15 Times Movies For Adults Were Turned Into Cartoons For Kids

In First Blood, John Rambo isn’t exactly a hero. He’s a veteran suffering from PTSD who goes on a rampage after being mistreated by some police officers. The film examines the poor treatment and emotional challenges that made it difficult for veterans of the Vietnam war to return home. This is some pretty heavy subject matter and isn’t really what one would expect to see in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Very unlike the film and book that it is loosely based on, Rambo: The Force of Freedom is really just a G.I. Joe ripoff starring John Rambo. Rambo leads a team of elite soldiers against a Cobra knockoff known as S.A.V.A.G.E. and its leader General Warhawk. This choice actually generated some controversy at the time, as Rambo: The Force of Freedom was the first cartoon adapted from an R-rated film, but clearly not the last.

The film RoboCop is about as far from a children’s show as it gets. It is a hyper-aggressive action movie meant to satirize police militarization and many other issues director Paul Verhoeven identified with 1980s America. Few would pick a film where the main character is blasted to bits in visceral detail as a prime choice for a children’s cartoon, but that didn’t stop one from being made.

A RoboCop animated TV series ran alongside superhero cartoons as part of the Marvel Action Universe programming block. The show keeps most of the film's original premise but tones down the language and violence. Putting a show about a robotic police officer who uses excessive force in the same block as shows about heroes like Spider-Man is also a strange choice. Not only does this seem to contradict the original film’s message, but it might also give viewers the wrong impression of what kind of movie RoboCop is.

Some elements of movies for adults can be easily translated or toned down to fit in a children’s cartoon, but the same can’t be said for much of Police Academy. The film includes several nude scenes as well as some implied hookups. Police Academy also features a pretty liberal use of foul language. It’s very clear that the movie wasn’t meant for children.

The Police Academy cartoon series has to make some serious changes to try and be more kid-friendly. One way it draws in kids is by creating a crime boss named Kingpin for the heroes to face off against who was suspiciously similar to Marvel’s villain of the same name. The show also adds a crew of talking police dogs named the Canine Corps.

While not as raunchy as many comedies from the early 2000s, Evolution was clearly made for an adult audience and had its fair share of sexual humor. In fact, Seann William Scott was chosen to be in the film after his starring role in Road Trip, meaning the creators wanted to evoke at least some aspects of dirtier movies. There’s also the fact that the massive alien threat is defeated by shooting shampoo up one of its orifices in a very suggestive manner.

Evolution: The Animated Series serves as a sequel to the original movie, focusing on the return of the alien threat known as the Genus. The show rebrands the film’s heroes as the “Alienators” and features the crew fighting a variety of new aliens. As is to be expected, the film’s more inappropriate jokes don’t make an appearance in the cartoon version.

A huge part of the appeal of The Mask as a movie is seeing cartoon logic and physics depicted in more of a real-world context. A lot of the humor comes from Jim Carrey's ability to become a living cartoon (with some help from early CGI effects) in the more grounded world he inhabits. Adapting The Mask into a cartoon takes away a big part of this charm.

When Jim Carrey’s version of The Mask suddenly becomes French or his heart beats out of his chest, it’s a break in form for a live-action movies. However, when the same things happen in The Mask: Animated Series, it just feels par for the course in the world of a cartoon. Because The Mask relies on recreating cartoon clichés in live-action, it feels very unoriginal.

Unlike the CGI-heavy modern installments, the first Ghostbusters movie is not an action film. The original Ghostbusters are more like supernatural exterminators starting a small business than superheroes. This street-level aspect coupled with the film’s dry humor and somewhat cynical tone doesn’t really seem like a good fit for a kid’s animated show.

This opinion seems to be shared by the creators of The Real Ghostbusters because the cartoon changes a lot about its source material. The Ghostbusters are a lot more like traditional heroes in this incarnation, and their rude assistant Janine is now a happy-go-lucky part of the team. The show also takes Slimer from just a random ghost and made him into the Ghostbusters' friend and mascot.