Gargoyles vs Captain Planet: The REAL darkness in 90s cartoons

I rewatched Gargoyles last week and it hit me how DIFFERENT that show was compared to everything else on Saturday mornings. Like Captain Planet was telling us to recycle and be nice, but Gargoyles had characters getting stabbed and actual betrayal arcs. By 1996, Gargoyles got moved to a earlier time slot and watered down. What caused the shift? Was it the network getting complaints or just ratings? Anyone else notice how 90s cartoons got noticeably lighter after like 1994?

2 comments

2 Comments

emery9651mo ago

Man that is such a good point. I remember watching Gargoyles when it first came out and it was way darker than anything else on. The thing is, networks started getting flooded with complaints from parents after stuff like Batman TAS had some gun violence and X-Men had those darker storylines. They panicked and started slapping content warnings on stuff or moving it to later slots. By 94 or 95, the safer bet was just making everything lighter so they could sell toys to little kids without the drama. Captain Planet was safe because it was just a lesson every episode, no real consequences. Gargoyles had actual character deaths and that scared the suits. If you want the real uncut experience, track down the original season 1 DVDs, the later TV cuts pulled some of the heavier scenes entirely.

jamieperez1mo agoMost Upvoted

My buddy tried to show his kid Gargoyles a few years back and popped in a DVD set he found at a thrift store, and halfway through an episode his kid asked why the cartoon was so sad all of a sudden. He hadn't seen it since he was a kid and totally forgot how much heavy stuff was in there, like characters actually getting killed off for real. @emery965 you're absolutely right about the DVDs being the way to go, that's the only way to get the show the way it was meant to be seen before the networks panicked and started cutting it up.