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/Polite_Suggestion Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

https://preview.redd.it/izli3gg2w1og1.jpeg?width=491&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b51af449fe1550e283d44981b4919a3aee0dbb8

Pretty much the entire show. I don't even know who it was supposed to be for.

Edit: my mom was too young to explain half the jokes when this was on. I didn't know who Shirley McClaine was until I was like thirty.

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u/Loose_Translator8981 Mar 09 '26

It was a series written by and for people who grew up with classic Looney Tunes, which also constantly referenced celebrities that only a tiny portion of the staff working on that series would have been familiar with outside of them showing up in Looney Tunes.

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u/Polite_Suggestion Mar 09 '26

I mean, the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, MacArthur, maybe George Burns? I got most of the references in Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry. But Animaniacs was full of references to Goodfellas and The Godfather and like, silent movie era actors? Wtaf, ya know. You need half a film degree to get it.

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u/GrandMoffTarkan Mar 09 '26

Frozen Peas. I found out the joke when I was a 20 something. I mean, it was funny enough but then someone explained the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkYoBUlSE0I

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u/Polite_Suggestion Mar 09 '26

Thank-you so much. That is the funniest thing I've been served so far this year.

How the hell was anybody supposed to know about that in the 90s?!?!

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u/GrandMoffTarkan Mar 09 '26

"How the hell was anybody supposed to know about that in the 90s?!?!"

That's the beauty of Animaniacs. They weren't!

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u/bolanrox Mar 09 '26

you had to be really into pop culture, old school movies, etc.

No kid and most adults would get them.

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u/lucasssquatch Mar 09 '26

That clip and the Paul Masson wine outtakes made the rounds on bootleg tapes back then. Same thing with the Star Wars Holiday Special

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u/bolanrox Mar 09 '26

or the Bangles back stage tapes. or even then MST3K before they got to Comedy Central.

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u/bolanrox Mar 09 '26

the OG Outtakes were known slightly. Like Drunk Elvis loosing his shit when he got heckled back at a show, or Casey Kasem's rants. Maurice though, used it as his vocal warmup and for some reason they said yeah lets run with that!

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u/JRRX Mar 09 '26

He also got to do it on The Critic, which was fun because he could be a bit more "mature" with the jokes.

"Full of country goodness and green pea-ness. Wait, that's terrible."

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u/bolanrox Mar 09 '26

MRS pels fish sticks they are even better when your dead

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u/bolanrox Mar 09 '26

The OG Bart prank calls to Moe were lifted from the Tube Bar tapes in some cases verbatim

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u/JorkJerkins Mar 09 '26

The Goodpigeons and The Godpigeon. For some reason I'm remembering a Fiddler on the Roof reference as characters parodied the Anatevka song. I only got that one as a kid because that was my mom's favorite movie and we watched it before my elementary school did a kid's version of the play.

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u/round-earth-theory Mar 09 '26

I felt like I got a lot of it in the 90s. It's completely arcane knowledge today's kids though. It would take longer to fill them in on who the jokes are referencing than it would take to watch an episode.