5 Times Cartoons Made Surprisingly Profound Observations in a Few Seconds

As a millennial, I’m all about nostalgia, and I love me some cartoons. Especially adult cartoons, because they’re often full of references to the truly outrageous old cartoons I’m nostalgic about. Thundercats, hooo-oooo!!!!! Aside from being funny and entertaining, they also come at you sometimes with an unexpected thought-provoking moment. Here are five of my favorites.

5.) American Dad, “Stan Knows Best.”

Power-hungry CIA agent Stan stops supporting his daughter Hayley after a fight that culminates in him shaving her head and her moving out, so she becomes a stripper to pay the bills. She decides that she ultimately likes the job, but is booed off stage after her wig falls off. “That’s the one place you want em to have hair,” a disgusted patron says. The entire episode deals with Hayley’s battle with Stan for control over her beliefs and even her body, but ends with her going home in shame to be financially dependent on him once more. However, totally out of left field, with one sentence the writers point out the absurd and arbitrary nature of beauty standards for women.

4.) The Cleveland Show, “Love Rollercoaster.”

Cleveland from Family Guy briefly had his own show. It garnered a fair amount of hate, most deservedly for the fact that two of the five main Black characters were voiced by a white guy and most of the show’s staff were white, but it wasn’t completely bereft of worthwhile content. (Plus cast members Sanaa Lathan and Kevin Michael Richardson are fucking brilliant.) Cleveland’s teenage stepdaughter, Roberta, wants to prove that she’s not coasting by on her looks, so she dons a fat suit and is shocked when she becomes an outcast. The episode does a decent job making a point about shallowness, but one disgusting yet eloquent scene highlights the plight of high school teachers, who are always underpaid and often depressed. When Roberta tries flirting with her teacher to avoid getting in trouble while in the fat suit, he vomits, then growls, “Oh, wonderful, my antidepressants are in there. Five bucks a pop. Go get me a glass of water, fatty.”

3.) The Simpsons, “Homer’s Phobia.”

In a verrrrrry mid-90s episode, Homer is freaked out when the family befriends an openly gay guy, John. Homer eventually learns a valuable lesson about tolerance when John saves his, Moe’s, and Barney’s life. All the gay guys in the episode, John included, are hopelessly stereotypical, but it was a pretty solid effort for almost 30 years ago. In fact, the staff had to battle the censors to have the episode aired at all. John has a lot of great lines, but one in particular stands out for me, as John cheerfully and wittily points out that he’s a human being and not a label. Barney: “Aw, Moe, we were saved by a sissy.” Moe: “Yeah, yeah, we’ll never live it down. Oh boy, it looks like it’s suicide again for me.” Homer: “Hey! We owe this guy, and I don’t want you calling him a sissy. This guy’s a fruit! No wait, wait, wait, queer, queer, queer! That’s what you like to be called, right?” John: “Well, that or John.”

2.) The Cleveland Show, “Brown History Month.”

Again, this show was reviled, in part for being created and written by white dudes. This episode means well, and it manages to land a few good points about white privilege, particularly the unpredictably poignant scene when Cleveland’s stepson Rallo, who is five, is preparing for a school presentation on Black history month, and finds out that for centuries only white men have been president. He’s passed up to play Barack Obama, but he tries to get over his disappointment, saying, “I’ll just go ahead and be one of the other Black presidents. Actually, I wanna be the first Black president. Who was it?”

1.) God, the Devil, and Bob, “Bob’s Father.”

I’m going to assume you’ve never heard of this show from the early aughts; it got canceled after a few episodes. I found it on Netflix back when all they had were discs that they mailed to your house. It concerns an average guy who’s stuck in the middle of a contest between God and Satan to decide whether humanity is worth saving. Bob, whose father was a shitty dude, is upset when he finds out his father is in heaven. The entire episode has a lot of spot-on observations about parenting, including a side story about Bob’s bratty teenage daughter getting a dog and her mother laughing at her inability to discipline it, but the scene when Bob confronts God about his father really pulls at my heartstrings. It’s pretty much the whole reason this show still takes up space in my brain (besides Alan Cumming as the Devil, which is the whole reason I watched it in the first place). God: “Look, I know your father was a jerk to you, but you don’t know what was in his heart.” Bob: “Don’t do this, don’t give me that crap, I don’t care what was in his heart, he never shared it with me.” God: “You’re right, and you’re right to be mad at him, but it’s not your job to forgive him, it’s mine.” Bob: “Yeah, well.” God: “Did you know your grandfather?” Bob: “What? No. He never talked about him.” God: “Now he was a scary guy.” Bob: “Oh, so that makes it okay for my dad to treat me bad? [Scoffs] Liberals!” God: “No, that’s not what I’m saying. Look, Bob. Okay. Picture this long line of fathers and sons stretching from Adam all the way down to [Bob’s son] Andy, and they’re all passing down this punch. From one generation to the next, father to son. And the trick is to pass on a softer punch. Your father passed on a softer punch.”

And that’s it. By the power of Grayskull!