Children's Cartoon Trends

Jacob LaPierre

Trends in Children's Humor

     We all remember Spongebob Squarepants.  A show that not only defined our generation, but continues to do so even now.  A few of us may remember Ren and Stimpy, a slap stick show about a dog and a cat. Today, we have AdventureTime.  This show takes place in the Land of Ooo where Finn the Human and Jake the Dog save the world from giant monsters.  How are these shows all related?  They all possess humor that resounds with almost all of their viewership.  However, they do this in different ways and through different types of humor.  

     Ren and Stimpy came out in the 1990s, during a time of trendy styles of animation and writing.  The creators of this show focused on the slapstick (physical comedy that is based off of absurd situations) aspect of humor.  This sprinkled with adult references and idiotic singing entertained children and adults(to some extent) alike.  The writing was terrible.  The jokes only were funny if they were coupled with an extravagant action by one of the characters.  This type of a show would not survive today because of changes in how people watch TV.

     The trend then shifted to shows like Spongebob.  These shows made use of the actual writing for the characters' dialogue.  Jokes were stand-alone funny and were only sometimes coupled with an action.  The writing catered to the adult audience as well as the children's audience.  Children loved the sounds of the characters' voices and the very distinct personalities of each.  Adults loved the references to real life situations and jokes that were over the heads of the children.  This mixture of clever writing and animation proved to be the golden standard for all children shows.

     Using that golden standard, AdventureTime makes use of clever writing and bright animation to convey humor to the audience.  The writing differs from that of Spongebob because the situations are more absurd, implying that AdventureTime does tend to rely on slapstick like that of Ren and Stimpy.  To balance this out, the writers use very intelligible dialogue to make simple jokes.  The smart language along with dark themes produces wildly entertaining television for children and adults alike.

     We can see that the trend has moved away from the extremes of the two main types of children's comedy.  The Slapstick that was in Ren and Stimpy is only a small part of AdventureTime's comedy.  The clever jokes in Spongebob find themselves in AdventureTime, but in a more intellectual form.  Since the pendulum of audience comedy expectations has swung from slapstick to writing, it now settles over a balance of the two which calls for shows such as AdventureTime.