Adult humor in kids cartoons

Adult humor in kids cartoons dates at least back to the Rocky and Bullwinkle show (by “adult” I mean jokes targeted at adult viewers, not vulgar). I was watching television with my older son the other day and saw a more recent example of stealth adult humor in a cartoon: a character in Fairly Odd Parents gains super powers. He kicks a soccer ball which then sails clear across the Atlantic Ocean. Cut to a Parisian scene, a caricatured French couple sip coffee at an outdoor cafe. The soccer ball strikes the man in the back. He immediately stands up, raises his hands in the air and shouts “I surrender!”. Oddly enough, the pejorative term for the French that some Americans were using earlier this year (cheese-eating surrender money) came from another cartoon, The Simpsons. It was said by Groundskeeper Willie, the Scottish handyman at Bart’s elementary school.

Note: I don’t think this sort of national name calling really serves any useful purpose. I can imagine the sort of uproar if the media reported that French cartoons depicted Americans in a similar skewed and simplistic manner.