History Sandbox / AnimationAgeGhetto

# BoxOfficeBomb.NThroughR: Back in Action, caused the division to go under in 2003. It also poisoned the A-list reputation of the Farrelly Bros., who directed the live-action parts of the movie (they haven't attempted anything with animation since; it was also one of two films that year, the other being Pootie Tang, that put Chris Rock in a bad spot). Still, the film performed well in the home video/DVD market and spawned a two-season animated series on Kids' WB!.
# Manga.GundamSousei: In-Universe, Anime as a whole is treated as a series of 25-minute commercials for children's toys and the success of Space Battleship Yamato is viewed as an exception rather than the rule. Which makes sense, given that the story's set largely in the late '70s to early '80s.
# WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids.{{Music}}: Gorillaz. "They're an animated band, so they must be for kids, right?" Wrong! Not only does the animated band consist of a drug-addict, a middle aged sexually-frustrated satantic bassist, a demonically possessed drummer, and a Japanese super soldier who's the last remaining member of a top-secret government project, but there are also a lot of serious, heavy themes in the music lyrics, including philosophy, depression, loneliness, terrorism, war, etc. It doesn't help that they would later temporarily add Ace from The Powerpuff Girls (1998) to their lineup, or that the aforementioned super soldier was initially depicted as an adorable ten-year-old girl.
# YMMV.{{Tugs}}: This was the show's biggest downfall. The show was intended to be for children, however, the show wasn't able to successfully win over Thomas & Friends' target demographic, as the show frequently dealt with darker and more mature topics than its sister show did, such as suicide, death, criminal activities and violence, amongst other topics, all of which made it too dark and inappropriate for younger children, and the show being styled after Thomas meant that older audiences wouldn’t find it appealing either due to shows featuring Sentient Vehicles being perceived as being only for young children. In short, the darker tone of the show clashed too heavily with its Thomas-esque style and resulted in a show that lacked a well-defined audience and mass appeal, causing it to alienate American investors, which led to the show's cancellation after only thirteen episodes.
# Trivia.SpiderManIntoTheSpiderVerse: RealitySubtext: Stan Lee's Creator Cameo features a line noting that he'll miss Spider-Man. This carried extra poignance when the movie was released several months after his death. One scene has Scorpion dismiss Spider-Ham as "just a cartoon," who replies "You got a problem with cartoons?" before delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. This is almost certainly a commentary on the AnimationAgeGhetto and how many critics were skeptical about an animated Spider-Man movie before its release.
# YMMV.DungeonsAndDragons1983: The writers were obviously pushing the envelope as far as they could, but Executive Meddling still shows.
# YMMV.HazbinHotel: For anyone accustomed to the attitudes of AnimationAgeGhetto, this show is a nice, but still surprising subversion. If you saw this show offhandedly with cute animal-like characters with fantastic designs, fluid animation, and musical numbers (some of the songs are even composed by Parry Gripp, who is known for his kid-friendly music), it can be very surprising to watch those same characters suddenly drop profane words from left to right, crack sex jokes, discuss and perform horrifying acts (including rape), and do drugs.
# EndOfAnAge.RealLife: The original cancellation of Toonami in 2008 is considered to be the end point of the 1990s anime boom. While other animation blocks with a focus on Japanese animation existed before and since, the Cartoon Network run of Toonami is the second longest-lasting of these (only surpassed by its own revival on [adult swim]) and is credited for giving a large number of action anime mainstream exposure before the advent of streaming sites such as Crunchyroll, due to being on a general family channel rather than a Niche Network.note Granted, "animation-only" is still a niche, but a less restricting one than, say, Syfy's (then Sci-Fi Channel)... in theory, anyway.
# YMMV.TransformersAnimated: Back when the first promos were shown off, many fans claimed that the show would be too "kid-oriented" based off of the art style alone. Then Thrill of the Hunt aired and the show got darker in general, and these claims became less frequent.
# MediaNotes.TheDarkAgeOfAnimation: While the stigma didn’t really originate from this era, as early forms began to emerge in the previous eras, this era is where the stigma truly began to become strong, and it’s therefore associated with this stigma, particularly after the mid-1960s, as most of these cartoons became directed for children, with a few exceptions.
# Podcast.WeHateMovies: One letter sent in by a fan details how her friends brought along an obnoxious third wheel, "Frank", when going to the theater as teenagers; being unable to get into their preferred movie, 30 Days of Night, she suggested going to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D, but Frank dismissed the idea, claiming they were "too old" for such stuff... before immediately deciding the group should watch the Dwayne Johnson vehicle The Game Plan, a family comedy about a pro quarterback bonding with his estranged ballerina daughter. None of the guys can quite understand Frank's leap in logic, with Steve only able to theorize that when you have the mindset of a dumb teenage boy, all animation seems like it's for babies.
# Creator.ChaosD1: invoked He relates an interesting MMO example in his MMO Grinder: MapleStory enforced by the community itself, not an outside group: He witnessed a group of players harassing one player because he was too old in their eyes to play this rather cutesy game - 16 years.
# YMMV.TheAdventuresOfTintin2011: The movie had outcries over it being "too violent for children". In the artbook, Jamie Bell (who plays Tintin) actually praised the cartoon for talking about more mature subject matter and getting him into the series in the first place.
# WebVideo.{{Gigguk}}: invoked One of his videos talks about how growing up as a kid a lot of people expected him to grow out of anime. He also mentions how the general populace doesn't differentiate anime from cartoons and still sees them as "childish".
# WebVideo.RebelTaxi: He is largely against this view, as seen in his When Are You TOO OLD To Be Watching CARTOONS or ANIME? video.
# WesternAnimation.LifesAZoo: In "2D or Not 2D", after a genre change to a Saturday Morning cartoon show, Doctor D finds he can't swear anymore.
# YMMV.Incredibles2: When questioned about the mature elements in this movie, director Brad Bird flat out said that it's not a kids movie but rather it's an animated movie that's rated PG.
# FollowTheLeader.WesternAnimation: Beavis and Butt-Head garnered probably even more controversy than South Park. Precisely because the AnimationAgeGhetto was still in full bloom.
# YMMV.PearlsBeforeSwine: Though the comic strip is rather tame by TV standards, it is not aimed at kids due to the various political humor and black comedy. However, due to the fact that Comic strips are heavily censored compared to other parts of media due to the fact that kids are a huge part of the audience, many of the strips get cut out entirely due to being too controversial.
# Literature.{{Abarat}}: There are two paperback editions of each book—one that has the pictures (and is still pretty expensive even by hardcover standards), and one that doesn't. Interestingly, the Vanilla Edition tends to get shelved in either the teen or adult section of most bookstores/libraries, while the regular ones tend to get shelved with the kid's stuff—Illustration Age Ghetto, perhaps?
# Heartwarming.HarkAVagrant: I feel so stupid, Mom!! How could I be so stupid? Beaton's mother: No! Don't say that, Katie - she had no right to talk to you like that. Beaton: But Mom, she's right. I can't even paint. Beaton's mother: Paint! I've watched you draw every day since you were a little girl. And you're good at it, you're very, very good. She's wrong. I should have said something. I don't know why I didn't just take you out of there. I should have said something.
# YMMV.StarTrekLowerDecks: WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Ah, another show that falls victim to the AnimationAgeGhetto, possibly helped along by it piggy backing off of a franchise that was generally family-friendly. Oddly enough, all swearing is bleeped out despite the other CBS All Access Trek shows having no issue with it.
# Film.StayTuned: ParodyCommercial: At one point there is a Yogi Beer commercial concerning beer for children. Not to mention the "Max Hell" cassette tapes, which blow the head of the listener clean off. Possibly related to, or at least suggested by, the Hamm's Beer commercials starting in the 1950s, which did feature a cartoon bear (not Yogi, though). The commercials were eventually discontinued (though not until at least the 1970s) due to the AnimationAgeGhetto implications of appearing to market beer to children.
# NightmareFuel.NotAlwaysRight: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, believing "It’s a cartoon, so it’s for kids," and obviously ignorant of the fact that the movie is rated R because of its content, swearing, offensive humor, and general themes not appropriate for kids, as warned by the clerk manning the ticket sales tells her. The mother obviously ignores the clerk's warnings, so 20 minutes later, she predictably comes back, furious, to confront the clerk and get her money back, thinking “It’s a damn cartoon. It should be for kids only. That’s made to corrupt the youth!” She then decides to punch the cashier, and then apparently attacks several other customers before she's arrested.
# Trivia.{{Clarence}}: As much goes to what Executive Meddling had already explained for this. The premiere of "Neighborhood Grill" was postponed by over a year in Latin America and Brazil (it premiered on January 11, 2016), no doubt due to the gay couple that appears in the episode. When the episode finally premiered, the entire scene with the man coming in the restaurant, Ms. Baker thinking he's her date, and the revelation that the man is gay was unsurprisingly cut, given CNLA's AnimationAgeGhetto content censoring to avoid any complaints. Despite CNLA loosening their policies since, as LGBT rights gained more acceptance in the region, the scene remains cut on the local HBO Max (the series has not aired on CNLA since 2018).
# Webcomic.CinemaSnobReviewsFrozen: Spoofed In-Universe. When Anna and Kristoff appear at the end of "In Summer", Snob applies Faux Symbolism to the scene, because it's how he can feel better about watching a film for children.
# WebVideo.CLWEntertainment: In his 2014 review of Doraemon, he says Doraemon is a dumb show for babies that he shouldn't get obsessed with. After he watches two episodes of it, he becomes obsessed with it. invoked
# It.ElencoProvvisorioA: Animation Age Ghetto [Ghetto Dell Animazione]
# YMMV.TrueTail: The main reason for the reboot:
# YMMV.DonaldInMauiMallard: In the exact words of someone from the marketing team, they removed Donald's name from the US title because "Donald Duck just isn't hip in the United States like he is Europe," in a direct response to this exact reaction.
# YMMV.CoolWorld: An attempted aversion, which failed thanks to Executive Meddling. The film was still fairly adult like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but some critics argued it should've embraced its adult nature more than it did and that it was held back by the PG-13 rating.
# WMG.{{Pibby}}: He let a friend borrow his Note and said friend specifically targeted the cartoon characters that were assimilated for obvious reasons, writing down "death by excess corruption" as the cause of death. note In Death Note, if a Noteholder does not write down the cause of death, the victim would die of a heart attack. Neither Light nor whoever borrowed his Note realized that the Static zombifies the toons as well. (Of course, Light wouldn't appear in person for obvious reasons.)
# YMMV.UsagiYojimbo: Originally the comic debuted as a one-issue story in Albedo: Erma Felna EDF when it was previously an anthology of many furry comics during the 80s. While Usagi Yojimbo became a worldwide hit, Albedo Erma Felna EDF became a footnote in the story of comic books, though a Cult Classic to the Furry Fandom.note This is partly because Albedo's author, Steven Gallacci, decided to keep very strict control over the comic, apparently in order to prevent it being filled with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles copies, who were popular in the 80s and 90s, at expense of the quality of the comic or any other adaptation outside of it.
# QuirkyWork.VideoGames: In a somewhat retroactive way, Capcom's Japanese branch believes that the Mega Man franchise is one of these and doesn't appeal as much to international audiences, as it was meant to be geared towards children in the first place. Naturally, the international fandom isn't amused.
# MisBlamed.AnimeAndManga: Their One Piece dub is their most infamous and the one that earned them a lot of ire from the fandom, held up as the ultimate example of how 4Kids only sees anime as for children and has no respect for the original source material. However, 4Kids never even wanted to dub the show- it was Toei Animation who forced them to do it under threat of taking away their license to Ojamajo Doremi, the show they actually wanted to dub.
# WMG.{{Nine}}: Did you even WATCH the damn movie? Dr. Trope hereby prescribe you a trip to the AnimationAgeGhetto page, pronto.That's more the fault of ignorant parents really. I saw at least one ad for 9 that advertised it as "Not your little brother's animated movie". So the Moral Guardians can't say they weren't warned. As for the musical, the ads feature the woman in braziers. So either way the parents are to blame for not paying attention.
# Anvilicious.TheNostalgiaCritic: He says over and over again that just because something is a kid's movie, doesn't mean it has to be worthless or have no effort put into it. Depending on how much he suffers in an episode, this can vary in desperation.
# WesternAnimation.FatherOfThePride: This was the reason it caught the ire of the Parents Television Council; ads for the show cited its studio as the creators of Shrek, which they felt would mislead kid / family audiences into watching a show that was most decidedly not made for them.
# YMMV.TheGoodies: Although not an animated series, it was very much like one in demeanour, meaning that it was played for children in Australia. Episodes like "Sex and Violence" were accordingly not shown there at all until several years after. This also led the BBC to label the series as a "kid's show" and then get annoyed about any "unsuitable" content in it, much to the trio's annoyance.
# YMMV.RockAndRule: This movie isn't considered for kids by the legal definition of the term; the target audience is mainly young teens. It was, however, rated PG because it was released before (as in, just a few years before) the PG-13 rating was established. This was also a major factor in the movie's financial failure. Its distributor, believing that an animated movie directed at teens and young adults wouldn't be successful, under-promoted it. The results didn't exactly prove them wrong.
# WebVideo.TheKeefCrew: Smash is this to all the other fighting games in the EVO skits. All the other fighting games keep taking the opportunity to roast him, for not being "A real fighting game" and "for kids"invoked.
# OutOfOrder.WesternAnimation: Part of the first season of ThunderCats was initially aired out of order; mostly this does not affect much, as the first season is largely in Anachronic Order, but there is a five-parter that is spread over several weeks as a result. Subsequent syndication airings corrected this problem, but the DVD boxed set uses the original, erroneous airing order. This happened all the time during the 80s. A combination of AnimationAgeGhetto and Viewers Are Morons resulted in Five Episode Pilots and multipart episodes played out of order or blasted across the entire year.
# WMG.KungFuPanda: I believe that would bring tons of Unfortunate Implications given how Shen ended up, but then again all subversions of the AnimationAgeGhetto are rightfully welcome.

# Sandbox.GettingCrapPastTheRadarWickCheck: Somehow only got a G rating upon its initial video release despite being jam-packed with nudity and double entendres that go far beyond [["brief" and "infrequent". It seems like someone actually bothered to watch the DVD, because that release was upped to PG.
# YMMV.MiraculousLadybug: WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: The show has a pretty fair amount of fanservice for a cartoon aimed at elementary schoolers. It could be due to Values Dissonance, as it's a French-Japanese production. It could also be because it wasn't originally aimed at that young of an audience, but due to the AnimationAgeGhetto they lowered the demographic. Also, the main forces of antagonism are represented through what basically boils down to the possession of innocent bystanders by the Big Bad, some of which actively try to kill other civilians (remember this show breaks the Never Say "Die" rule), and this can happen to anyone at any time when they feel unhappy. Not to mention how unsubtle the show is about the portrayal of unideal parent-child relationships, especially with the revelation that Gabriel Agreste emotionally manipulated his own son.
# YMMV.BeautyAndTheBeast: By most metrics an aversion, with it being a critical darling and respected film to this day on par with many live-action musicals. However, this trope may have cost the film the Best Picture Oscar back in the day.
# YMMV.LegendOfTheGuardiansTheOwlsOfGaHoole: Some Zack Snyder fans tend to show indifference towards this movie, refusing to watch it just because it was animated.
# YMMV.MinnieTheMoocher: Betty and Bimbo cower in fear before a bizarre walrus/ghost/man hybrid. He dances an eerily realistic dance via the magic of Rotoscoping and sings a song about a girl running away from home and having her life ruined by drugs and bad relationships.note Betty and Bimbo have just run away from home themselves, by the way. Meanwhile, the audience is treated to a whole series of creepy and surreal images, such as men being electrocuted in electric chairs and ghost-kittens with empty eye sockets nursing at their mother, making it look like they're sucking her dry. Betty and Bimbo eventually escape and return home, but no explanation or resolution is given for anything they just saw. You know, just your average children's musical cartoon!
# YMMV.KingsQuestVIIThePrincelessBride: The game's art style is one possible reason the game isn't as beloved as its predecessor.
# DarthWiki.TVTropesRuinedYourLife: TV Tropes pulled back to world of animation! Well, good ones mainly but my I argument still stands. Do you know how hard it is to watch good anime/animation in the world of AnimationAgeGhetto? To be honest. It was quite pleasant. It DID get me hooked into Kagami hentai though...
# JustForFun.ComeForTheXStayForTheY: The Animated Series: Come to watch Batman be awesome, stay to see just how very very wrong the AnimationAgeGhetto is.
# YMMV.JurassicWorldCampCretaceous: Deliberately avoided, according to Word of God. When the show was announced and concept art was released, there was a lot of concern among adult fans that it would be a "kid-ified" version of the series, with all of the action and drama toned down and replaced with comedy. As mentioned below, Spielberg himself assured fans that this was not the case, and indeed the show sticks pretty close to the tone of the movies, with the only things "toned down" being the presence of blood and the use of profanity.
# WebVideo.TheMysteriousMrEnter: He's also shown to really hate the "it's just for kids" mentality that many of his detractors love using. He has said that this argument basically boils down to "it's okay for it to be bad, and you're wrong to think it should be good", along with other reasons (see AnimationAgeGhetto). invoked
# OlderThanTheyThink.WesternAnimation: The Animated Series, Young Justice (2010), and Sym-Bionic Titan all being cancelled in a short period of time before Miller arrived.
# SugarWiki.BetterThanCanon: How some feel all the hilarious dialogue and constant lampshading make the original look boring and nonsensical by comparison (even more so if you think the 4Kids dub was already bad). Some fans unofficially consider TAS the "definitive" version of the YGO anime, which may be one reason why Konami started officially exporting the uncensored Japanese version of the actual series (as a possible attempt to break its AnimationAgeGhetto and "narmy bowdlerization" stigma), to the point that TAS and the official anime cross-promote each other.
# YMMV.TheEmojiMovie: Despite subject matter more suited for pre-teens and teenagers, the movie targets a very young audience with its cutesy characters/environments, a simple plot and having very little conflict. This also isn't helped by the movies it is accused of ripping off all managed to break out of the ghetto in their own ways. This is even reflected with the on-demand advertising, which says that it's good for a kids movie night even though G rated and PG rated animated movies are advertised as for families, as in not "just kids only", but for "both kids and adults". Ironically, even they hated the film.
# YMMV.TheDivision2: The mere existence of a Girls' Frontline Crossover announced in April 2020 sparked some controversy, perhaps unsurprisingly for a game with a predominantly Western player base. As with a lot of anime-related controversies, the backlash revolves around assumed pedophile baiting and/or pandering to kids shows, finding themselves contending with people who are just a bit too enthusiastic of Girls' Frontline's Moe aspects. Caught in the middle are GFL players who simply appreciate the grim, post-apocalyptic plot of both TD2 and GFL and people who just don't know and/or care about GFL in general, wondering what all the fuss is about.

# PlayingWith.AnimatedShockComedy: To cash in on the popularity of works such as South Park and Family Guy. The creators of "Alice and Bob: The Series" was worried that people would mistake it for a children's series due to it being animated, so they decided to make it as crude as possible to let people know early on that it's not for kids.
# YMMV.{{Fuse}}: Fell into a variant of this — EA's focus group testing had kids wanting it to be more realistic, while older gamers didn't apparently like how cartoony it was — both were of the Rated M for Money crowd, wanting "maturity" over anything else.
# YMMV.DrawnTogether: The idea of a Big Brother-style reality show that features family-unfriendly parodies of popular cartoon characters from across various media opens up a lot of potential to both de- and reconstruct not only of those characters' common tropes, but those of reality television. Unfortunately, the stigma that animation is either for children or childish by design reared its ugly head, so rather than familiar types of characters playing off one another for comedy, we instead got your typical, Family Guy-esque Animated Shock Comedy that tries way too hard to be deliberately offensive.
# Webcomic.TheTrenches: Testing "kiddy" games is not nearly as bad as people tend to assume. They are short, simple, the testers rarely have to get emotionally invested in them, bugs get hilarious names and descriptions in the database, and testers get to indulge all the Videogame Perversity Potential they can think up because that is exactly the kind of thing the license holder is trying to screen for.
# YMMV.RingingBell: This is probably one of the reasons this film is mostly unknown in America. The original book, along with Takashi Yanase's other stand-alone works, including Anpanman has yet to be published in English. Averted with The Kindly Lion.
# Characters.LifesAZoo: Animation Age Ghetto; In “2D or Not 2D”, he chastises Ray for watching cartoons, which he claims are for “children and thirty-something losers that still live with their parents”. When the cast turns into cartoons, Rico is the most openly displeased.
# YMMV.TheLionKing2019: Despite the film being animated, albeit photorealisticaly, Disney refuses to call it an animated film and repeatedly markets it as if it were live-action, to the point where they submitted it as a live-action film at the Oscars (it did land a nomination for Best Visual Effects... though most awards competitions put it in the animated category instead). Many viewers questioned if this was because Disney did not believe that audiences take the film as seriously if it's seen as a "cartoon" instead of a "real" film, despite the original being exactly that. This is even more egregious when you remember Disney was founded on the ambition of taking animation to a new cinematic level, which the film is also doing with the photorealism technically.
# Recap.TheSimpsonsS2E9ItchyAndScratchyAndMarge: Brought up In-Universe during the debate on cartoon violence. No definitive stance on the matter wins out, however.
# YMMV.AvatarTheLastAirbender: Sure, it's intended to be a kids' show. Yet, it also tackles very mature themes, has plenty of fanservice for anyone who's interested, and isn't afraid to say die when it's warranted, all without becoming kid-unfriendly.
# YMMV.VivaPinata: The Xbox 360 primarily appealed to teens and adults with its mature games like Halo, thus it was dismissed as too childish by adults and largely overlooked by children.
# DevelopmentHeaven.WesternAnimation: The Animated Series is, the animators painted on black paper instead of white paper. The result? A truly atmospheric show that threatened to put the AnimationAgeGhetto in the naughty corner.
# Awesome.RealLife: Anyone who's familiar with Filmation will usually bring up the studio's filmography and reputation in the animation industry. But what they'll never bring up is how co-founder Lou Scheimer was the son of a German Jew who took his family to the U.S. during the 1920s. Of course many Jews fled the country due the Third Reich at the time, But the reason for Scheimer's father leaving? Punching Adolf Hitler himself in the face while at the Beer Hall Putsch.
# YMMV.PurnoDePurno: WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: For some strange reason, the surrealist adult Purno de Purno was anchored by the weight of the AnimationAgeGhetto as it originally aired on VPRO's Villa Achterwerk. Villa Achterwerk is a timeslot usually reserved for live-action children's shows (think Mr. Dressup or The Friendly Giant), which is a bizarre choice considering Purno de Purno isn't either of those. Regardless, it did gain a following with both children and adults and remained popular enough to gain three shows before going on a hiatus.
# YMMV.{{Beetlejuice}}: Played with. On the one hand, the plot is a lot more kid-friendly than the movie, with Beetlejuice no longer a demonic pervert, but a snarky prankster who’s also best friends with Lydia. On the other hand, it was an early example of the Gross-Out Show, and all the parental bonuses have made it popular with older audiences.

# LooneyTunes.TropesMToO: Few series have an absolute all-ages appeal like the Tunes have. To that note, the series was originally meant to entertain moviegoers of all ages (hence all the rowdy humor that flies over the children's heads) but the stereotype that cartoons are kiddie fare made them a popular staple of family entertainment in general. Warner Bros. has been working on releasing new collections every once in a while that feature cartoons that, among others, include those that feature outdated stereotypes and World War 2 references that cannot be understood by anyone not at least 16 years old.
# YMMV.Castlevania2017: The original pitch for a Castlevania movie said it would not be an anime. The product we have now has an obvious heavy anime influence.
# YMMV.AssassinationClassroom: Invincible Teachernote The series' Market-Based Title in the Philippines that split pretty much the entire Filipino anime community on Facebook mere minutes after local channel GMA-7 announced the release of the Filipino dub, with the Subbing Versus Dubbing arguments, censorship issues, the country's AnimationAgeGhetto and the Filipino dubs' tendencies for Market-Based Titles, Dub Name Changes (although they no longer do this in anime anymore, it's usually the dubs of Korean Series that get this treatment these days) and Lost in Translation issues added into the mix.
# DuelingWorks.FilmAnimated: Ghetto-busting animated movies aimed at teenage and adult audiences and focusing on dogs trying to escape from oppressive dystopias Implementation: Isle of Dogs was funded and distributed by 21st Century Fox and directed by Wes Anderson, while Dawgtown is an independent movie being crowd-funded over the internet, with an eye on a 2021 release date.
# Film.SavingMrBanks: Downplayed In-Universe. Mrs. Travers objects very strongly to making the movie of Mary Poppins a cartoon, even so far as to become infuriated when she discovers it will contain animated characters. She elsewhere describes her book as a quite serious work, which is very likely tied to her animosity for Disney's signature whimsy.
# Sandbox.ValuesDissonance: Not all animation is for kids however the idea is extremely popular. This concept didn't become prevalent until the mid-20th century. Most early cartoons were either made for adults or for general audiences. Not all Golden Age cartoons such as Felix the Cat, Looney Tunes, and Classic Disney Shorts were made for kids, however most are kid-friendly enough that they get treated as such. This makes shorts with sexual innuendo, use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, or other potentially mature material (especially suicide, with the infamous Tom and Jerry short "Blue Cat Blues" playing it for dramatic effect) stand out. They weren't made for kids but years of being depicted as so causes people to think of them as such.
# CompletelyDifferentTitle.{{Portuguese}}: Porco Rosso initially looks like it runs into similar AnimationAgeGhetto issues as the below example of Despicable Me in Portugal, where it's known as O Porquinho Voador ("The Little Flying Pig"). However, it's actually a reference to Animal Farm, see below.
# WesternAnimation.TeenTitansGo: NeverSayDie: Weirdly averted when one considers how much the original show followed this (more on the trope page). The AnimationAgeGhetto is less of a thing that it was in 2004, leading to restrictions being loosened. Case in point: Trigon: (to Raven) I'm so proud. The only thing left to do is kill all your friends. Starfire: (cheerfully) Kill us! Kill us! You can, like, totally do it. There are actually a TON of dying/death jokes in this series given the nature of a lot of the humor in this show. There's an episode that ends with all of the Titans dead...and one where most of them get turned into old people and then die of old age...and the one that skips to the future showing elderly Robin on his deathbed...
# YMMV.MetroidPrimeFederationForce: Due to the "chibi" graphics and inclusion of the Blast Ball mini-game, some fans felt that the game was targeted more towards children than previous Metroid games, despite the game still receiving a "T for Teen" rating in North America, like the rest of the Prime subseries.
# VanillaEdition.{{Film}}: It's sad to be a fan of animated movies not made by Disney. MGM, Universal, and Fox are all guilty of placing their animated films in the five dollar bin at grocery stores and changing the original cover art to appeal to the AnimationAgeGhetto, even if the films weren't financial bombs to begin with. If they have any special features at all they'll be DVD games for very young children.Said DVD games usually are not ported over to the films' Blu-ray releases, meaning that those versions of the films are even more bare.
# YMMV.PokemonTheSeries: While the franchise as a whole has developed a diverse fanbase over time, after Takeshi Shudo left, the anime started to focus much more exclusively on young children, with recycled scripts and a Strictly Formula format of Ash and the gang helping a local, then riding off into the sunset. As such, fans of the games either loathe the anime, or look on it fondly. Starting from Hoenn (and with the possible exception of Unova) the anime has slowly made attempts to appeal to both younger and older fans, but the success of these attempts is another divisive subject in itself.
# Website.ActsOfGord: There is one section where this happens. Two children try to rent an anime named Ninja Scroll that, due to its nature, is not a "family film". So thus he has to allow the kids' dad to come in to rent the film and he complains about having to come in "just so they could rent a cartoon". Gord warns him numerous times that the film is NOT suitable for children whatsoever, but he rents it anyway. Then he comes back and yells at Gord for renting pornography to his kids. invoked
# Trivia.NightOnTheGalacticRailroad: Interest of the Spanish-talking community in the film increased after being featured on a Top 7 of "What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?" moments of animated films by Venezuelan Youtuber Dross Rotzank.
# YMMV.DiabloIII: A point of contention was the stylized graphics, which some people dismissed as being "kiddy" and complained about the game not being "dark" enough. This is for a game where the trailer featured a barbarian being ripped in half, large portions of Act I take place in an enormous gory torture chamber, and the game in general is full of massacres, genocides, and the stuff of nightmares. The game's tone overall is a reconstruction of the Heroic Fantasy; just because the game's colors have a little saturation and waterfalls have rainbows over them doesn't mean the game is for kids.
# WesternAnimation.XMenEvolution: Nearly every adaptation of Wolverine in a Marvel TV series tends to focus more on building his characterization than on his violent berserker rages, because of Media Watchdogs and their attitude towards violence in children's TV.
# YMMV.TheSimpsonsVsArthur: Bart mocks Arthur for his show being this in one of the post-chapter segments, mentioning that it's childish and lame.
# WebAnimation.HomestarRunner: Parodied in the new intro for April Fool's Day 2010, with HSR Xeriousxly Forxe. ([1]) Revamped for The '90s! So much more exciting! Pointy elbows and lots of lightning! Edgy and angry, so zesty and tangy! There's new demographics When nobody asked for it! Played straight, however, with the the Twitter account, which has darker humour than the site.
# Creator.RogerEbert: invoked Highly disliked it. From his review of Ratatouille: Ebert: This is clearly one of the year's best films. Every time an animated film is successful, you have to read all over again about how animation isn't 'just for children' but 'for the whole family,' and 'even for adults going on their own.' No kidding! On the other hand, his reviews of some animated films such as An American Tail and Bambi complained that some of the themes could be too dark and depressing for children. (Then again, considering how heavily said films were marketed to kids, this isn't always an invalid concern.)
# Sandbox.WickCheckProject: Animation Age Ghetto (needs 50)
# ExecutiveMeddling.AnimatedFilms: Cool World was originally supposed to be about half-doodle/half-human Debbie Dallas, out to kill her human father for having sex with her cartoon mother. Paramount executive Frank Mancuso, Jr. had the script secretly rewritten and handed back to Ralph Bakshi, changing the animated horror/thriller story to a Who Framed Roger Rabbit clone about an artist getting trapped in the comic book he created when he was in prison and his creation, Holly Would, having sex with him so she can become human and unleash the cartoon creations into the real world. Bakshi also intended to have Drew Barrymore as the female lead, but instead they stuck him with Kim Basinger, who thought that it was a children's movie.Basinger's attitude helped push the rewrite because she thought kids should be able to watch the movie. Bakshi tried to convince her that this wasn't the kind of film she thought it was, but the producer agreed with her and arranged the rewrite behind Bakshi's back.
# YMMV.PokemonOrigins: It's still family-friendly, but its Gen I basis and existence alongside the regular anime make it clear that Origins was made for '90s kids first and 2013 kids second.
# DuelingWorks.{{Other}}: '''Capsule Pitch Description:''' Television networks with a primary focus on children's animation. Both networks are among the primary sources of Television animation, having been so for the last 20 years. They're also two of the major forces against the AnimationAgeGhetto. Implementation: Nickelodeon began in The '80s as Pinwheel, with intent as the first kids' network. In 1990, it debuted its first original programs. Overall, Nick focuses more on general kids' entertainment, with the Nick Jr. and TeenNick sub-networks focusing on preschoolers and teenagers, respectively. Cartoon Network began on 1992, with Ted Turner's acquirement of the Hanna-Barbera, MGM, and Warner Bros. animation libraries, eventually shifting focus to original content as well. Overall, CN focuses more on general animation, with the [adult swim] block cornering the market on adult animation, and the Toonami block introducing American audiences to Anime.
# YMMV.Phantom2040: In what is possibly one of the quickest onsets of this trope ever, the latter half of Season 2 is noticeably more episodic and less well-written than the rest of the series. The series finale in particular feels rushed and incomplete. This was caused initially by Executive Meddling trying to make the show more accessible to children, then by the show's production staff learning that cancellation was imminent, causing them to scramble to give the series a proper ending. Despite this, many still consider the series to have been too good to last overall, and at least it got a proper ending. That's a lot more than can be said for many other series that faced similar circumstances.
# Anime.{{Robotech}}: The Parkfield Playtime release of Codename: Robotech in the UK. As well as the terrible day-glo cover art which doesn't match the original art style at all and is obviously meant to scream "we are marketing this for kids", but the character on the front doesn't even appear in the feature (outside of the title sequence, briefly): it's the adult Dana Sterling from The Masters segment,note a.k.a. Jeanne Franciax from Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross when the feature covers The Macross Saga only and doesn't even get to the point where baby Dana is born! Mercilessly parodied in this online review.
# YMMV.StevenUniverseTheMovie: Some fans feel like the scene is meant as commentary. A tall, realistic Pink Diamond is tired of being treated like a kid, and desires a more refined, sophisticated life. She abandons a short, cutesy, cartoon-like character in the process, as she believes the character is just designed as a mere one-note child’s plaything, and will hold her back from reaching her goals of branching out into full maturity and exploration. Remind you of anything yet?
# Trivia.SolatoroboRedTheHunter: In Japan, this was zig-zagged, as they made over 100 advertisements for the game, each of them lasting no more than 15 seconds... but they were all dropped on the same day as the game's release, though Solatorobo had some pre-release content beforehand. In western territories, this was played straight, as the only form of advertisement this game got was a modest Nintendo Power article, maybe one trailer and that's it. Not helping is that both of them kept the second half of the game under wraps (as opposed to the Japanese version teasing its existence and the European version outright spoiling it), thus making many onlookers assume the worst about the game.

!!Wick Check input (100 example)