Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
Crazy cartoon where the Grim Reaper has a Jamaican accent and is subservient to two psycho kids. This cartoon scratches a particular itch no other cartoon does haha, its good stuff
Edit: by kidult, I mean it has appeal to both audiences with stuff that goes over kids heads often and is probably super inappropriate situations/lessons, and such
Edit: I might be also referring generally to content from outlets/studios like
- Nickolodeon
- Teletoon
- Adult Swim
- CartoonNetwork
- some YTV
- Hannah Barbara
Probably Animanics, though I was grown up before I watched that. Before that, I suppose Beavis and Butthead and even Simpsons were considered edgy.
Gravity Falls. A masterpiece of storytelling, wrapped up in family-friendly horror.
Adventure Time.
Mathematical!
Animaniacs
The Angry Beavers was by far my favorite.
Also loved Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.
Oh! Courage the Cowardly Dog
Btw, if you’re still into animated shows, there’s a few communities around for them.
General animation:
Japanese animation:
Give’em some activity if you’re wanting to share and talk about some animated stuff you’ve been checking out!
Will do
Ren & Stimpy
Was pretty certain Ren & Stimpy had to be mentioned here. Scrolling… scrollling… that was too much scrolling to find this
Duck Dodgers
Daffy Duck but in the 21st & uh 1/2 Century!
That shit was pretty good.
Daffy is the second best looney tunes act next to Foghorn Leghorn
Only 25 more years!
The last one that I can think of is probably Gundum Wing, although I watched a lot of Flinstones reruns growing up as well. Almost everything in both of them went way over my head as a kid.
Steven Universe is one of my favorites.
Also, OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes is excellent, and created by Ian Jones-Quartey, the spouse of Steven Universe’s creator, Rebecca Sugar.
He used to write a webcomic that I followed a couple decades ago, which he officially ended in an episode of OK K.O. His webcomic was called RPG World.
Sabrina The Teenage Witch
Cartoon version of Sabrina, the witch. Salem the Cat is awesome and the best character besides the “What’s your favorite shaver” song dude
So Hysteria was a bit hit and miss in terms of how enjoyable it was, but it did land at a time when I was able to record from TV and use it to aid some school presentations. Every single time the teachers would ask where I got this from.
It finished long before I was born (it was Saban’s “practice show” to test their confidence in taking on Power Rangers), but Samurai Pizza Cats was always avidly enjoyed by me, and it’s in fact one of the first kidult shows/franchises in the modern sense (if not the first) if I’m not mistaken, especially if you count only foreign content. Think Spongebob meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meets anime.
I loved Cow and Chicken. The Red Guy was the best, I loved how he had lil butt cheeks you could see and went by names like “Mr Pants”.
I can’t think of any shows that fit the bill that I’d say are my favorite that haven’t already been said. It also doesn’t help that my mind keeps going to Summer Camp Island for the later seasons when they start being less about random adventures and such and focus more on spoilery stuff. I wouldn’t consider it fully kidult (as per OPs description) but more like Bluey in that both kids and adults can enjoy it without the need for stuff flying over a kids head, despite the fact some non-inapproriate things might fly above their head.
Edit: Just read the growing up part. I’d say I was still growing up around 2019 already having graduated highschool and still have some growing up to do, so yeah.
