A TV spits out cathode rays. Weed smoke permeates every inch of the room. We ought to light a candle to The Simpsons -and to South Park and Family Guy, too. Credit where credit’s due: they smuggled in a blend of satirical, zesty, provocative themes. At this point, it’s nothing new, but cartoons are no longer just for kids: sex, violence, politics, dark humor, social critique and tangled plotlines. Add to that the success of works like Rick & Morty, BoJack Horseman, and Big Mouth, among others, which dragged us into cosmic, drug-fueled realities, with narratives steeped in acid. So, are we living through a new boom in psychedelic animation for adults?
From a historical lens, psychedelia had been simmering since the 1930s, when a surge of creative freedom allowed moments of surrealism impossible to capture in live-action of the time. “There are masterpieces by both the Fleischer Brothers and the Disney brothers. Look at Betty Boop and Mickey Mouse and you find wildly creative, free and unrestrained moments, which unfortunately got cut short by the Hays Code and the censorship creeping into the United States,” notes Tomás Eliaschev, journalist and cartoon expert.
Betty Boop features laughing gas in “Ha! Ha! Ha!” episode (1934)
The rising wave of puritanism significantly stifled the genre’s growth and pushed animation toward more metaphorical fables, with sly nods to adult themes, brushing up against sex, alcohol, tobacco, addiction, coffee, and, obviously, weed. “The first clearly stoner character is Lento Rodríguez, Speedy González’s cousin from Warner,” Eliaschev points out.
After Disney’s classic era, Hanna-Barbera took over animation, and beyond its endless doses of fun, it worked as a cultural machine to sell toys and merch. Still, it wasn’t until the late ’70s and early ’80s that animation for adults began walking on solid ground, with films such as Heavy Metal and Fritz the Cat, oozing the era’s vibe of parties, orgies, flashbulbs, chemicals, and a sharp snapshot of counterculture. Meanwhile, in the mainstream, Yellow Submarine (with the Beatles at their trippiest!), The Wall, and… The Pink Panther! All brought their own dose of psychedelia. “The Pink Panther explicitly showed psychedelia and became a bridge between classic animation and what was to come. Without The Pink Panther, there’d be no Nickelodeon, no Cartoon Network, no SpongeBob, no Adventure Time,” says Eliaschev.
The Pink Panther in “Psychedelic Pink” (1968)
Then came The Simpsons, the controversies, the improper jokes, the hallucinatory bits that defined the ’90s. It was then that the kidult phenomenon began to take shape: grown-ups happily buying action figures, hoarding Marvel Comics, and devouring pop culture with abandon (now that they had money in their pockets and buds in their jars, they could finally make up for the childhood they always wanted).
“MTV was key too, with Aeon Flux and Liquid Television, hooking the teens and adults of the time,” says Eliaschev. The 2000s then arrived with Shrek (the first two, both fantastic), Pixar, Dreamworks, Adult Swim (which deserves the highest praises), and the rise of the otaku vanguard.
“Animation is something that is increasingly consumed, and without age limits. In that sense, there’s a legitimization of watching animation. Love, Death & Robots is an example of how high adult animation can go,” Eliaschev points out.
LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS VOLUME 3, Official Trailer (2022)
So why are more and more studios making animation targeted explicitly at adults? “It’s a mix of factors,” says Juan Manuel La Volpe, director of the techno-nerd site 421.
“First, watching animation is no longer taboo. The audience grows older, but still chases the places that once made them happy. We went from Dragon Ball and X-Men to Dragon Ball Super and X-Men 97. Second, many studios are run by animators, directors, and writers who grew up on animation and are now making pilots and even dipping into the underground scene. And lastly, Millennials grew up with 24-hour cartoon channels. They’re now over 30 with disposable income, so there’s room for these products to be profitable.”
Among the standout works of recent years, One Piece ultimately took a leap in quality and set the pace for contemporary Japanese animation. Likewise, Attack on Titan has become, in La Volpe’s words, “the anime that managed to break through the otaku barrier and reach casual viewers.”
Common Side Effects Intro (2024)
In the U.S., the Spiderverse films are pushing animation to dazzling new heights. Content-wise? What comes after The Amazing World of Gumball, Catdog, Regular Show, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Grim & Evil, Ren & Stimpy, Mercano the Martian, and Sheep in the Big City? “Adult Swim’s new series Common Side Effects has writing and direction on par with heavyweights like Fargo or True Detective,” says La Volpe, about the show that stirs up ideas around healing mushrooms.
Down in the experimental underground, Juanma is betting on Punch Punch Forever, a series that “parodies classic fight anime and currently has three episodes on YouTube.” However, some dare the holy father of adult animation, The Simpsons, to retire, and even pit the eternal modernity of South Park (still holding up with its cathode-ray take on every season’s hot topics) against the absurdist wave of Smiling Friends, the new big thing for midnight stoner cartoon watchers.
Punch Punch Foerever (2025)
Photo via Shutterstock.
