A lot has been said about treating the youth with kid gloves. Some people would say parents today coddle their children too much and, as someone who grew up during the ’80s, I kind of have to agree. I mean, last week, I talked about how I would just walk into a movie theater and watch an R-rated movie without anyone batting an eyelash. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen these days as there would ultimately some parent who would scream for someone to think about the children.

A part of me also believes that Hollywood was okay with kids who aren’t old enough to grow a mustache are familiar with these movies and television shows that were supposed to be only watched by adults. That’s the only explanation I can think of as to why there were so many “adult” movies and television shows that eventually moved to targeting kids!

So, with that in mind, let’s go travel back in time and look at just five things that were supposed to be only for “mature audiences” but eventually started getting marketed to the “immature” children.

#1 Robocop

The original Robocop movie is one of those films that really earned its R-rating. I remember watching this as a kid and seeing Alex Murphy getting shot up by the father from That ’70s Show and his gang and wondered if I should be seeing this. I usually didn’t mind ultra-gory violence then. That’s how brutal that scene was! Not only that, there was also some brief nudity thrown in there just for good measure.

That didn’t stop Robocop from being exploited to sell toys, though! In fact, the sequels became much more kid-friendly as time went on and it even spawned a little known live-action series and even a very family friendly Saturday morning cartoon! Ya gotta love how casually they mention how Alex Murphy was “mortally wounded” in the intro! It sounds so pleasant and peaceful!

In retrospect, Robocop did have all the elements to be the toy-spewing marketing tool he became, even way back in the first movie. You have a cool looking and shiny unstoppable hero in Robocop who is practically a superhero. You have a menacing foe in ED-209. It had cool special effects and action scenes. How was this not made for kids in the first place? Then again, a lot of what made the first Robocop would’ve been lost if they did edit the script to make it PG. All the satire about corporate greed and human hubris would’ve been dropped. Come to think of it, isn’t that what happened with the 2014 Robocop remake?

#2 Starship Troopers

Forgive me for being a naive idiot. But when I first saw Starship Troopers way back in 1997, I really didn’t pick up on the underlying message of how propaganda can warp a person’s morals. I was one of the morons who were rooting for the human forces as, after all, they were only trying to protect the Earth from those evil, evil bugs. It only really struck me that maybe I was cheering for the villains when Doogie Houser strode onto the screen, clad in an all-black trench coat military garb. I’m intentionally not saying what he’s supposed to represent but… you know.

So I found it really funny that they actually made a CGI-animated television series based on Starship Troopers where they took all of the nuance and just made it a generic action show for kids. Basically, it became the kind of propaganda you would see in those commercials in the movie.

I never watched Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles but they certainly changed the tone from the movie! In the cartoon, the Bugs are definitely the bad guys, even enslaving other planets in order to mine for resources, and the humans are the galaxy’s saviors. Then again, the cartoon might just be another propaganda tool from the movie. You never know!

#3 Rambo

Like Robocop, it’s kind of amazing how the story of John Rambo, former Vietnam veteran with PTSD, has changed with each installment. In the first movie, First Blood, he snaps when he’s arrested and abused by the Sheriff’s department of a small town. In the second installment, confusingly titled Rambo: First Blood Part II, John Rambo is sent into enemy territory to find if reports of POWs are correct and, if they are, to rescue them. Some pretty heavy stuff.

So, of course, they made Rambo become the leader of an elite special mission force called The Force of Freedom. Rambo and the Force of Freedom’s mission is to protect the world from SAVAGE, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to… wait. Am I just reciting the intro to GI Joe?

Yeah, Rambo: The Force of Freedom was basically GI Joe but with Rambo and a much smaller team. Much like Robocop, they essentially stripped away all of the nuance of Rambo’s character and just made him a very familiar heroic soldier who only wants peace for the entire world. Then again, I’m glad he’s all over his PTSD.

#4 The Toxic Avenger

I can certainly understand why Robocop and Rambo got their own kid-friendly cartoon series. The protagonists in those films are charismatic. The Toxic Avenger, however, kind of walks the line quite a bit. Mervin Fred Junko is a janitor who accidentally falls into some toxic wastes. This turns him into a crimefighting hero known as the Toxic Avenger. While I will admit he’s does have some heroic qualities as he does save the people of Tromaville as a vigilante crimefighter, he’s not exactly the most good looking guy. So, of course he got a cartoon series with other freaks in Toxic Crusaders!

In hindsight, I do kind of get the appeal of Toxic Crusaders. Sure, they may look gross as they’re all mutants who look like they’re all falling apart. But what kid didn’t like gross things? However, I will have to say that Toxic Crusaders share very little mutated DNA from the original Toxic Avenger. Gone is the message of celebrating being weird from the original film as it’s now replaced with an ecological lesson of how recycling is good and all that. Still, it is a fun cartoon but I feel sorry for the parent who mistakenly rented The Toxic Avenger because their kid loved the Saturday morning cartoon.

#5 Conan the Barbarian

Remember that classic line from Conan the Barbarian where, when asked what is best in life, he replies “crush your enemies, see then driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women”? This is there to show Conan really isn’t into all this fighting for the good of the universe. Here’s meant to destroy! Heck, that’s why the sequel is called Conan the Destroyer! Still, toy companies, looking at the previous success of He-Man probably, figured out they could turn this anti-hero into a swashbuckling do-gooder. And so, Conan the Adventurer was made!

Of course, Conan the Adventurer changed a lot of the basic plot of Conan the Barbarian to make it suitable for younger audiences. In the cartoon, Conan’s parents weren’t brutally killed but simply turned into stone. He even got a chatty sidekick, Needle, who’s a phoenix who lives in his shield! It’s definitely different from the movie but hey! They needed a new He-Man!

BONUS: Mortal Kombat

The video game that help create the ESRB video games rating board. Mortal Kombat caused a lot of outrage from parents with its graphic for its time Fatality moves. This did mean that each and every Mortal Kombat (besides the awful Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe) was rated M for Mature. But since it was a successful video game, they of course had to make a cartoon without all that Fatality nonsense!

Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm actually followed the continuity of live-action movie but, still, the movie was based on the successful video game franchise. However, I’m only adding this as a bonus because the original source material, the video games, were rated for “Mature” audiences. Since the movie is PG-13, it doesn’t exactly meet the criteria for this list.

What other movies meant for mature audiences that eventually got their own cartoon do you know? Let me know in the comments section below!