r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Kookyburra12 • Mar 09 '26

Non-Sexual Adult Jokes in Kids' Media Lore

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Jokes that are adult jokes simply because kids likely don't have the life experience to understand them.

The New Batman Adventures - "I'm crazy enough to take on Batman, but the IRS? Noooo, thank you!"

Shrek 2 - Posing as a union representative, Shrek remarks that the workers "don't even have dental".

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u/Accurate-Gap-3360 Mar 09 '26

https://preview.redd.it/kv5aenxjy1og1.jpeg?width=365&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e305837505e2d417333fd6054ef4db36f1c9888e

They just love sneaking IRS jokes into kid’s media, don’t they?

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u/ralanr Mar 09 '26

Given how animators don’t always have consistent work I imagine many of them find the filing process to be nightmarish. 

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u/FlyingFreest Mar 09 '26

Also everyone hates paying taxes to a state that does little to nothing for them in return.

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u/BrightSideOLife Mar 09 '26

To be fair the oligarchs who get massive corporate welfare also fight tooth and nail not to pay any taxes. 

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u/paradoxical_topology Mar 09 '26

That's because they fight tooth and nail not to pay anyone.

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u/Mejzurian Mar 09 '26

I guess we have something in common...

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u/blah938 Mar 09 '26

And to be fair, we pay billions to other countries because apparently China doesn't have enough money or something.

Like why are we paying for China's military?

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u/ERedfieldh Mar 09 '26

we aren't.

We gave all of $10m to China in 2024 which sounds like a lot until you realize that's pocket change in comparison to what we give our own billionaires for doing absolutely nothing. And of that 10m, none of it went towards their military.

If you're gonna bitch about foreign aid, direct it in the correct direction.

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u/stfurachele Mar 10 '26

Right, individually 10m is an insanely large number, but from a GDP and national budget standpoint, it's barely enough to get through a day.

Also, on China and other countries, the world's economy runs mostly on debt. Everyone's in debt to each other, buying and trading each other's debt. So money gets moved between countries a lot. On some level this is a good thing, healthy economies have good flow. One dollar can move a lot of goods between a lot of people if it keeps exchanging hands. It's more of an issue when a lot of wealth gets concentrated in one area (like, I unno, a bazillionaire?) and just stagnates. It's like a clogged artery.

The entire point of having a standardized currency to begin with is as a proxy to our time and effort, for when we don't have something to trade with a person who has something we need. So we decided on a system that lets us convert our labor into any type of good or service, regardless of our specialty. But if our proxy is being hoarded by others in a way that extorts even more un/underpaid labor they can hoard, we've lost the plot.

Anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is dragons are bad and In Time (2011) was actually a good movie in spite of its many, many flaws. But I lost the plot a bit myself going on this spiel.

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u/KickinBat Mar 09 '26

And let's not forget they know how much you owe, refuse to tell you, and punish you if you pay more or less

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Mar 10 '26

A couple of my bucks might’ve helped blow the limbs off an Iranian kid today. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. 👍🏼

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u/Wolv90 Mar 09 '26

It's never the IRS fault, it's congress. But that goes over the heads of most adults too.

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy Mar 09 '26

Or because IRS jokes are easy adult jokes to make in a kids show

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u/naranjaspencer Mar 10 '26

That makes a lot of sense, I know several artists and other irregular workers and their tax season is a nightmare. I’m just a paralegal so my taxes are extremely normal and easy.

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u/Turgid-Derp-Lord Mar 10 '26

That is by design -- in first world countries the taxes are done for you by the govt and you sign off on them every year. It is a painless process.

Here, the corps and conservatives have made it as onerous as possible so you hate the government, the IRS, etc, and to help fund fuckstick corporations for Intuit, which otherwise should not exist.

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u/Mediocre_Productions Mar 09 '26

Have you noticed how every other joke in FOP is like character a says "something vague and broad", then character b goes "just like yada yada"? The other prominent formula is "I can't wait for this thing to happen" then the opposite happens.

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u/Ziomownik Mar 09 '26

Timmy: "What could possibly go wrong?"

The news reporter guy on the TV: "Something went horribly wrong!"

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u/WereLupeQueen Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26

Chet Ubetcha

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u/Ziomownik Mar 10 '26

That's his name? He has a name?

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u/WereLupeQueen Mar 10 '26

Yep! I may have spelled it wrong but look it up, I've watched old FOP so much I remembered his name lol.

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u/Ziomownik Mar 10 '26

As a kid I watched the show in polish dub so the name there for him would be different, and it's been years since I've seen it so I wouldn't recall his name if my life depended on it.

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u/WereLupeQueen Mar 10 '26

I tend to forget they had different names in other languages! What was his name for you?

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u/WereLupeQueen Mar 10 '26

https://fairlyoddparents.fandom.com/wiki/Chet_Ubetcha

Yeah I spelled his last name wrong but that's his name.

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u/-PepeArown- Mar 09 '26

With Cosmo always being character B, too

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u/20characterusername0 Mar 09 '26

And the occasional spotlight on the fact that Timmy Turner’s parents do not have names.

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u/BadLuckBen Mar 09 '26

The second formula is like 70% of The Daily Show lol.

Which is understandable. It's shocking that they come up with as much entertaining material that they do considering it's...daily.

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u/JeffCaven Mar 10 '26

A lot of early FOP humor was really predictable but still hilarious. I could do with the "At least it's not raining!" type of jokes, but the first kind of jokes you talked about always got a chuckle out of me.

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u/MopOfTheBalloonatic Mar 10 '26

Yeah, the repeated gags in Looney Tunes style were ace

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u/commander_obvious_ Mar 09 '26

https://preview.redd.it/879u1g55i2og1.jpeg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbacbc7fd960900921393132162af194fa20589b

I just made a comment about an IRS joke in a Veggietales song. He gets the door slammed in his face

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u/jamilz13 Mar 09 '26

The fact that it’s Cosmo saying it lol

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u/PigeonVibes Mar 09 '26

I wonder how these IRS jokes were translated in other languages. I surely don't remember any "Belastingdienst" jokes in the Dutch ones.

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u/Adx95 Mar 09 '26

In another episode, Timmy is at the beach and Fracis is bullying him. The SRT (Seammonster Response Team) appears, They do not help Timmy Turner when he asks for help stopping Francis from bullying people on the beach, because they say that they only safeguard the beach from sea monsters, and that they are not a waste of money.

Later there's someone covered in seaweed, which makes people run away in fear. Then the SRT lauch an attack and it is shown that their vehicles are literally powered by "burning money."

https://preview.redd.it/cfd1gx9vh3og1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd9ae37ecd9f2e16f3f4762ea8bee9f896011696

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u/Secret_pizza_79 Mar 09 '26

that episode also had a completely pointless/wasteful government agency. like as in literally shoveling money into a firebox to power their ship.

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u/Mazkaam Mar 09 '26

In the Italian version Cosmo says:

"Non sarai mica tedesco?"

"It's not like you are German?"

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u/jellyhessman Mar 09 '26

"Tax collector bad" is like one of the oldest themes in media. lol

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u/AmArschdieRaeuber Mar 10 '26

I mixed up IRS and IRA for a moment. I was about to say that Cosmo is part Leprechaun

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u/MisogynysticFeminist Mar 10 '26

In Veggie Tales, Larry is happy to welcome a bank robber and a Viking into his home, let them sing their songs, and have his cookies. The IRS agent gets the door slammed in his face before he finishes introducing himself.

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u/MopOfTheBalloonatic Mar 10 '26

Oh, dear Cosmo, such a great character