21 Cartoons for Kids That Deserve Gritty Reboots
‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ could get really gory
There was an era between the mid-2000s and the mid-2010s when Hollywood was obsessed with dark reimaginings of existing IP. It started with Christopher Nolan’s Batman, spread to just about every other superhero, sank its claws into the public domain, and finally infected everything within its reach. We made jokes about it, and they made a gritty Fresh Prince reboot called Bel-Air, which sounds like a joke but is both real and in its third season.
It’s possible, though, that they didn’t go far enough. There’s real potential in the idea of gritty reboots of properties even further away from the target tone — let’s say, oh, just about everything in the Nickelodeon afterschool lineup between 1996 and 2002. That’s pretty much what Redditors itemized when user ItookAnumber4 asked r/AskReddit, “What kids’ cartoon would be super awesome if made into an R-rated movie (animated or live action)?”
ThunderCats
X-Men: The Animated Series
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Courage the Cowardly Dog
Invader Zim
Hey Arnold!
The Amazing World of Gumball
Caillou
ReBoot
Pinky and the Brain
Darkwing Duck
Danny Phantom
Codename: Kids Next Door
Captain Planet
Inside Out
SpongeBob SquarePants
Zootopia
Kim Possible
Batman: The Animated Series
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Johnny Bravo
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