Truly "Adult" Animation

Yeah, Calamity Jane only, to my knowledge, aired 2 episodes in the US. At least I only remember seeing two episodes.

It's in Watchcartoons.

Was a pretty good show I've heard.

It's also on Youtube, though the quality is VHS. One of the first experiments with anime-like animation on the US.

Heard somebody mentioned Dilbert and I have to say it definitely is a good example a true adult animation as the humor of the episode focused more on the strains of working in a office and the work process related to engineering/computer science. Wow, now that I think about, this comic strip actually inspired me into pursuing a degree in Computer Science . . . I really took the message of the show the wrong way considering all the bs Dilbert has to go through to get the Thighmaster off the ground.

But as whole this show is good as it can truly relates with adults who in such environment in the past and present. Its pretty much the cartoon version of Office Space, except it existed WAY before Office Space in the comic strips.

For awhile I was thinking of doing a animation idea that was aimed for older audiences but looking at this thread, I'm a bit confused. So, adults like shows that talk about adult situations like jobs, living, and other things that I can't think of off the bat.

Maybe I prefer adult shows that more thriller ish or have strange events to them that aren't always played for laughs. Not saying that a animated office show is bad but I'd rather watch an animated about a superspy of a police detective then a semi-boring office show. Again, no offense just a sign of taste showing. If I even did attempt on doing such a thing of will be just a surreal thriller with a dash of mystery.

Well I saw Dilbert and for what I remember is not so much about the office job, it has some pretty surrealist episodes. It's more like South Park in that they make social commentary but basically everything can happen.

Yeah. Admitedly I was thinking more of the comic strips regarding office life. But my point still stands on its relatibility for engineers being tasked on a project in its first seson.

x2 Adults want a cartoon that showcase relatability. The appeal with Dilbert (both cartoons and show) is that it is a humorous take on the drone like workforce they have to go through on a daily basis. I wouldn’t call the show boring as it has a balance of wacky comedy and satire regarding jobs and careers that somebody who is in the know will understand.

Yeah you can making a thrilling, pure sci fi action show aimed for adults. But if the themes and situation aren’t something only said group will get, than it wouldn’t be consider a true adult cartoon.

Just compare Heavy Metal with Wizards. One is a just a hour and half long music video that just shows violence and gore with an awesome soundtrack, and the other is mature fantasy/post apocalyptic film which ponders on the concepts of pacifism, war, propaganda, and good/evil.

edited 1st Dec '17 11:36:54 PM by BigK1337

the main themes aren't exactly what most people deal with like a loss in identity, curiosity, and trying to find a niche after you fell out of it. Maybe I'm wrong on this one.

edited 2nd Dec '17 4:01:02 AM by ewolf2015

What about themes of parenthood, age, death and mortality? I know the Simpsons dealt with those themes

edited 2nd Dec '17 4:23:42 AM by GAP

mortality, check. Parenthood.....sort of check. Death, check a mundo. Age? Enope. For the parenthood thing, it's a very unconventional family with two guys raising a Android gri l that has no memory of who she is after she fell from the sky. A few characters do did but I'm not sure when and Why I I should kill them. Although I consider immortality to be sort of unachievable, I don't really explore this theme of even at all. Morality, there's a common theme in my works where the idea of good and evil are just constructs to make humans at peace with reality itself. H Owever, reality itself does not adhere to such restraining constructs that Is black and white.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk&t=22s

I do have to say early Simpsons was an example of truly "Adult" animation. I think over the years, they have gotten lazier and are just trying to appeal to the Family Guy sense of humor that has become popular in Adult animation. They've forsaken subtly for being more in your face, and overexaggerated many character traits.

edited 2nd Dec '17 11:00:50 AM by firewriter

which sucks.

x2 Which is kind of ironic as The Simpsons during its Golden Age have that sort of wacky, meta humor that Family Guy has yet still made room for having thought provoking and very emotional episodes.

This is kind of why fans of that era of Simpsons migrate to the show Futurama as it has everything good about the Simpsons and place it in a sci fi series.

There is a reason why the Simpsons is a strong case of Seinfeld Is Unfunny, because they've ran out of material and are just going on because of their pop culture icon status.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SeinfeldIsUnfunny/WesternAnimation

As said in their entry, they put the Bumbling Dad trope on the map and it's been sadly done to death for years for it to be truly fresh. If I ever wrote a sitcom, it would have the dad at first looking like he would be a straight example but it would be subverted hard. He would be fat, but he actually would have brain cells and be a good family man.

So basically Bob Belcher since that guy is a clear subversion of said trope as he is basically the Only Sane Man to his over the top family.

Also I thought the Bumbling Dad trope was much older than that with the likes of Al Bundy or Fred Flintstone. Hell Family Guy lampshades how both Peter and Homer came from the same mold as Fred in that crossover episode.

Anyone mentioned Anomalisa yet ?

You are right about Fred being the influence on a lot of animated sitcom dads. On the other hand, I don't see Fred being on the same level of stupidity and incompetency as Homer and especially Peter.

I might as well bring up Purno de Purno here.

It's a Dutch cartoon that ran for three seasons from 1989 to 1996, then got revived for two more seasons from 2006 to 2007. It's notable for being rather trippy, and also has the honor of being one of the only mature content-laden shows that's marketed to kids. I wish I was joking.

The Simpsons in their first season were basically a sitcom. The animation was mostly a gimmick but wasn't really necessary for the plot. It was, for all purposes, a mature comedy with touchy episodes granted in reality (outside of the Halloween specials). As I heard a Youtube reviewer say recently; now you really can't differentiate the Halloween specials from the rest of the series. In fact during its first seasons TS was closer to Married... with Children or Home Improvement than to any animated show. Indeed apart from running out of ideas it started to (ironically) following the lead of Family Guy. Thing is, it has run for so long that new generations of fans replace the old ones and, although its ratings do have diminished, they are still enough to milk for Fox as Franchise Zombie. I guess that Seinfeld effect is true and probably new generation fans find older episodes incredibly boring and out of place. You have to see The Simpson as two or three separate series in a way. Unlike Futurama that did kept the style of humor up to the end to some degree.

But that bring us back to the predicament of this thread and is that basically 90% of current "adult" animation is Family Guy-like.

edited 27th Dec '17 12:02:00 AM by Luppercus

As a person, who was just a baby/toddler/preschooler in the 90's, I say looking back at old episodes actually feels refreshing from the newer ones. You can tell there was more effort put into these episodes, than the current crop. It really tried to be adult rather than the juvenile understanding of what an adult is according to Family Guy.

It actually makes me understand how the Simpsons really put adult animation on the map. I think if you are studying adult animation, I believe the place to go to is the 90's Simpsons.

I do agree

Though personally I'm not a fan of grounded shows in tone regardless of the age demographic. like Overly slice of life shows. i don't think adult animation needs to just be animated sitcoms and satire. Maybe I'm 17 or haven settled down yet or I can't comprehend the depth a writer put on his show but I believe adult animation should At least branch. Then again, it should just be a medium then just divided into kid's cartoons and adult animation. As a teenager, we have so few shows that aim to teens. It's been attempted before but it's either done poorly or just doesn't grab interest.

It doesn't help it falls into the pitfalls of anything that deals with teens. Sure there are shows like voltron that show glimmer of hope for my demographic but that's one of the few shows that i like.

Come to think of it, what's the point? Why can't animation be free from the arbitrary ideas of age demographics? I use to put my head into this until realized what is the point? You shouldn't restrain yourself with asking yourself, will kids find this inappropriate or will adults find this insulting to their intelligence. Don't think about that, it's not important most of the time. Is it make sure it doesn't suck and people will catch on.

Mlp got its fans. ladybug got it's fans. even shows for even younger kids got its fans. it goes to show how pointless it all is when you want to appeal to a certain age group. I Sorry for the long thing but I had to get that off my chest. Again, I can see the appeal of slice of life shows but I feel like I had enough of them and "adult" animation should explore other things then just dealing with family things. Heck, some of my favorite adult cartoon deals with this and knowing how felt about the ending of rick and morty, That's saying something.

It would be good if Western Animation really expanded to focus on teenagers as well. That's an untapped demographic. And I think the newer generation of animators and writers could be the ones to do it, due to being exposed to things like anime which know to target teenagers.

The problem is that the idea that animation is for kids is so ingrained in American culture, it is hard for projects which don't fall into the family entertainment brackets to be made.

i think being independent will work. though however, wouldn't say you need to be very anime to appeal to teens but some nods to anime and manga is great. the only cartoon in my head that appeals to teens seems to be my mightslayers idea (it's not real so do not google it). it's pretty much smack dab in the middle between adult and kids animation.

it's sad really but we might as well say screw you american culture and try to find ways to evade this. kickstarter and patreon can help. sure it's not much and bound to fail but i want to send a message to west that animation medium and i don't care if i get- no i'm getting to carried away we need to be realistic.

edited 27th Dec '17 12:21:24 PM by ewolf2015