The Magic Ingredients for Adult Animation: Race, Sex, & Religion

Not quite the virgins he was expecting

Before I dip into the magic ingredients I want to state for the record that the term 'adult animation' has always seemed a bit weird to me.  Probably because I associate the term directly with the term 'adult films', aka porn, and I expect that others might as well.  As a result when I talk to people about the animation I make I often favour the term 'adult-skewed animations' because I feel it will be less misleading or at least prompt further questions instead of having them assume I make animated porn.  On other occasions when I'm feeling mischievous I make no such distinctions just to see how people will react.

Alright, now back to the magic ingredients.  They're fairly simple as the title suggests they are race, sex & religion.  How did I come up with these?  Well, they're the topics that animation for the general populace skirts around like the plague.  That makes them the exclusive domain of adult animation.  Most decent adult animation series have developed a way to critically and humorously discuss these issues and because audiences can't get similar discussions on these topics from their other shows they always come back to get their fix.  The further an animation series is willing to go in discussing these issues the more interest it will garner.  Mind you, if a show alienates too large of an audience with controversial scenes then the broadcasters will shut it down because advertisers won't pay for time slots during the show, just look at Family Guys record of being canceled and then brought back according to public outcry.

That's the tip of the day.  If you're making an adult-skewed animation your trump cards are the freedom to incorporate controversial scenes dealing with race, sex, & religion.