The State of Adult Animation - Renegade Animation #44

Tonight, on an ADULT episode of Renegade Animation, Captain Kaye is joined with The Animation Guru to have a general musing about the state of adult animation.

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How’s it going, fellow Renegades? It’s THE DIRECTOR, back to bring you… probably one of the loosest episodes of the podcast. The year is winding down, but likewise, there also comes with it a general musing about the most oversaturated sub-genre in the animation world only rivaled by coming of age quirky comedies: adult animation.

Our beloved Captain Kaye and Animation Guru say plenty of words about what they feel is the state of this category of series, but I have my own take on it that I’ve noticed over the year… and if you’ll indulge me, I’ll take the stage, seeing as how we don’t really have a “review“ from the Captain or the Guru to beef up the notes.

I suppose there was always a demand for adult oriented cartoons since the inception of animation. For a long time, the Looney Toons and Tom & Jerry were considered prestigious works of art for adults, and even The Flintstones and other Hanna Barbara cartoons were designed to be treated as equivalents of sitcoms for adults like The Honeymooners. I can’t explain when the cultural shift happened, but I figure it could be attributed to the cultural shift that The Simpsons brought with it in the late 80’s.

Call it fate, call it luck; Matt Groening’s series broke down the walls of the cultural zeitgeist and skyrocketed to fame on TV… but I feel it also carried with it an expectation for other series in its wake that people unfairly judge its contemporaries with. You’ll often see people refer to Family Guy as a derivative work of The Simpsons, and likewise, South Park being seen as derivative of Family Guy. No matter what, adult animation has seemed to box itself into a status quo, no matter the creative team: whether it’s Matt Groening, Seth McFarlane, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Trey Parker & Matt Stone, or Dan Harmon & Justin Roiland, more often than not, adult animation only consists of a family or a group of friends going through high concept wacky misadventures, and there’s swearing or debauchery. A LOT… of debauchery.

This isn’t to lump every single adult animated cartoon into a singular box, nor am I say that they are all the same. Far from it! I am not about to say that Bob’s Burgers is the exact same show as American Dad, nor is The Simpsons the exact same show as Rick and Morty. What I am saying is that adult animation has felt this need to not only present themselves in as accessible a view as possible with a rather basic animation style that allows for broad marketability and the most expression where the animation budget goes to, rather than allowing more variety in where I feel it matters most: emotion.

It says something that children’s cartoons are probably at their apex when it comes to expressing emotions more varied than shows made for adults. The shows I’ve mentioned above usually spin their wheels, or go all out for spectacle. And I like spectacle as much as the next guy, but the thing that’s been missing in adult animation for a long time has been genuine love. Emotion. Heart. It really is true that people learn the worst lessons from successes, because I feel that the thing that made the Simpsons the towerhouse of adult animation that it is isn’t the animation… it isn’t the voice acting, it isn’t the humor, it isn’t even the conceptual places they can go with the medium of animation. It’s the characters.

All of these shows have great characters. If I just have you read the words “Do it for Her,“ your eyes will more than likely start to water. Hearing the words “Oh my God, they killed Kenny!“ probably gives you flashbacks to South Park’s golden years. Even Peter Griffin’s iconic laugh probably brings back some warm memories. I’m not saying that sentimentality is always the key to these shows, because to have every single show feel sappy or life affirming wouldn’t feel right. What I’m asking is that these shows start to feel honest, and break away from NEEDING to be self-aware and constantly comedic.

Take my favorite show of the bunch: Bojack Horseman (in my opinion, one of the greatest works of art in all of animation). It is perhaps one of the most cynical and depressing shows possible, the animation is pretty basic at certain points, and when it comes to social commentary, it can be pretty hit or miss. But the characters are real… they’re pure. You can take a character like Bojack, who in any other show would be downright deplorable, but give him the grace and empathy that is needed in this medium to make him feel universal. Episodes like That’s Too Much, Man! or Escape from L.A. are honest, and feel like they are spun from real mistakes made, and you can feel how we get to those decisions. It’s not just dark or cynical for the sake of being dark and cynical, which is a major problem I have with Rick and Morty recently (a show that I love dearly, but can feel a shift in its tone that started since season 3). When you can feel the writers just wanting to drag everyone down and feel like crap the whole time, it doesn’t make for honest T.V… it feels disingenuous.

And I feel a large part of what makes Bojack so effective is that it knows when to not be a comedy… which is what I can’t say for every single animated show.

Here’s the real thing I want from adult animation: TO NOT BE A COMEDY. The Simpsons was conceived as an answer to the Hanna Barbara days of The Flintstones being an animated American family sitcom. There, it makes sense. But every single adult animated show feels like it needs to be a comedy in order to be greenlit. And they only feel that way because they want to follow in the same shadow as The Simpsons! Animation can be so much more than comedic, and adult animation can be so much more than situational comedies. Adult Swim, for better and worse, is willing to take big swings in absurdism, as well as allowing stories from other countries to flourish. If it wasn’t for AS, we wouldn’t have Cowboy Bebop, the golden peak of Rick and Morty, and they’re even allowing Junji Ito’s Uzumaki to be aired on their block in a full fledged anime adaptation!

The fact that comedy feels like it’s the only place to tell mature stories for adults in animation, is frankly pitiful. And when you consider alternatives, we’ve only got slim pickings. Want adult HORROR animation? Better check out Night of the Animated Dead — a film so cheap it makes ME look like Tony Stark. Want adult ROMANCE animation? Too bad! Hope you like those shows, or you like Disney or anime!

We have so much to explore with the stroke of a pen, and limiting everything to lewd and crude humor is doing so many artists a disservice. Bring on variety! Give me horror animated films or cartoons (especially because the medium is remarkably perfect for that genre), I want to see a rom-com series! If you want to tackle serious subjects, treat them with the respect they deserve and don’t try and undercut everything with a talking animal or alien because “well, it sells and we gotta be self-aware before it gets too ridiculous!“ If someone like Wes Anderson can find success in the world of animation — if Guillermo del Toro can do an animated film in his style, there’s no excuse for other cartoons to not try to put in the same effort.

Give us less Hoops, The Prince, and Big Mouth’s, and do something truly innovative. After all, the biggest way for artists to evolve… is to not be afraid to draw outside the lines.

Well, sorry for the long editorial that came with the episode, but I hope you enjoyed it! Special thanks to Cameron for editing this episode! Keep the fireplace roaring, and have the chestnuts ready for roasting, because you’ll get some more RPC goodness under the tree very soon!