AJ Ranks Vol. 5: Cartoons for Adults

The Best Cartoons for Adults

There are a lot of cartoon’s on nowadays that are completely veered toward adults and older teenagers. Most of these cartoons use suggestive humor and violence. The best ones though use suggestive humor and violence as a small part of the puzzle adding dynamic stories, clever takes on certain subjects and even character interactions to bolster the end product.

10. The Cleveland Show

A spin-off of another adult cartoon (Family Guy), this show is the brain child of Seth MacFarlane. The show surrounds Cleveland Brown, his son, his new wife, and his two step-kids. The Cleveland show has a lot of the same humour as Family Guy, for obvious reasons, even bringing out the old talking animal bit. One of Cleveland’s good friends, and neighbor, is a talking bear named Tim, and even though he acts human most of the time still has his bear tendencies.

9. Bob’s Burgers

Bob’s Burgers just finished its second season with a strong showing. The show is about Bob and the diner he owns with his wife and three kids. Bob’s wife Linda and kids Tina, Gene, and Louise all help him run the diner. The kids are definitely what make this show funny. The parents have their moments too but those usually come when interacting with the kids.

8. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Three anthropomorphic fast food items-Masters Shake, Frylock and Meadwad-and their neighbor, Carl Brutananadilewski, go out and do ridiculous things over and over every week. This is the longest running original series on Adult Swim and has developed a cult following that resulted in two animated feature films and three different spin-offs. This show is so far out there that you really need to enjoy these kinds of shows or be really stoned to get into it.

7. Beavis and Butthead

Originally created in 1992, Beavis and Butthead is about two teenagers who live by themselves and go to school sometimes. Each episode usually consists of two short stories broken up by little skits where the boys, on their couch watching TV, make fun of a music video. In the newer reincarnate of the series, airing in 2011, the boys also ripped on some reality TV shows and internet videos. Although the original was so popular in its time that it spawned a animated feature film, the newer version is having a hard time finding its legs with teenagers in the 21^st century.

6. Family Guy

Seth MacFarlane’s original cash cow, Family Guy, is now on its 10^th season after already being cancelled once and revived because DVD sales went up to an astounding level. Most of this shows humour is built into the cutaway scenes or even over the top slapstick that could only work on a cartoon. Even though I haven’t seen many of the newer episodes, the Star Wars parodies that were done were done very well.

5. Futurama

From the creator of The Simpsons, Futurama is all about a guy named Fry being accidentally cryogenically frozen in the year 2000 and is thawed out in the year 3000. He goes to work for his only living relative, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, as a delivery boy at Planet Express. The show revolves around Fry’s life and friendship with a robot, a alien man-crab thing, his cyclops girlfriend, a Martian and limbo obsessed paper pusher. This is another show that was cancelled but ended up being revived due to fan support.

4. The Simpsons

Going strong for 23 seasons and counting, The Simpsons has always been a staple on fox’s Sunday night lineup, well at least for as long as I can remember. Dimwit of a Dad Homer works at a nuclear power plant while his wife, Marge, takes care of the three kids, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. With Bart being a trouble maker, Lisa the braniac and Maggie never one to say the wrong thing, The Simpsons has never been without a good story to tell. In fact they’ve actually told numerous stories in more than one way (they’ve owned like three different horses).

3. Black Dynamite

Originally a live action blaxploitation spoof film, it has recently been turned into an animated series on Adult Swim. The show follows a former CIA agent named Black Dynamite and his team while they try to figure out who is behind all the ninja’s that are running around town. The problem is that they seem to be easily side tracked. In the first two episodes alone Michael Jackson and the Porn industry, respectively, drew focus away from their main objectives. This show is funny not only in the obvious over the top stereotyping but some of the subtle jokes they throw out are pretty special.

2. Archer

The same voice actor that stars as Bob in Bob’s Burgers stars in Archer as the title character. Sterling Archer is an international man of mystery, a trained spy for his mother’s company ISIS (International Secret Intelligence Service). Every character on this show has his or her place and they all work very well together. The humor of the show is very up front and confrontational. For one whole episode it is believed that Archer has breast cancer which leads to many inappropriate but hilarious jokes.

1. South Park

Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have discovered a way to satirize the world through four fifth graders that I never knew was possible. They take a small concept like women nagging men to put the toilet seat down and they stretch it out into a 23 minute long comment on society. Not only that, they do it while making most people laugh. It’s crazy to think that these guys put together each episode of South Park in 6 days, but they do.