Rugrats spawned one-time special Rugrats: All Growed Up, which was spun off into a series. © Nickelodeon.

More people ought to create adult animation. This was the discussion five years ago, three years ago, a year ago, yesterday. On the whole, it does seem to me that we are getting closer all the time. Every series that failed in primetime, gotten lost in the obscurity of independent animation, or even succeeded (say, King of the Hill) has pushed American commercial animation closer to becoming an adult venue. The zeitgeist is well under formation, and if the animation business was a kinder place for independents it might be happening even faster. Meanwhile, here’s an idea to kick around for the next month: If we want some adult animation, why not just grow our own from the material already available in animated network programming? Of course, my take on this idea may need a few years to reach fruition; but what else have we got to do, wait for The Land Before Time XXXIV?

Grow our own? Of course. How? By following the simple rules of maturity and development. Every adult started out as a child, reached an adolescent stage, came into early maturity, and finally morphed into adulthood through a series of painful blunders, wrong career paths, inappropriate sexual behavior, shaky personal choices, embarrassments, — and hey, those are the lucky ones! Why can’t our toons be expected to do the same? This is not a particularly new idea I am espousing; it’s actually been attempted on a modest scale. In 2001, Nickelodeon celebrated the 10th anniversary of Rugrats by airing a one-shot special, Rugrats: All Growed Up. The titular characters weren’t exactly as advertised; they were growed up to roughly 13 years old (I guess there are some things one can’t rush). The special proved popular enough to warrant 13 episodes of a spin-off series, the first of which aired in September of 2003.

Cartoon characters typically do not age a minute. Oh, sure, there have been exceptions, such as when Walter Lantz presented Woody Woodpecker’s entire life cycle in Born to Peck (1952) or when Bob Clampett carried Bugs’ and Elmer’s feud into senescence in his brilliant short, The Old Grey Hare (1944). On the whole, however, a cartoon character only changes appearance over the years due to differences in animators, not aging. Wouldn’t it be interesting to change all that? Have cartoon characters grow up, age, face the same issues adults do and engage in the same ambiguities, adventures, sex and violence that we see in adult series?

Giving characters eventual maturity wouldn’t be too difficult, and it’s a much cooler idea than making established cartoon characters into “baby” versions of themselves. Gradually make the scripts a bit heavier, darker and sexier; redesign the characters to appropriate ages, and let the adult fun begin. I submit for your consideration three series aimed at the “tween” audience (one from each major animation network) that have at least some potential to make the leap. Some of you readers may differ or have even better candidates, and if you do so much the better; we’re stimulating ideas and having fun, right?

Let’s start with Disney. In June of 2002, the TV division began airing a show about a teenage girl who split her time between cheerleading and saving the world from nefarious plots. Kim Possible, as the story goes, was created spontaneously in an elevator by Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley when the pair were under press to come up with a show for Toon Disney. Kim, an irrepressible young redhead, teamed up with a nebbishy but stalwart sidekick named Ron Stoppable who in turn carried an intelligent naked mole rat named Rufus in tow (and you thought elevator music numbed the brain).