Ace Ventura: Pet Detective: While the original film was far darker and had lots of sexual moments, the animated series was understandably toned down for younger audiences.
When Nickelodeon's CBS block featured non-Jr. shows from 2002-2005, due to having to comply to the E/I guidelines, the two most popular Nicktoons of the time, SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly OddParents!, were off-limits for the CBS block, therefore Nick had to rely on less-popular Nicktoons to fill the roster, like All Grown Up!, As Told by Ginger, and ChalkZone.
The Animals of Farthing Wood: The third season is markedly more cartoony in nature, compared to the comparatively grim and serious prior seasons. The events of one novel from the equivalent time period, The Seige of White Deer Park, were Adapted Out due to their strong horror themes. The war against the rats was also greatly toned down, with far fewer kills by the rats, their one confirmed kill toned down from "ripping an adder to shreds with their teeth as it fights for its life" to simply strangling it, and their leader Bully is simply humiliated and driven away in shame after a young weasel kit sneaks up on him and bites off his tail, when in the novel he was mauled to death by Vixen before being thrown over the park's boundary fence in a climactic battle that includes hundreds of rats being trampled and gored by a herd of deer.
Babar: Although the animated series in its original 1989-1991 run was already lighthearted and family friendly, some of the issues that it depicted were pretty harsh including Babar's mom being shot dead by The Hunter in front of his eyes (this even caused controversy in later re-runs of the show due to outrage of Moral Guardians), school bullying, racism, political intrigue and war. The 2000s revival was much more fantasy-oriented and let aside all hot topics, presenting fairy tale-like adventures. The 2010 Sequel SeriesBabar and the Adventures of Badou, while dropping the fantasy elements, continues the softer path, with much less dramatic stories and being generally aimed at a more preschool-oriented audience than the original.
Barbie: The CGI movies followed a very similar route to the evolution of My Little Pony up to Generation 4 (not counting Barbie and the Rockers: Out of This World). In the original series, which ran from 2001 to 2009, the series actually had a pretty dark run. Aside from the princesses and cute animals, these stories contained monsters, dark magic, and even occasional death and injury (the darkest of which is Barbie & The Diamond Castle). Characters, including two adorable puppies, are stalked, threatened, and even turned to stone, but the next series of Barbie movies leaves the dark magic behind, and instead takes a much more lighthearted and fashion oriented approach, with none of the villains being threatening and being very comedic. However, the third series completely wipes any idea of darkness in Barbie away. This series has no true villains, is all sparkles and pink, and has very lighthearted and humor-oriented storylines.
Baymax!: A much calmer, less superhero centered take on the Big Hero 6 universe.
Beetlejuice (1989): The cartoon based on the movie, even with Tim Burton as a creative consultant and quite a bit of mature humor, was tamer than its film counterpart.
The Berenstain Bears (2002): The series in general, which tones down a lot of the quarreling and screaming that was commonplace in the books and the 1985 series. The adaption of "Get the Gimmies", in particular, along with the moral expansion, takes out the tantrum scene.
BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn is an animated movie with slapstick comedy, cartoon sound effects, a cutesy animal sidekick, easily beatable bad guys, a great emphasis on friendship and unity, and mild fantasy violence. A drastic shift from its prequel novel Raid on Vulcanus (which is a serious-toned tale of gruesome fights, death, cynical and morally vague heroes, dangerous villains and ungrateful villagers) and the original Miramax trilogy. The novel adaptation of TLR is more in line with the book's tone.
Bob's Burgers: After the first two seasons depicted the Belchers as a largely Dysfunctional Family, Season 3 onwards shows them as extremely quirky and prone to bickering but a primarily loving and wholesome family, which has only gotten more prevalent as the show continues. The show has also shied away from some of the edgier humor used in Seasons 1 and 2 (especially the former), with later seasons using biting and often adult-oriented humor but not outright dark humor.
Catscratch is an adaptation of a comic book called Gear, which centers on a war between anthropomorphic species, fought on giant robots, and doesn't shy away from depicting murders, genocide, body horror and torture. The cartoon is an episodic comedy with the only things in common being the characters Gordon, Waffle, and Mr. Black (referred as Mr. Blik in the show).
The Cleveland Show is a much lighter and softer version of Family Guy, with foul language, gore and extreme domestic abuse/violence much more minimized, in comparison with the original series.
On the subject of Seth MacFarlane shows, American Dad! is also this compared to Family Guy. The last season on FOX is noticeably lighter and softer than the show's previous several seasons as the foul language and even gore are significantly toned down. There hasn't even been a Precision F-Strike at all in these episodes.
Cybersix: The short lived cult series was way lighter and softer than the original comic it was based on: All the Nazi Backstory of Von Reichter becomes subtext; when defeated the Fixed Ideas evaporate videogame-style leaving behind a pile of clothes & a "Sustenance" health powerup for Cybersix so she didn't need to bite them like a vampire as in the comic; and nothing of all the high sexual content of the original.
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is this to the original Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, as that show has a darker, more somber tone in contrast to the world of Daniel Tiger, and deals with more mature topics such as assassination. And while Daniel Tiger taught kids death, it was for kids to understand, due to being aimed at a slightly younger audience than Mister Rogers.
Dave the Barbarian: Done In-Universe, and Played for Laughs, in "A Pig's Story". In the episode, Evil Overlord-cum-Fluffy the Terrible Chuckles the Silly Piggy forces the Lemony Narrator to destroy Dave and his family, failing when the narrator develops laryngitis too severe for him to speak. A clown auditioning to replace him acts like he's telling a story for toddlers, causing everyone to giggle, grin, and make peace. Dave, disturbed, calls up another hopeful: a trucker who announces a demolition derby.
The second season of the British cartoon Dodo has none of the raunchier humour of the first season.
Ewoks has the second season, compared to first and the made-for-tv films; and the whole series compared to Ewoks' appearance in Return of the Jedi.
Played with in the episode where Brian and Stewie get teleported into an alternate dimension which is Disneyfied. All the characters are friendlier and burst into impromptu song and dance routines... this is all ruined when they notice the rampant antisemitism in this dimension.
In "There's Something About Paulie", according to Meg, her school's production of Death of a Salesman is toned down.
Meg: I had rehearsal for Death of a Salesman, but we can't show death at school, so now at the end, we dance around with sparklers.
Relatively speaking, the show starting with Season 18 is this compared to many of the seasons before, due to being less reliant on Vulgar Humor and Bloody Hilarious and leaning more heavily into absurdism and Lampshade Hanging. The characters, while still flanderized, have their Jerkass tendencies toned down, Quagmire's sex offender antics are downplayed so heavily they basically do not exist (which, according to the show, is due to the #MeToo movement), and even Meg gets far less hate, being treated more like just another member of the family, and as much of a Butt-Monkey as every other Griffin. It's still not as light as the first few seasons, but still significantly lighter than what came before.
The Joe Oriolo made-for-TV cartoons from the late 1950's and early 1960's have none of the urban tone, dark or vulgar gags or surreal nature of the original silent cartoons. Part of this was because of content restrictions imposed on TV cartoons of the time, and because of mandates imposed by Trans-Lux; they wanted the new Felix to exclusively be a kids show, hence why Jack Mercer (the sole voice actor for the series) spoke in slow deliberate tones. Felix was to be everybody's best friend who could solve any problem anyone had, even if it meant taking the easy way out with the Magic Bag.
This also applies to the Van Beuren Studios Felix the Cat cartoons, where Felix becomes a kid like protagonist and all of the darker, urban elements of the older films were abandoned, due in part to the Hays Office growing its claws and also due to their director, former Disney alumni Burt Gillett, seeing the approach of the original Felix cartoons as old hat in 1936 and wanted to switch the series to pure fantasy.
The Fool and the Flying Ship: The Rabbit Ears Productions version was much lighter and softer compared to the original Russian folktale due to making the characters more wacky and changing some scenes from the original text. For example, there was a scene in the original folktale where the Fool and the man who carries the straw have to stay in a heated bath house over night. This scene was cut out in the Rabbit Ears version.
Garfield and Friends is this to the original primetime specials. While the specials still had humor in them, they were more dramadies than anything else, as many of them also played up several emotional parts for genuine drama, and at least half featured Garfield, Jon, and/or Odie having their lives seriously threatened. The TV show focused more on slapstick and comedy, with Garfield frequently Breaking the Fourth Wall and hanging numerous lampshades on cartoon cliches.
Garfield: His 9 Lives is a mixed case: compared to the original comic, it tones down or removes some of the darker elements (most notably, the extremely dark "Primal Cat" is cut entirely). However, it's also considerably Darker and Edgier than the rest of the specials, partly due to some of what remained (such as the Body Horror in "Lab Animal") but also partly from some of the new material made for the animated version, mainly the very downbeat and melancholy "Diana's Piano".
Harriet the Spy is mostly the original book crossed with something along the lines of Hey Arnold! or Arthur. But when it does follow the book, which occurs in the second half of season 2, the meanspirited and cruel aspects of the story are toned down. The pranks (particularly on Harriet's side) are reduced, and we don't see Harriet zero in on everyone's weak spot. Harriet even comes to her Heel Realization sooner and apologizes in a very different way.
In Highlander: The Animated Series, immortals don't behead each other. They choose to pass on the knowledge by handing their sword over to the other Immortal, giving them everything the other immortal experienced through their lives. The heroes do this. The villain, however, opts for the classic decapitation (though it's off screen). They also offhandedly mention that he killed Connor McLeod after Connor chose to fight the Big Bad after giving an oath not to.
Lilo & Stitch: The Series has a more lighthearted tone compared to the original movie. Mertle's bullying of Lilo is toned down to make her come off more as a petty, snooty rival, while Gantu becomes less ambiguous and threatening as Hamsterviel commands him to capture Stitch's 625 predecessors. The series does however continue from where the original movie left off, as it sometimes references the fact that Lilo and Nani's parents are deceased.
Little Shop of Horrors had an animated series, where the killer, man-eating plant was now friendly and tried to help Seymour, and the psychotic sadistic dentist was a school yard bully who torments him at every opportunity.
Baby Looney Tunes, being a Spin-Off Babies version of Looney Tunes, is built on this. The wacky slapstick antics of the characters are absent here, instead focusing more on adventures around the nursery with an obvious target audience of preschoolers.
Loonatics Unleashed: Taking notice of the popularity of Darker and Edgier cartoons from Japan, Warner Bros. tried to jump on the bandwagon by reinventing the Looney Tunes as intimidating crime fighters in a gritty futuristic setting. After a huge amount of backlash they realized that was something most people in fact didn't want to see and tried to salvage the show by instead reworking it into a more standard superhero cartoon that happened to have heroes who looked like famous funny animals. When that still failed to capture an audience they went even lighter, playing up comedy and reintroducing the rest of the classic characters in futuristic form. It didn't work, and the series was abandoned after only two seasons.
Bugs Bunny Builders, much like Baby Looney Tunes , is also a more preschool oriented take on the franchise. While it still has the franchise's trademark slapstick and witty humor, it's more toned down.
Long Story Short carries some of the same dark themes of the creators other show BoJack Horseman but it's done in a more tender, sincere, and not as darkly intense way.
Making Fiends is a good example for Nick. During its jump to TV, Nick made changes to many of the darker things, such as an "A is for alimony" poster, and a poster of a cat being hanged. Also in remakes of web episodes, they replaced lines like "Tempt not yon hellcat" to "Tempt not yon fiendcat", and the line "And your eyeballs will fall out" to "and your eyebrows will fall out." It's still a dark cartoon with heavy black comedy themes, however some aspects were toned down on Nick.
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is this to the whole Mickey Mouse franchise. While Mickey Mouse and his friends have been universal characters for all ages, this incarnation is specifically aimed at pre-schoolers. This would carry over to the nextfewshows.
Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm: The Mortal Kombat games were a Hong Kong pastiche with a fetish for viscera. The show was about a bunch of superheroes that fought space ninjas, lived in a cave, and had trauma about being fat when they were kids.
"Rescue from Midnight Castle" aka the 1984 pilot is considered the darkest and edgiest incarnation of the entire franchise, featuring creepy characters, real death situations, competent henchmen and the infamous Big Bad Tirek, who was a genocidal (and hyper competent) villain who used physical violence and death threats. Without mentioning how the original incarnation of Megan was a rough cowgirl who ended up graphically killing Tirek by ripping him into shreds with the power of her Rainbow of Light (and then finishing him off by destroying what was left of Tirek in a big explosion).
My Little Pony 'n Friends could be summed up as "Disney Princesses visit Sunnydale", as it featured very cutesy pastel-colored pony girls getting routinely threatened by horrible monsters. Follow-up Series My Little Pony Tales dropped the monsters and the magic, and turned it into a teen drama/comedy set in a quaint little town of near-anthropomorphic ponies. The G3 series, however, goes full-blown Sugar Bowl. The subsequentgenerations dial it back a bit, finding a happy medium between cute slice-of-life comedy and adventure and danger.
While it's not an sequel to The Animals of Farthing Wood despite the fact both shows share three of the cast members and crew members, Noah's Island is this when compared to the previous show, and even more so than the previous show's third and final season, due to it being more cartoony and humorous.
The Powerpuff Girls (2016) is this compared to the original series, due to toned down violence and more focus on comedy. The look of the series is also literally Lighter and Softer, as the sharp edges from the original series are rounded, and the show has lighter coloring.
The Problem Solverz was originally pitched to [adult swim] and was much more random and surreal than the Cartoon Network series. Now the show is quite toned down and focuses more on the episode plots instead of arbitrary BLAMs.
Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade was a more subtle example. The gang's crazy schemes were nowhere near as epic as they were in the show itself (aside from T.J.'s boycott against school in the beginning), and became more Slice of Life.
Regular Show: The later seasons (particularly season 6-8) are this to the earlier seasons. There are way less adult jokes in these episodes than in earlier seasons, and the ones that do get by aren't as raunchy, Family-Friendly Firearms is now played straight instead of averted, the mild swear words in early seasons are absent, and violence is toned down much more (barring a few episodes like "Brilliant Century Duck Crisis Special").
Robotomy: During production, the crew behind the show had to constantly be reminded that it was airing in primetime, and so not to go too much toward [adult swim] content. They still got away with a whole lot.
Rugrats had the later episodes. While the show was already about babies going on adventures, the later seasons dumbed down the baby talk and almost all of the parental bonuses were removed.
The Simpsons has undergone this following Disney's acquisition of Fox, with the more negative elements of Homer's personality significantly further toned down than it already was in the HD episodes in general, the famous Running Gag in which he strangles his son Bart disappearing in Played Straight contexts, and him and Marge being Happily Married as opposed to constantly teetering on the brink of divorce. This shift has met with a positive reception from fans who see it as a much-needed Character Rerailment evoking the show's "classic" run over the course of the 90s, since Homer's worst Jerkass tendencies were notoriously the result of Flanderization from roughly Seasons 9 onward. It probably helps that the show retains its fair share of Black Comedy and even inverted this trope for a Bloodier and Gorier spoof of prestige TV drama in the 2-parter "A Serious Flanders."
Slimer! And the Real Ghostbusters was a lighter and softer version of The Real Ghostbusters. To wit, the focus of the show has shifted from the quartet going around capturing ghosts (some of which are truly malicious) to Slimer constantly trying to evade a mad scientist who wishes to capture him for research via zany schemes.
Slippin' Jimmy: Exaggerated. Better Call Saul was a gritty, adult-oriented legal drama with comedic elements, and Slippin' Jimmy is a straight-up cartoon comedy with no pretense of realism.
South Park starting with Season 16 has been this. It's been years since the last time Cartman called Kyle a dirty Jew, Kenny died, or a celebrity was brutally roasted.note Even though they still make fun of the famous, it's definitely got tamer.
Superjail! has the second season, at least compared to the first. Characters are more humanized and sympathetic and less wantonly cruel, and this includes the inmates. It's still a Gorn series, but less randomly cruel than in the first season.
The 2003 cartoon came closer to the original comic books, until Season 6, Fast Forward, which is considerately lighter and more laughable than all the five seasons before it. It doesn't even feature any deaths, save for Sh'Okanabo's at the end of the penultimate episode when he gets killed by a light grenade batted into his mouth by Donatello. When they return to the present, the old atmosphere returns as well. And even within the Mirage inspired seasons which were generally darker in tone, the "City at War" storyline was a notable exception. The original story was more violent, with the Turtles killing off the Foot Elite in brutal and violent ways and at one point, Donatello was forced to grab a machine gun to kill one of them, whereas the Elite here don't die. The story also had a much more somber tone, reflecting the end of an era where Volume 1 of Mirage TMNT was coming to an end and the Turtles were Coming of Age. However, that somber feeling isn't present for the show's presentation of "City at War" due to the three-parter only being a mid-season trilogy and not the end of the series, or even the season.
The 2012 show adopts bits and pieces of the tone of the 1987 series, but character designs and certain villains occasionally veer the show into darker territory, with the tone being more or less a moderation of the 1987 and 2003 shows.
The crossovers that most of the TV adaptations have with Usagi Yojimbo are considerably lighter than the serious, violent Jidaigeki comic that inspired them, although the 2012 3-part arc featuring Jei is the least comedic of them.
The original The Railway Series may have been kids books at heart, but they were written with the idea the world its characters inhabited was as close to reality as possible other than the talking trains and the existence of Sodor. The first few seasons of the TV series played pretty closely to this, with down to earth stories following the tone of the books; but as it went on more fantastical elements such as magic were added (notably in the film Thomas and the Magic Railroad). Many of the darker real-life elements of the original books, such as locomotive scrapping or the death of human characters, were removed from the TV show or downplayed with time, while more absurd elements were included such as the trains daydreaming fantastical adventures in a bid to sell more toys.
Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go: If the original show is a lighter and softer evolution from the books, then the reboot series was that to the original TV series; any remaining dark elements have been expunged in favor of a brighter and more wacky series.
ThunderCats Roar is a wacky, comical take on ThunderCats (1985) with plenty of action sequences. It's been heavily criticized because the premise of "alien refuges flee their dying home planet to start a new life" doesn't exactly scream "comedy".
The slapstick in Tom and Jerry Time is portrayed more gently here given the preschool target audience. It's best shown in the episode "Apples Away", which has Tom and Jerry engaging in their usual slapstick, but it happens inside a picnic basket, where the audience only ever sees the basket jumping around, but not them hitting each other.
Total DramaRama is this to its parent series. Being a Spin-Off Babies show, it’s aimed at a younger audience and features preschooler versions of the teenage contestants having adventures around a daycare instead of spoofing Reality TV. It's also much Denser and Wackier than the parent series ever was.
Beast Machines is about planetary genocide, religious fanaticism and unceasing, torrential whining. Transformers: Robots in Disguise is about the wacky adventures of a put-upon space shark and the delightful things he does. That's something of a simplification, but the fact remains: Transformers has never gotten quite so dark as Beast Machines since, note until Transformers: Prime, anyways, if only because presumably Hasbro have decided they'd quite like people to actually buy their toys.
Everything is lighter and softer compared to Beast Machines, even its Anyone Can Die-prone predecessor Beast Wars. Let's put it this way - when Simon Furman, who is sometimes Britain's answer to Yoshiyuki Tomino in the Anyone Can Die (and probably will) department and who (reportedly) immediately asked "Who can I kill?" when asked to work on your series, says you're getting too dark, you're getting too dark. Of course, RID is still the lightest TF series yet, and one where nobody dies - not even Prime puts in the obligatory temporary death. It's pretty accurately described above, and would fit the trope no matter what series it followed.
Also, there's Transformers: Animated following the first PG-13 movie by a few months. The movie: every so often, the torrent of sex jokes pauses to depict bots getting savagely ripped apart. The fact many humans caught in the crossfire would get all kinds of dead goes from Fridge Logic to onscreen reality. So of course we follow it with the cutesiest TF series ever. However, it was prone to Cerebus Syndrome and winds up second only to Beast Machines in the darkness category (at the time. Prime hadn't had its say yet.)
There is also Transformers: Rescue Bots: For starters, there are no Decepticons present for the Bots to contend with. The series is especially notable in depicting this trope in that Word of God places the series within the Transformers Aligned Universe, meaning it shares some form of continuity with Transformers: Prime. Prime is usually played by Peter Cullen these days so his (highly redesigned) presence wasn't proof, but now we've seen Bumblebee portrayed just as he is in TFP and get clear references to the series anytime someone from it shows up. It's interesting to see the Rescue Bots series dance around the violence of the crossover characters' world; Prime says Bumblebee "lost his voice in the line of duty" because "The Ax-CrazyEvil Overlord Megatron horribly tortured him, and when he still wouldn't talk after days of it, Megs ripped his voice box out so he'd never talk again. Oh, did I mention Cybertronians totally feel pain, too?" is a teensy bit heavier than what you usually see in RB.
Transformers: BotBots is arguably as Lighter and Softer as Rescue Bots, as, unlike most entries that center on the Autobot/Decepticon war, this show is a Slice of Life comedy centering on the hijinks of a community of small Transformers on a mall.
The Trash Pack: The Mondo TV adaptation of The Trash Pack toyline practically eliminates all of the gross-out feel of the original toys, thus almost making it lose some of its charm at the same time. The grossness was eventually brought back with the webisode series and concurrent media in the franchise.
Underdogs United, a Discovery Kids animated Argentine series, is cheerier and vibrant compared to its precursor film Metegol. While Metegol is not without its comedic moments, it was dark in both tone and setting (90% of the movie takes place at night), focusing on Amadeo trying to take back both his city and Laura from El Grosso. Meanwhile, Underdogs United is a lighthearted Edutainment Show focusing on teamwork and sportsmanship, as well as having several funny moments from the team bouncing off from each other to Worst's failed attempts at defeating the Underdogs.
