Written by Jonathan Klotz | Published
The 1980s were a strange time in American culture thanks to the booming economy. Miami Vice, DallasAnd hair metal. For all this weirdness, nothing is weirder in retrospect than Hollywood’s period trend of taking R-rated movies and sanitizing them for kids in a Saturday morning format.com. artoons.
Robocop and Rambo III Not only are they family-friendly, R-rated movies, they are also found in toy aisles across the country. Toxic avengera crazy sci-fi Trauma movie, had toys and animation alongside Freddy Krueger. I’m sure at some studio, an executive was trying to create a file A Nightmare on Elm Street Animation, which was completely appropriate during this wonderful, surprising, but truly strange time.
Kids love robots, Even the R-rated violent ones
success Robocop It paved the way for this trend, thanks to its kid-friendly, part-machine, part-human, all-cop kind of thing. Look how cool its design is. Like dinosaurs, kids will always love robots. I didn’t see Robocop Until the 90s, and I even remember thinking how cool the character was in the 80s.
Hollywood executives noted, and after the success of Kenner’s Star Wars characters, they wanted a piece of the highly lucrative market of “kids who are constantly begging their parents that this is the last thing they will ask for.” The best way to reach children at that time was through Saturday morning cartoons.
We didn’t have YouTube and open videos, but we did have a four-hour segment every Saturday where almost every network would air 30-minute commercials for the games. Robocop It became a 12-episode 1980s cartoon with no blood, no swearing, and no Kurtwood Smith. It also ended up being an NES video game and a comic book series.
John Rambo: Role Model of the 1980s
As a kid growing up during this time period, we all knew who John Rambo was, even if we’d never seen the classic Sylvester Stallone movie, First blood. When a character in any other cartoon or movie from the 80s didn’t say a word and put a red bandana on her head, we knew things had just gotten real and what movie was being referenced. It didn’t take a movie of Stallone dealing with a Vietnam vet dealing with PTSD to know who Rambo is and believe he’s the coolest, most powerful man on the planet.
Rambo: The Power of Freedom precedes Robocop Two years earlier, it had been released in 1986. It had a lot in common with one of the most popular cartoons of the 1980s, GI Joethan Stallone’s R-rated movies did. If you go back and watch the 65-episode series today, you’ll not only be able to see how clearly this was designed to sell cool new toys to kids, but you’ll understand why Stallone was embarrassed by it.
Even children were not safe from the police academy
It wasn’t just ’80s action movies with larger-than-life heroes that became animated. Thanks to the Springfield builders who made Steve Guttenberg a star, Police Academy It launched a 65-episode series in 1988. In what seems completely crazy today, the series released a movie every year. It was so hot that even the kids on the playground were aware of it. Then again, the first movie was rated R and most kids never saw it.
The characters in the anime are exaggerated versions of their big screen counterparts, which have carried over into the action figure line. So, if you want a Bobcat Goldthwait figure, and what kid doesn’t, you’ve got the chance to pick up their very own Zed figure.
Children can also use their parents’ money to buy a police uniform, which comes with a plastic baton, with which they will then pledge to never hit their siblings. As far as an R-rated film goes for an ’80s children’s animated series, Police Academy It is the most logical. The films have a cartoony sensibility.
Welcome to Tromaville Little Kids!
toxic avenger, However, it is the most inexplicable cartoon of the 1980s. It didn’t air until 1990, likely because someone with common sense realized that the cult classic Troma was a grotesque collection of body horror, blood, and guts. In the end, common sense lost, and by changing the title to Poisonous crusaders And focusing on the environmental message that lies behind all the usual Troma trappings, they forced them to fit side by side Captain Planet.
Toxie and his buddies were out every episode defending Tromaville from the Smogulans, proving that the Saturday morning cartoon formula is so simple that it works for almost every property. It doesn’t matter if you replace the robots and “animals” with characters from R-rated movies.
How did SpongeBob SquarePants save your children?
This trend continued from the 1980s into the 1990s Conan and Highlander He received anime adaptations after school, but by the end of the decade had faded away forever. This ended up giving rise to Cartoon Network’s avant-garde style, including shows like Dexter’s laboratory, Johnny Bravothe Powerpuff GirlsAnd the first appearance of a small cartoon film that you may have heard about, SpongeBob SquarePants.
The success of these shows meant that cartoons were no longer just commercials to sell toys; They were high-quality programs designed to keep kids hooked to the screen watching commercials that would then try to sell them toys.
Imagine if Bad Boys: Ride or Die or The second wrestler It has been turned into cartoons today, with toy lines aimed at children. Now imagine the absolute firestorm of criticism that will be unleashed on social media over the marketing of R-rated films to children. To be fair, it’s not like people in the 80s thought it was cool. It was still controversial in the 1980s when these cartoons first appeared, but times were different and their cries had fewer places to find a voice.
Today, most of these weird, R-rated to cartoonish films are not available on streaming Poisonous crusaders It’s on Toby, and Police Academy Available on Plex.