Rewatching your favorite childhood cartoons can be a dangerous game. When trying to find that child-like wonder we all once had, we often run into explicit jokes that went way over our innocent brains. It’s clear that the creators of our favorite shows were just having some fun by including adult jokes that a child wouldn’t understand. However, in revisiting those shows and seeing the innuendos we start to see that maybe our childhood wasn’t so pure after all.
Spongebob Squarepants watches “Adult Swim”
Apparently, Spongebob is no stranger to adult programming. The episode “Your Shoe’s Untied” starts with everyone’s favorite yellow sea sponge intently watching a sea anemone flailing about on the screen of his TV. When his snail, Gary, slides over, he quickly changes the channel and nervously says that he was looking for the sports channel. It’s clear that he’s watching something explicit, but, as I am not a sea sponge, I can’t make sense of what exactly it is and maybe that’s for the best. Since he’s a sponge, you’d think that his browser history would be clean, but if you ask Gary, he might disagree.
The Powerpuff Girls’ new, unplanned neighbor
When Professor Utonium welcomes his daughter’s friends into his house in the “Powerpuff Girls” episode “Superfriends,” he probably wasn’t expecting to be thinking about unplanned pregnancies. Bubbles introduces the supergroup’s new friend, Robin, to their father and tells her that, as any “Powerpuff Girls” fan knows, he made them by accident in his lab. Robin looks at the Professor and tells him, “don’t worry, professor, I was an accident too!” He makes a face that mirrored mine when revisiting this episode.
Flash finishes first
The conversations between superheroes during their time off must be wild. In the “Justice League” episode “Injustice for All,” the Flash is put on blast by Hawkgirl when he proudly declares that he’s the “fastest man alive.” Without missing a beat, Hawkgirl responds “which explains why you can’t get a date.” Hawkgirl, why are we talking about how long it takes the Flash to finish? If he’s been fast his entire life, wouldn’t he have built up a good stamina to this by now?
The Animaniacs fingerblast Prince
No list of inappropriate references in children’s shows would be complete without mentioning the “Animaniacs” episode “Hercule Yakko.” In the episode, the Warners agree to help the Hip Hippos find a necklace that was stolen from them. Yakko tells Dot to look for prints, which she takes to mean look for Prince, the late-musician. Dot finds him and brings him to Yakko who corrects her by saying “fingerprints.” After exchanging an uncomfortable look between her and Prince, Dot says “I don’t think so.”
Helga’s girlhood…trembles?
Arnold from “Hey Arnold!” is not what most would consider sexy (he’s a child after all), but to Helga, he’s the epitome of manliness. In the episode “Helga’s Parrot,” Helga writes one of her famous, or maybe infamous, poems about Arnold. She grabs an effigy she made of Arnold and recites the line “Arnold, you make my girlhood tremble,” to which her parrot echoes over and over. “You make my girlhood tremble?” C’mon, Nickelodeon you’re better than that.
