappropriate for childrennote .
- One of the biggest examples of this is South Park; despite airing at a time when kids should be in bed, some kids watch it anyway. Despite the animation using a paper cut-out doll style, and the main characters being children, it is full of swearing, violent death, gore (especially in the later seasons), uncensored cartoon nudity, implied and explicit sexual abuse (including scenes of rape), and child abuse both implied and confirmed. People with various prejudices aren't always directly punished, and childish innocence is rarely a good thing, which might confuse children. It also makes fun of political correctness and features a manipulative, sociopathic, anti-Semitic little boy (Cartman) as one of the show's most popular characters. It also doesn't help that from seasons one to six, the theme song was more cheerful and unassuming, which lured a lot of people into thinking it wasn't that bad (despite the TV-MA rating and that warning that says all the celebrities are impersonated and the show's content is so vulgar that nobody should watch it).
Now that the show had 20+ years of notoriety, this doesn't happen much anymore. That said, when it had a short-lived syndicated run on free-to-air TV, the FCC received complaints of kids overhearing the show or trying to stay up late to see it, and it was put on halt until the 18th season in Fall 2014 (which is why King of the Hill and Futurama now rerun in syndication and why Comedy Central airs the syndicated episodes on their channel).- This was apparently something of a concern for creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone themselves early on, as a planned game for the Game Boy Color ended up being cancelled after it was completed due to them being uncomfortable with it being on a console largely targeted towards kids.
- Netflix has several animated series, some of which are fine for family viewing, others, such as Bojack Horseman, F is for Family and Big Mouth... not so much. Especially the latter. It's about puberty, but it's aimed at adults to look back upon that age period.
- One of the best-known cases of this trope (in the days before South Park and Seth MacFarlane's shows, but right around the time that The Simpsons was considered popular/controversial) is when Beavis and Butt-Head (a pair of idiotic horndog teenagers who do dangerous things and try to get laid) caught heat for driving younger, more impressionable viewers into imitating their dangerous stunts (mostly setting things on fire, putting dogs in laundry machines, and dropping bowling balls from bridges). When news of a boy burning down his trailer and killing his sister cropped up, the boy's mother protested the show's content (even though the family didn't have cable at the time of the incident). As a result, Beavis could no longer display pyromaniac tendencies or grunt "Fire! Fire!" (though the movie and the revived series brought those back), and most of the older episodes had to be edited to remove anything considered imitable.
- Billboard classified the VHS tapes of the show
as kids' VHS tapes.
- Billboard classified the VHS tapes of the show
- Slacker Cats. Despite its sexual humor (like the first episode alone showing necrophilia), it aired on ABC Family. And no, it wasn't because the original sale from the Christian Broadcasting Network to Fox/Saban contained a stipulation that the channel contain the word "Family" in the name forever no matter who owns the network (this was kiboshed when the network was renamed to Freeform in 2015). It still remains a mystery how it lasted to 7 episodes.
- The Haunted World of El Superbeasto looks like it was done by Spumco but is full of extreme violence, sexual situations, innuendo, nudity, and swearing. Even Spumco itself brings this trope to life with Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". The Ren & Stimpy Show was a kids' show (albeit one with a lot of disturbing imagery and mild sexual innuendo). The revival pumped it up, much to the disgust of everyone involved (including John Kricfalusi himself).
- Looney Tunes (the original shorts from 1930 to 1969) were, according to its directors and how it was distributed back then, meant for general audiences (i.e. kids and adults, though most of the humor in the Looney Tunes cartoons would either be too risqué for kids or wouldn't be readily understood by kidsnote ). When the cartoons were syndicated for TV, a lot of the cartoons had to be edited or banned outright so they would appeal to kids (and a new generation of adults who would see some of the outdated jokes and scenes as racist, sexist, or un-PC). The DVD releases of the cartoons have the shorts uncut and even include a warning in the beginning, stating that the cartoons are products of a different era and should be seen from a historical perspective.
- It's the same with the older Disney cartoons as well. Mickey's Mellerdrammer and Education for Death are two good examples of this (yes, even an anti-Nazi cartoon is not immune to accusations).
- And while we're talking about works created before the Animation Age Ghetto kicked in, some children's TV cartoon anthology slots have included Betty Boop cartoons, some of which were risqué enough to be attacked by Moral Guardians at the time. This is best exemplified in shorts like The Old Man of the Mountain (with the titular antagonist being heavily implied to be a rapist) and Minnie the Moocher (which is chock-full of Nightmare Fuel, not to mention the song itself being laced with references to drugs like cocaine and opium).
- Dish Network program guides sometimes used to label some [adult swim] shows and anime, such as the anime adaptation of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, as "Family/Children".
- Fish Police was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon about anthropomorphic fish, with colorful backgrounds, many fish-themed puns and a Disneyesque animation style, very loosely based on the comic book series and aired as an early competitor to The Simpsons. It was also filled with content that went beyond what can acceptably be considered Parental Bonus in a "kids'" cartoon — including an episode that had an underwater version of a red light districtnote . What's worse is that in some countries, it aired on daytime Cartoon Network back-to-back with children's shows (though there may have been edits done to the international versions to make it more kid-friendly).
- Duckman: It's about a cartoon duck, and it's made by the nice people who brought us Rugrats. If only it weren't for the offensive language, politically-incorrect subject matter, rampant female fanservice, and sex-related jokes.
- Stressed Eric also qualifies (although Klasky-Csupo didn't animate season 2). There's an entire episode about sex. But that didn't stop many young kids from watching the show...and subsequently getting terrified by the end of every episode, where Eric's stress vein strangles and kills him.
- Bromwell High. Despite being barely well-known, it is probably the most triumphant example of this trope. You can never go through an episode without profanity, and it features a lot of sexual references yet it got a DVD release by the FAMILY division kaBOOM! Entertainment and aired on the Australian children's network ABC Me. Naturally, the DVD release got a CHVRS rating of 18A (the equivalent of a US R rating).
- Brickleberry. At first glance, someone may think it's perfectly fine for kids since the animation and art looks like something from a Saturday morning show in the 1990s (or the early-to-mid-2000s since it was Adobe Flash-animated in season one and traditionally animated with digital ink and paint for proof of concept in seasons 2 and 3note ), has talking animals, and includes a lot of voice actors from more kid- and family-friendly shows, like Tom Kenny and Tara Strong. It's...not. If the cold opening of the first episode (where Steve shows a bunch of horrified Boy Scouts a meadow filled with animals having sex) doesn't make you believe, then look up all the reviews (most of which are negative) about how this show is an excessively vulgar clone of Family Guy and South Park, with none of the self-aware goofiness or scathing satire of either show.
- Drawn Together: What seems like a cartoon that would air on Nickelodeon with well known voice actors in kids cartoons such as Tara Strong, Cree Summer, and James Arnold Taylor that parodies all our favorite types of cartoon characters (including anime-style and video game characters) together is actually a show with tons of black comedy, graphic violence, sexual content, otherwise highly offensive and politically incorrect humor, squick, and body horror. But kids still watched it anyway when it came out. Conversely, The Amazing World of Gumball is also about different types of cartoon characters (and some that aren't, like live-action chin puppets, Muppets, Atari-style video game characters, and paper cutouts, to name a few) living together and interacting with each other, but is significantly more family-friendly in comparison (even though the latter show has been known to push the limits of being "family-friendly").
- The streaming site Flixanity has Clone High (a series about clones of famous historical figures as stock high school teen show characters, like the Jerk Jock, the Alpha Bitch, the apathetic Goth girl who hates the popular kids, has a crush on The Everyman protagonist, and dresses in black, the party animal and comic foil to the protagonist, etc) listed as a kids show. While animated historical series for kids exist, this one is not all that educational and not all that kid-friendly.
- Due to international lack of an Adult Swim block, Home Movies ended up airing during children's timeslots on Cartoon Network UK, as well as on Canadian youth station YTV with a PG rating. Despite its child cast, the show is very distinctively aimed at adults; both due to the occasional innuendo/salty language as well as the pop culture references only adults would get. It is worth noting that later seasons (with more envelope-pushing episodes such as "Curses") didn't finish its run on Cartoon Network UK, and later moved to Teletoon in Canada, where it aired with an 18+ rating, which, to be fair, is a little too out of line. Home Movies also aired on Cartoon Network in Japan, but to be fair, it's not any worse than a lot of Japanese kids shows.
- The Maxx has an animated adaptation. Needless to say, showing this to your kids is not a good idea, but it aired on Teletoon for a while anyway.
- While The Flintstones is considered a kids show nowadays, with merchandising, cereals and such, it was originally made for adults, and back then it was considered controversial, since it was the first TV show showing a married couple sleeping in the same bed. In its first two seasons Winston Cigarettes were (infamously) the main sponsor for the show, later replaced with Welch's Grape Juice after the show started to be more popular with kids (and became more kid-friendly as a result).
- In an interview, Aardman Animations has said that Shaun the Sheep was their first kids series and said that everything they made before it was not intended for children in the first place. Some examples include.
- Pib and Pog: A Subverted Kids' Show filled with over the top violence.
- Creature Comforts: Often brings up adult themes in the interviews, as well as most of its humor going over younger viewers' heads. It doesn't help that Kellogg's once promoted toys of the show in their cereals.
- This was one of two reasons why Father of the Pride was short-lived: it was promoted as a family show despite it containing tons of sexual innuendos. Even worse, Peacock classifies it as a children's show, and thus will recommend children's shows like Curious George and Make Way For Noddy to viewers who've watched the show. An issue of Disney Adventures magazine even talked about the show and interviewed Daryl Sabara (the voice actor of Hunter).
- Animals (2016) looks like a cute show about what animals do when their owners aren't home. But it actually contains such elements as alcoholic parents, a Nazi dog and an episode in which a virus wipes out most of New York City's population. Making matters worse is that this show premiered at the same time as The Secret Life of Pets, a movie with a very similar premise that actually was for children.
- Dilbert is a Black Comedy Work Com that Dilbert, an engineer working for a soulless and bureaucratic corporation, underneath an incredibly thick-witted, Pointy-Haired Boss; kids probably wouldn't understand this anyways. Despite this, it aired on FOX Kids on Argentina.
- Close Enough is a cartoon from the same man who brought us Regular Show. While the latter may have had a good number of sexual innuendos, disturbing violence, and mild swearing, it was still ostensibly a kids' show; Close Enough, being an upfront adult series, has more blatant depictions of drug use, drinking, and a fair amount of cursing and sex jokes, though it doesn't go as overboard as you'd think.
- The Midnight Gospel is a brightly colored animated show from the same guy who brought us Adventure Time (which, despite being on a children's network, did too have its share of adult humor and dark moments, and was more geared toward preteens and teenagers than young children), so it must be appropriate for kids, right? Wrong. It's chock-full of nudity, sexual situations, language, and drug use in ways that make Adventure Time look like it's for preschoolers.
- Arcane: Whoopee, an animated League of Legends series! That means it's got to be just as cartoonishly cute and silly as the original game, right? But as this show reminds you, this is NOT the case. Despite the show stemming from a teen-rated IP, the series itself is rated 16+ (TV-14 in the US) for violence, some strong language (with characters, especially Vi, using "fuck"), and some particularly brutal sequences.
- The Legend of Vox Machina: A Dungeons & Dragons-themed adventure series from the same people behind Critical Role, many of whom have been prominently involved in a number of family friendly media, that looks like something children would enjoy at first. Then the first episode airs with The Chosen Ones getting violently slaughtered. Cut to our intrepid heroes getting extremely drunk in a bar (with multiple Vomit Indiscretion Shots from Keyleth), swearing up a storm, cutting off a guy's hand, getting into a tavern brawl (except Scanlan, who is banging the tavernkeeper's daughter), and generally shooting down the idea of being more than just a marauding band of murder hobos: just like the equally raunchy and irreverent livestream series it's based on!
- Santa Inc.: An animated Christmas show done in the style of classic holiday films like the Rankin/Bass presentation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or The Little Drummer Boy... and it's also got a whole sleigh full of inappropriate content like drugs, profanity, themes that would fly over most kids' heads, and some very crude jokes. Some confusion from parents is to be expected.
- Bee and Puppycat is a downplayed example. Demographically it's not aimed at kids at all—every distributor from Channel Frederator to Netflix has labelled it adult animation. Content-wise, though, the show is essentially just a Western Shōjo; aside from a few mild curse words, the show is perfectly accessible for all ages. On Netflix it's rated TV-PG, or the equivalent of most modern-day Cartoon Network shows.
- Producing Parker is a show with an animation style similar to 6teen and the animation studio behind the show, Breakthrough Entertainment, worked on several kids shows including Atomic Betty, Captain Flamingo, and Jimmy Two-Shoes among others. Despite this, the show is NOT for kids as it contains uncensored nudity and swearing. Despite this, COPPA marked it as "for kids."
- Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake is a spinoff of a show that is appropriate for kids (mostly), and features the same colorful, zany, cartoonish art style. Perfect for introducing your kids to the series, right? Sure, if you don't mind mild-to-moderate swearing and averted Bloodless Carnage in your kids' shows. The Audience Shift strikes again! Not helping matters is its similar conceit to Bee and Puppycat, which is also aimed at teens and adults, has a similar art style, and even shares a studio, but is much tamer in comparison. Even Cartoon Network airs this show in Canada!note
- Bob and Margaret episodes on the YouTube channel Retro Rerun used to be on YouTube Kids, because the system automatically detected them as children's content, despite featuring adult subject matter and the occasional bit of nudity and swearing, including a Precision F-Strike from Margaret in one episode.
- Hazbin Hotel can look endearing to children for its lively cartoon-style animation, cute animal-like characters, musical numbers (some of the songs are even composed by Parry Gripp, who is known for his kid-friendly music), and immense popularity on the Internet, as well as starring multiple voice actors that are prominently known for their family-friendly Disney roles. But unsurprisingly for a series focusing on sinning demons in Hell, it is mature, with frequent strong profanity, sex jokes, horrific violent acts (including rape), and constant usage of alcohol and drugs. Many of the clips have a "NOT FOR KIDS" label and disclaimer to deter children from viewing them, yet there are many who love the series. The spinoff Helluva Boss is even more so, carrying the same cutesy charm but manages to be more mature.
- When its premiere on Amazon was announced, there were several complaints from conservative Christians about the fact that an "obviously Satanist cartoon that mocked Christianity" was intended for children.
- When its premiere on Amazon was announced, there were several complaints from conservative Christians about
- HouseBroken seems like a cute show in the vein of The Secret Life of Pets about a group of pets at a therapy session, right? While not as raunchy as say, Family Guy, it's still not suitable for kids due to the amount of gross-out humor and sex jokes (the first episode has a subplot about Shel the turtle having sex with a shoe). The show also relies heavily on black comedy and Toon Physics in Season 2, the latter of which also doesn’t help. It also doesn’t help that many of the show’s voice actors (such as Lisa Kudrow and Tony Hale) appeared in a lot of movies that WERE meant for kids (Kudrow in The Boss Baby and Hale in Toy Story 4).
