I'm 19 years old and I still enjoy watching cartoons. Is that immature? Nah, I don't care if it is or not. Everybody is "immature" in one way or another, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Anyways, I think I enjoy watching cartoons as an adult more than I did as a kid because of nostalgia reasons, how you can notice subliminal messages, adult humor, and it's just easier to really get to know characters and plots of the stories.
I've been watching Adventure Time recently and it amazed me how many inappropriate jokes and psychedelic references are in there. Even theories like having a dream about your past life and right before Finn dies in the Puhoy episode where he goes into Jake's pillow hut and stumbles in a different world with no way to come back, he experiences a DMT trip right before he dies. People do think DMT is in our pineal gland and it is active from birth to death, and our dreams are what it's from as well.
An episode I watched recently was when BMO was deleting things off him/herself inside a box so BMO could hide in there like it's referring to some masturbation joke. This was also in that episode too:
Here's a psychedelic reference to the Duke of Nuts episode where Duke of nut's house are Psilocybin mushrooms:
I got caught up. I made this post to discuss how interesting our minds can be when we've watched something when we were younger, to rewatching something when we're older and we notice and understand things we never thought of before, due to our lack of knowledge and maturity.
It's quite funny because once we start noticing these things in the cartoons we used to watch, it makes us question our childhood. Your thoughts would be like, "Holy shit, why did they do that?!" or realizing that the creators behind the cartoon have similar interests and humor like you do now. Theories in shows tend to become more clear in shows, like how people said that Krabby Patties are made of crab, which in one episode, Mr.Krabs took a bite off one and said, "So, that's what I taste like!"
Spongebob for sure had the most subliminal messages by far. Or, at least I think the most.
Personally, I think modern cartoons like the new Teen Titans and Powerpuff Girls try too hard to make things inappropriate just to make things fit in as a trend in today's society, like twerking and all that.
For these reasons alone, I'm possibly going to start watching the shows I used to watch as a child again. Nothing is more uplifting than that nostalgia feeling, too.
I've noticed this with music too. There are songs I sang along with for years without understanding the deeper meaning of the lyrics. Then when I got older, it was like the song became new again and I was able to enjoy it on a whole different level.
I think the reason for adult humor in children's cartoons is to keep the parents (whose kids asked to watch the cartoon with them) entertained. Seems right. As for being immature... I'm 40 and watch cartoons. Heck, been watching reruns of The Real Ghostbusters... my kid seems to like it, mostly for Slimer.
It's splendid! I can see myself watching cartoons until the day I die. It's just so fun to see how creative creators can be and It's going to be hilarious if I ever have kids and we watch shows with references they don't get.