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If your kids told you they watched a program that had
coarse, vulgar language, and nudity, you would be
horrified, and lock them away until, well
UNTIL!
Would
you be surprised to know that this type of entertainment
is not on an adult channel, nor is it at a time when the
kiddies are asleep. In fact, there are promotions for
these programs all hours of the day. Welcome to the
world of mature animation.
| Ever since
“Fritz the Cat” shocked audiences ‘way back
in 1972, animators discovered that they
could get away with WAY more risque material
than if they did it as a live action
feature. “Fritz the Cat” was billed as the
“First X-Rated Mainstream Cartoon.” Today
it can be rented on Netflix, and the sequel,
“The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat” can be
rented at Blockbuster, the pioneer of the
no-adult-material video rental store.
Ralph Bakshi
went on to do “Heavy Traffic” and “Cool
World,” where no-holds-barred is out there
for all the world to see. His work inspired
the “Heavy Metal” series, where fantasy
women teenaged boys wanted to look at and
muscled men teenaged boys wanted to look
like were doing all the things up on the
screen that would not their beds dry for
days. The "R" rating only meant they had to
watch them in their rooms on their VCR's. |
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Flash
forward to the present, and the animation team of Trey
Parker and Matt Stone come out with “South Park.” Four
animated children from a small town near
Denver
feature a Jewish kid whose father developed testicular
cancer so that he could get medical marijuana, a kid who
is brutally murdered every episodes, and a Jew-hating
bigot. The last kid is the Everyman, and the
stabilizing force of the quartet. Still, they all curse
throughout each episode, are exposed to very adult
themes (one episode had them in a strip club), and in
general horrify parents with every episode.
Going a
little cleaner (but just a little), Seth MacFarlane
invents “Family Guy,” an animated sitcom based in a
small
Rhode
Island city, whose main characters are
oftentimes nude (frontally), and again explores adult
material. Note: Quahog, the fictitious town in
which the story takes place is a racial slur
specifically at the citizens of Rhode Island. The
sitcom also features the first pedophile as a regular
character, and a womanizer who has “admitted” to
transmitting STD’s and fathering children all over the
world. This is the hilarious, wacky antics that go on
every Sunday Night - during the Family Hour.
On
basic cable, “Family Guy” is the highest-rated program
on their late-night programming.
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Animators
have discovered that as long as the
character is a cartoon, they can get away
with practically anything, and nothing is
off-bounds. Whether it’s a post-op
transexual and a lesbian scissoring, or a
character flying through a person’s body and
coming out their ass, or showing a child’s
genitalia (don’t believe me, watch the nude
skateboard scene in “The Simpsons Movie”),
an adult lying on top of a high school coed,
or a dog having sex with a woman. If it’s
not a natural human color, or has less than
five fingers, you can get away with
practically anything! And I have yet to see
how far down the rabbit hole they will go.
Note: These
programs are usually prefaced by a rating
and a warning, but unless you’ve taken the
time to block these programs or those
ratings, it’s Adult Programming 101 all the
way! |
The
point? I absolutely LOVE when I find things under the
radar. It’s there in plain sight, we see it every
single day, it’s coarse, vulgar, disgusting, and people
just let it go, because it’s just a cartoon. Wyle E.
Coyote, Woody Woodpecker, and Herb the Pedophile - all
in the same package. Although my favorite “under the
radar” joke is the Village People, but that’s another
article.
What's
next? Where will animation go from here? Aside from
from showing full penetration, there really isn’t much
more the animator can show. But when we say that -
WHAM! - there is something else that will make you say,
“I don’t believe they got away with that!” Sometimes
the jokes that are so wrong can be the funniest. From
Tex Avery’s “Red Hot Riding Hood,” which was considered
too risque for normal viewing to “South Park:
Bigger Longer & Uncut,” animators have been pushing the
envelope further and further. How far they will go - we
won’t live long enough to find out!
That’s
my story, and I’m sticking to it! |
