Why were these marketed towards children?

Question

Why were some of the shows/movies of the late 1980s/early 1990s geared towards children? I was born in 1991 and I watched PeeWee's Playhouse a lot (one of my favorite shows) when I was little. However, two movies (both Disney) that were geared towards children scared the c**p out of me--"The Brave Little Toaster" and "The Great Mouse Detective". Both were geared towards little kids but I was horrified by them, especially Ratigan of TGMD (voiced by Vincent Price, which made it even creepier). Now that I'm older it's not creepy anymore, just weird. I watched TBLT last week and there are several scenes that would scare little kids (the air conditioner exploding, the freakshow shop, the junkyard with the big magnet, etc) and TGMD also would be scary for younger kids (when the rat dives at Basil off the tower, attacks him, takes the Flavershams, and the bat). PeeWee was never scary, but now that I watch it as an adult (very nearly, I'm almost 18) I can see that there was a lot of adult humor in it.

Why were so many movies from that era creepy or with adult overtones, but then geared for children?

Answer 1

I just think what was acceptable then is different from what is acceptable now. Although tons of kids movies still have adult undertones so your guess is as good as mine.

Answer 2

Look at cartoons and kids movies today and you'll see all the adult humor. Take, for example, the first few minutes of the movie Robots. The male robot's wife says that he missed the delivery of the baby (which is a box of parts to put together) but "that's OK. Making the baby is the fun part." That's a direct quote. I could give dozens of examples from various kid-targeted things. My guess about the adult humor is to entertain the adults watching with their kids, but I don't get the scary things.

Answer 3

Very young children can't go to movies alone and usually have to be accompanied by their parents.  To accommodate both age groups, some filmmakers and TV writers write scripts that will work on both levels.  The adult jokes go right over the kids' heads but the adults get them.  Meanwhile, the kids enjoy the story lines which the adults may find a little bland.

Answer 4

Someone else got part of it right - there's stuff put in the movies to entertain adults. Disney-Pixar is probably the best at it, like Wall-e referenced video games that came out before I was even born, Finding Nemo referenced The Shining ('Heeere's Bruce!" a la "Heeeere's Johnny!") IIRC, and so on. Robots is my favorite example, because there's jokes in there that kids are likely to completely overlook, most adults are likely to interpret in a very basic way, and people who've worked extensively with electronics are likely to find completely hilarious. Even The Lion King falls into this category - as a kid, it was a movie about lions, but when you got into high school, you realised it was a retelling of Hamlet with lions.

And, then there's the cartoons that are geared towards teenagers or adults but someone thinks 'cartoons are for kids' and markets them that way. Invader Zim is one that comes to mind right away. It's got loads of dark humor and satire, but someone just saw that it was animated and decided to put it on Nickelodeon right after school, despite the fact that most kids would find it scary and not 'get' a lot of the show.

Answer 5

I think its because every children's movie nowadays has at least some adult humor or reference, especially kid's tv shows. I saw a Godfather reference in Hannah Montana when my little sister was watching it.