So I was watching It's Never Too Late the other day and was really surprised at how adult themed it was. A gangster pushing drugs, kid getting run over by a train. Sure, I can see that some of the episodes are accessible for kids, but mostly it's for an older audience.
I remember when it was on ITV when I was a kid and couldn't watch it because it was too dark. How did they get away with episodes like Never Too Late?
Absolutely fantastic show btw
Lol it's pretty tame bud, it's not exactly Cannibal Holocaust or anything. Perfect for kids, not too dumbed-down like most other cartoons but not so deep that they'll be lost, we are talking about a show where Catwoman was turned into a giant cat after all.
shareBecause the 90s wasn't the nauseating PC world we live in today.
shareThere are several dark episodes, and it was known this show pushed the envelope for what a kids show could show and deal with. It did this surprisingly well and didn't treat 8 year olds like they were mindless drones who can't reason which is why it's still appreciated by adults today.
Flaming doesn't help your point, it engulfs it in a wall of fire no one is going try to go through.
1: WB ordered a show for kids, and the producers wrote a show for themselves instead.
2: In original broadcast it actually ran six days a week, so it was so easy to stumble across that it became a huge hit that they couldn't dream of cancelling.
3: Given the steady stream of new episodes, airing a single episode here and there like Never Too Late tended to get lost in the barrage, where if it was limited to one episode per week it would have received a lot more attention for a much longer period of time.
This show basically blitzed us the first season. Episodes were aired in the order they were cleared for broadcast, which resulted in some oddities like two-parters that took a full week to resolve in spite of the 6-day broadcast schedule (the first Catwoman story was broadcast as something like episodes 6 and 12). It took around a full year for the first season to actually finish getting through original broadcast, but the bulk of the first season came out within a span of 2-3 months and was probably very hard to keep up with on the network censor front.
You know what noone tells you about cooking with the Dark Side? The food is really good!
I think this is one of the most amazing TV shows of all-time (I love "Miami Vice" and "Dexter" too, and have watched pretty much every Batman content and game out there, Bar just a few).
shareI have to agree with your sentiments.
Remember "The Ren & Stimpy Show" (1991 - 1996)? That was a truly vomit-inducing TV series, and we loved every minute of it. Watching it as an adult, I still cannot believe how in the world they got away with promoting self-mutilation and such.
They really pushed it to a whole new level. One "Ren & Stimpy" episode ("Man's Best Friend") attributed to having director John Kricfalusi fired. If I remember correctly, they didn't have a daily schedule like "Batman: TAS" did. Even though they still had an entire week to examine everything before it aired, they let 99% of episodes slide. I guess the rules and regulations regarding what can be put on TV weren't as strict.
"Ren & Stimpy" also ran on a children's network (Nickelodeon). Nowadays, most of their lineup from the '90s would be questionable.
For example, "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" (1992 - 1996) insinuated drug use (so I've heard), "The Secret World of Alex Mack" (1994 - 1998) had a half-naked child in the intro, and "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters" (1994 - 1997) was considered a wee bit too perturbing. I'm sure there's a slew of other '90s shows that would more than likely be pulled or transferred to a station such as Adult Swim.
We had it great back then. TV ratings did not exist until 1997. There was barely any control over what your kids watched. Parents (mine, at least) weren't overly sensitive to what aired. They had to put their faith into children discerning what was right from wrong. The World Wide Web wasn't mainstream, so we spent a lot of our waking hours in front of the television.
I can see why "Batman: TAS" flew under the radar. Too short of a timespan to spot inappropriate content. That's one of the reasons why I absolutely love this series, even though I haven't seen it since 1995.
I felt really grown up and sophisticated when I would get to watch this after the lighthearted Disney stuff that played in the afternoon.
shareProduction cut it close to censors.
They couldn't produce certain episodes because they were to adult like if i recall there was gonna be a gun centered episode about the murder of Martha and Thomas Wayne,an ep with a sexy vampire and a silent but sexual ep.
There were lots of innuendo's too like that ep were Harley is in a nightgown asking joker to ram up his harley or something. There were tie in comics too to the series too,I think it was Mad love were it shows Harley before she went crazy in college,one page showed one of her teachers with kisses all over his face(You know she slept around
Are you kidding?! I would watch every day when I came home from school in 2nd grade! It was part of the Fox43 Kid's Club lineup. Either that, or it was another station. Either way, I loved that show, though you are correct that not all the episodes were fun to watch or had good stories. I will tell you that any adult themes were very subtle and went over the kids' heads so fast, they never noticed; and all the episodes with the Joker were great :D
share