Cartoons Where the Sun Don't Shine

 Adult cartoons these days aren't that special, in fact these days they kinda suck, kinda, who am I? LSMark? Passive aggressive and unintentionally annoying? They're a dime a dozen these days, especially with the advent of streaming services where rules need not apply, isn't that right Netflix.

Interesting bit of trivia, Hoops and that alien show on Netflix resemble Rick and Morty because they outsourced animation to Bardel. What was once an uncommon occurrence has become increasingly so these days.

Back in Animation B.R.M. (before Rick and Morty), adult animation was interesting, in that adult cartoons can pop up literally anywhere. What, you expected me to wax nostalgic praise here? There was a lot of good shows but come on, the obvious? I don't fly that way. I'm not talking about the time the big three tried to compete with The Simpsons; CBS shit their pants early on, ABC started weak with Capitol Critters, got worse with The Critic and stopped giving a shit in 2000 when Clerks came on. NBC was actually the best of the three.

But again, not talking about the big three, or Fox for that matter. Did you know IFC aired not one, but two animated series? You probably did. Did you know FX- no you'd probably bring up stuff like Archer and Unsupervised, and I did talk about something before. VH1, now there's a network you'd never expect to see an original animated series on, but it happened.

For this little special, I'm gonna go over adult animated shows that aired on networks where you would never expect to see them. Spike and MTV will be exempt from this because for the latter it was expected even before Beavis and Butthead, and the latter people will expect me to talk about a slow mess, I mean, TUH ABOMINATION TOH MUH CHILDHOOD.

And of course this means I have to retread old ground.

Neighbors from Hell: TBS

Let's get the relatively obvious out of the way first. You may not be surprised this show aired on the network since around that time they picked up reruns for Family Guy and American Dad in syndication, but that's just it. TBS for the most part operated similarly to MyNetworkTV, it was a hub for syndicated programs, okay they created their own shows too, predominantly live-action.

This was one of the earliest, dare I say the first, original animated shows to appear on TBS. Not to mention, and I completely missed this, this was the first series to be animated by Bento Box Entertainment, who aren't part of Disney's bloated ballsack, but the ballsack of a spin-off company made to handle unwanted assets by Fox.

On the surface this looks to be a typical edgy show and one PeTA sees in their nightmares, and while factors support this, I feel like I'm one of the few to pick up on the subtext. This is actually a powerful message relating to the environment. Unlike crappier shows that spoon-feed information, this show goes for a show don't tell approach, do you want life to be this way? Well sack up and do something to prevent it. Why else are the demons from hell green?

Admittedly some jokes don't stick and there are pop culture references that will become dated in time, but honestly it's nice to have a clear fingerprint to the past. I'd rather hear someone talk about Dane Cook than someone about Donald Trump for the millionth time. For something with only 10 episodes to its name, ten's more than enough if you're curious. From then TBS breifly took on animated programs, Tarantula, Final Space until that was sold off, and thankfully rejecting something butt ugly.

FX: Dick and Paula Celebrity Special

Here's another show I covered before, and one who's placement seems pointless. If you've seen FX you'd know they dabbled in animated content in the early-2010s, Chozen, Unsupervised, and some obscure forgettable show, I think it's called Archer. Funnily enough, this and those don't make use of traditional animation, rather very specific techniques.

Dick and Paula predated those shows by at least a decade, hell, this was before FX tried their hand at original scripted programing in 2000. This was one of the last shows to be produced by Tom Snyder Productions, before rebranding to Soup2Nuts soon after.

And back then, all the way to now, this isn't very special. This is from the same studio that gave us Dr. Katz Professional Therapist and Home Movies, shows that perfected many of the company's trademarks, limited animation and improvisation. It's a talk show where the guests are historical figures. This seems like a killer idea for an education series, and they got their toes in that before with Science Court, but this was aimed at adults, and consequently lost whatever charm this would've had.

You can get these figures to say just about anything in an adult cartoon, so the mystery and mystique is scaled back considerably. Okay, this didn't have to be educational, maybe something like God, The Devil & Bob where historical figures are personified and conflicts are boiled down to talk show drama, where they work out their differences or parallels are drawn to their plights compared to the present. It seems obvious, but sometimes that's the best way to go.

With what we had, it's no wonder FX got cold feet for nearly ten years, I can't imagine this having any staying power.

WE TV: Committed

Women's Entertainment Television. Admittedly it's a little more plausible for a cartoon to land on this network, and obvious it did. However, this was an American broadcast of a Canadian cartoon series. And yes, I covered this way back when. Nothing had changed.

This was produced for CTV by Nelvana, also outsourced to the Philippines, and starred Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy, who ironically were Canadian natives. The show unfortunately captures the more toxic side to feminism, our leading lady is rather condescending, men fit the worst stereotypes they can be tied to, and above all, it's a generic sitcom. In other words it's a perfect fit for WE TV.

I'm not saying women shouldn't be heard, we just have the wrong people representing that. Do we really want someone like Sarah Silverman headlining progressive rights? She's even less funny than Louis C.K.'s accusers.

Also this was based off a comic strip by the same guy who made Over the Hedge. If you ask me, Baby Blues is more worth your time.

G4: Spaceballs

Okay, G4 may also be a bit obvious too. They had two full fledged cartoon shows and a showcase for Dr. Tran and Slashing Happy Critters. This will be a bit like one slot coming up, where one show fits the network, the other does not.... fuck it, Spaceballs.

Spaceballs: The Animated Series is an enigma, known for the most part but otherwise not talked about, probably because all that can be said had been. I'm cheating here, but if you wanna know more about this series, check out Hats Off Entertainment's video on the show. I'll indirectly borrow points from it because honestly I don't intend to cover this show on its own anytime soon.

Spaceballs The Animated Series is basically a case for how damaging Family Guy is on adult animation. It's a theory, but it makes sense when you think about it. This came out around the time Family Guy released their take on Star Wars. It checks out, the time, the shoehorned pop culture references, the fact that Dark Helmet is short and bald, sorta like the fact that Stewie was Darth Vader in those episodes.

I understand pop culture references isn't just synonymous with Family Guy, but the short bald guys is hard to ignore. Dark Helmet was hardly that short.

It's almost as if I have nothing to say about the show beyond that. It's just part of history now, brought it up that's all one needed to do. Only interesting thing about this is that, aside from getting a glimpse into Mel Brooks' minimal standards (and yes he was a part of this), this was funded by the same company that backed the worst cartoon of all time, MP4ORCE Beyond Real.

Those Germans, let me tell you...

IFC: Out There

Like G4, IFC had backed two original cartoons. Also interesting fact, some time after I posted my IFC retrospective the Wikipedia article Out There was edited to acknowledge that it wasn't IFC's first animated series. I would talk about Hopeless Pictures, but it fit the nature of IFC too well and looking back at it, all it was was interesting.

Like Spaceballs, Out There was the kind of show that didn't suit what its network was catered to, at least used to. Okay maybe at the time G4 strayed from video games and IFC from its initial focus.

Out There was created by Ryan Quincy, who used to work on South Park and would go on to create FutureWorm for Disney XD. He predicted it a year in advance through a one word reference in an episode of this show.

This is a very interesting show, with a bleak atmosphere and surprisingly endearing characters. The more you watch it the more it makes you think. This just focuses on the life of a 15 year old bear... thing, as he goes on about his life. I found myself relating to him and the art style, where sad expressions the characters wear don't always reflect the emotions we feel inside.

I really liked the voice work in this, there are familiar actors that I didn't recognize for their voices alone, John DiMaggio, Justin Roiland, Linda Cardellini, Pamela Aldon, this feels like a test to go beyond their known ranges, and it paid off.

There's a little piece in this show that is bound to apply to someone, so it's worth checking out to find out what.

Showtime: Free for All

Showtime sucks ass. They gave a platform to the horribly outdated Queer Duck, and told Stephen Colbert he can direct animation. Anything other is welcome in my book. I alluded to this show years back, but when else am I gonna talk about it again?

Like Committed, this was based off of a comic strip. Its writer had to stretch the truth to get this greenlit, and of all places, it landed on Showtime. Long story short, this show isn't for the faint of heart, it knew it had no limitations and didn't want you to forget about it.

It's incredibly edgy and only Adult Party Cartoon can desensitize you further, but strangely there's an alluring quality to it. Not to mention it has some pretty ambitious animation, along with traditional animation, it features some 3D set pieces and scenery that meshes well together. Also it's only six episodes long, that's all you need.

I'd take this over Our Cartoon President any day of the week.

BET: Hey Monie

Referring back to Tom Snyder/Soup2Nuts, this was their first original series under the latter name; Home Movies had continued at that point.

I don't really have much to say about this, and if you consider me racist for that, this is a BET original series, one of the more destructive black networks out there. This show can be considered a realistic look into the lifestyles of African American business women, that's the best I can say. I like the style of the animation, maybe one of these days I can have the time to try and sit through a whole episode.

VH1: Hey Joel

Let's end off with an actually surprising show. While MTV did air cartoons, you wouldn't expect VH1 to do the same, would you? This is an anomaly that begs for further discussion.

This was the work of, better yet a loose interpretation of an idea had by Joel Stein, a journalist of sorts. He pitched an idea to MTV that sounded like a more plot heavy take on Dr. Katz, but that's just my best guess. He had better luck with VH1, but that would gradually sour as the show strayed far from what it was promised to be, because money (in terms of booking actors and not big celebrities and setting it at VH1 instead of a magazine to justify its airing on the network.) Stein was not allowed to be involved and in his place as actor for his self insert, was Jon Cryer, already known for appearing on Two and a Half Men which debuted the same year.

If you wanna know more about how much Stein detests this show, he went into great detail on an article he wrote: https://web.archive.org/web/20040128111510/http://www.time.com/time/columnist/stein/article/0,9565,582717,00.html

Also apparently time after this show VH1 would rebrand, interesting fact. Another interesting fact is that this show was funded and animated in Canada. Well, a Canadian studio was contracted by Curious Pictures in New York. If you watched Cartoon Network in the mid-2000s how could you not recognize Curious Pictures? I bring up the Canadian funding because, for a show to be produced in Canada they have to go by guidelines that basically mean the Canadian side of things would be reflected in the program. This can apply to, say, the show taking place in Canada. Although an exception could be made if a Canadian company backed it, at least to my best guess, and that was in the form of Blueprint Entertainment, who isn't remotely interesting in the slightest.

Another thing to note is that for a Canadian produced show, it's pretty limited with Canadian actors. Beyond maybe some guests, there's only one regular Canadian actor in this. And this is set in New York.

Joel in this seems like a reasonably likable yet annoying individual, which hits differently when you are the person it's based off of. He contends with the commentator for CBS News Sunday Morning, yes that's what she has done since she dropped off from acting, a Panama actress who surprisingly masks her accent very well, a dimwitted... assistant? PA?

Plots are non-offensive, at the very least bearable, and we get some neat musical numbers by Fountains of Wayne, who you may know as "The guys who did Stacy's Mom."

About all that can be said about it, if none of the characters are based on you, you may potentially enjoy this. It could be worse, but hey, bet you didn't expect to hear about a cartoon that aired on VH1.

And that's about it see ya.