The most common criticism for adult cartoons is that they all rely on the same things. Sex and edgy humor is considered unfunny at this point. Over the top violence can be amusing for a while but you become desensitized to it quickly. However, without these elements, the cartoon would not get an adult rating. So then, what should you do to make it adult without these? Feels like it's a paradox.
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>Adult Cartoon
That's the American version of an adult cartoon. Which has its charms. If you want it to be something without those, then do it. Just know your audience.
>That's the American version of a modern adult cartoon
Ftfy. They used to make them way better than this garbage.
>Which has its charms
Lol.
Look at french adult cartoons. Look at japanese adult cartoons. Just make it mature and interesting and don’t make it a sitcom. Just make an HBO series but animated. It’s just that fricking easy.
How do you make it mature then? What should or shouldn't be in it?
>How do you make it mature then?
By having of course mature themes which it be useless to enumerate since there are hundreds of them. The thing is these adult sitcoms rarely approach some of these adult themes in an interesting way but I am tired of this format. Apply these themes to a different scenario or setting like for example a paid assassin that has to learn about his past, a military officer in a galactic war etc. These ideas are so damn simple and basic yet you can rarely find them in american adult cartoons.
List some of these "mature themes" because I really can't think of any. Not ones that wouldn't be called woke or propaganda or whatever
>Look at french adult cartoons. Look at japanese adult cartoons
Anon said no sex and edgy humor though
>Anon said no sex and edgy humor though
His examples overuse this kind of stuff. An adult show that has maybe 1 or 2 sexual jokes every episode but don't actually make it part of the plot doesn't have this problem.
This criticism, when applied to adult shows in general, always rang hollow to me. Sex and violence are major parts of life, and are difficult for children to understand, and do they are often sheltered from such concepts (though this will of course vary by culture or era). I genuinely cannot think of a single adult story that does not involve sex or violence in any capacity. Even something like My Dinner With Andre (a play and later movie in which two men sit and talk together for ninety minutes) has references to these things, even though they’re not shown.
I specify “when applied to adult shows in general” because obviously you can criticize specific shows for handling these topics in a crass or immature way. That’ll just depend on what show you’re talking about. Yeah, if something does it bad, it does it bad.
But when people say things like “I hate how adult shows all have sex and violence. I wish there was an adult show without sex or violence” I hate to break it to you, but what you’re describing is a kids show. And a show for particularly young children at that, even most older kids shows have oblique references to sex and filtered depictions of violence.
>when people say things like “I hate how adult shows all have sex and violence. I wish there was an adult show without sex or violence” I hate to break it to you, but what you’re describing is a kids show
No kid is going to watch a documentary about the Enron scandal, but adults watch shit like that all the time.
There are things that adults exclusively find interesting other than sex and violence.
I saw a documentary about the Enron scandal as a kid for school. You’re conflating something intended to be informative with entertainment
>I saw a documentary about the Enron scandal as a kid for school. You’re conflating something intended to be informative with entertainment
Intentional or not something like that can still be interesting and entertaining to the right audience.
>I genuinely cannot think of a single adult story that does not involve sex or violence in any capacity. Even something like My Dinner With Andre (a play and later movie in which two men sit and talk together for ninety minutes) has references to these things, even though they’re not shown.
Honestly unless that person is trying to be a shallow, pedantic butthole no one's going to be weirded out by sex and violence being a part of an adult show, what this criticism means is having a show where the whole sex and violence thing isn't the sole joke.
>But when people say things like “I hate how adult shows all have sex and violence. I wish there was an adult show without sex or violence”
I have never seen anyone say that.
The problem is when a show ONLY has these things and doesn't have the deeper elements that make something like My Dinner With Andre compelling.
1. Swear words
2. Graphic violence and gore
3. Sexual situations and implied relations but-
4. Never any nudity
Obscure fetishes disguised as serious plotlines
The Life & Times of Tim is one of my favorite cartoons and like half of it's episodes have plots that directly involve sex humor. Jokes about sex can often be hilarious but referencing sexual stuff by itself isn't funny.
Most north american "adult cartoons" are just shit for teenagers, family guy and american dad, ricky martin are just dumb background shit. Futurama for example has wider appeal and is subsequently much smarter and snappier in its humor while still being childish, it isn't really mean spirited like family guy for example
TLDR audience and writers are key.
There's more to being an adult than sex, drugs, and violence.
doing taxes
When people say that, they aren't saying they want an adult show with NO sex and violence-- but that these shows ONLY use sex and violence as a punchline; basically that they're over relying on shock humor for laughs.
No funny wordplay, no bait n switch comedy, no harmless slapstick, no situational humor, just shock humor.
In the case of Family Guy, that wasn't entirely true. They use a SHIT TON of observational and deadpan humor and their parodies kind of lean more into flat-out references than a funny parody. A funny parody being something like The Simpsons with Bart going to school but it's the Indiana Jones scene as he runs through the cave and Homer is so fat he's the boulder. But there was a point when Family Guy did a little TOO much shock humor for it to be funny anymore. I don't think they do it nearly as much in the later seasons, but sometimes in 2010 - 2014, that was their go-to for teenager and stoner laughs.
Same stuff as any normal cartoon but you're allowed to show and say more (when it adds to the joke besides cheap shock value)
The main problem is that any subject matter that ISN'T cartoony enough would dissaude American viewers because they would automatically ask why it's not live action. There are people who genuinely don't understand why King of the Hill is animated, for instance. Also, certain sexual things are flipped when it comes to animation and cartoons. You can have Big Mouth be animated because a live action show with actors the actual ages of the characters would be instantly considered CP and never greenlit. But if you had Game of Thrones be animated, people would be uneasy seeing the sex scenes because it triggers a weird "cartoon porn is obscene" switch.
Imagine The Sopranos but animated.
The Sopranos still has plenty of sex and violence, but it has actual effort put into its writing, its characters, its themes, its tone. There's no reason why animation can't do that. It has done that, it's just rare in the west.
"""Adult""" comedies like Family Guy are almost always focused on the superficial edginess of sex/violence with nothing underneath. The one recent exception is BoJack Horseman, but it doesn't seem to have been particularly influential (at least not yet).
You have a pretty similar idea to
and I agree animation can work great for these kind of stories especially since it can use colors. light and shadow better than any live action could.
>The one recent exception is BoJack Horseman
Primal?
Personally, I want to see casual nudity. Not for fan service or titillation. Just a couple changing clothes and you see them both naked.
How come adult live action includes everything from Modern Family to the Sopranos but adult cartoons have to be literal 14 year old boy humor?