*Copyright update* - Around the 20 minute mark there's a trimmed section that got cut due to a copyright claim for Smosh Babies. The point I was making was that it's hard to tell who the target audience for Smosh Babies is given the clashing tones of mature and immature. That's all
I see Bratz babies are more as chibi versions of the characters than actual babies. It makes more sense for that since they still act like teens, with the occasional child/baby like quirk.
That's what I was thinking too. A lot of these franchises would benefit from learning about chibi/sd culture, cause it seems like that's more what they were actually going for rather than actual baby/kid versions.
@@OtakuUnitedStudio I guess the bratz babies are actually more like cute chibi forms (or even toddlers) than babies, because toddlers have more hair and are a bit older than babies but are still small.
@@hauntedwafflecakeThat was from the early 2000's though, anime being sorta popular in the US was still a very new thing and I'm sure the exects running the companies that made that stuff didn't understand anime.
@@SlapstickGenius23 There's no specific definition for when a child stops being a baby, and some people include toddlers in their definition of baby. They were supposed to be the Bratz characters as babies. They had diapers and bottles. They all had the same short pigtails. They had baby-like proportions and baby accessories. But they also had a bizarre air of flirtiness about them.
I think babyification is so popular because people LOVE to see a small, cute version of their favorite characters. I have never watched muppet babies but I personally am so obsessed with baby Kermit it makes me a little teary.
I’ve seen a few episodes of the newer Muppet Babies while hanging out with younger family and it so really cute. I think it does a good job at making them feel like babies and also still feel like the same characters that you know and love. It’s a surprisingly good version of babyfication
Babyified shows are shockingly common, but what's even MORE common is the "baby episode" where one or more character gets transformed into a baby for the duration of the episode. Nearly every kid's cartoon from the 90's and 2000's had at least one. It thankfully dropped off in the 2010's, but it was a VERY weird trend nonetheless.
Don't forget the babysitting episode where the characters have to babysit some random ass character we never have seen before's baby and the baby is always a hell spawn that causes the episodes problem or they lose the baby and have to travel everywhere just to find the baby 😵💫
@@M33PSTERbut in that case it kinda made sense with the lore of SU, with what steven's appearance being affected by his mindset. usually the trope is just comes kinda out of nowhere in media
The latest I saw wasn’t an episode, per se, but instead a plot point of a movie. It was Precure All Stars Memories, and it basically had a villain hunting down the Precure to steal their powers, personalites, and memories for himself, turning the Cures back into infants in the process.
I find it funny that Rugrats is pretty much the definitive Muppet Babies inspired show, but that aspect went largely unnoticed because it wasn't a spin-off.
I love that you used Clifford's Puppy Days as an example right out of the gate because no lie that was my FAVORITE show when I was a literal baby myself. And no one ever talks about it but it was so so much fun and I loved that they kept true to the timeline and instead of baby-fying the cast of characters of regular Clifford he had all different friends at his apartment complex before they moved because that's how the Clifford canon is.
I remember a little bit of Clifford’s Puppy Days. I remember enjoying it when I would watch but I didn’t watch it very often. I don’t have much memories about that
A Pup Named Scooby Doo was clever that, since the gang were in their late teens in the original 60s show, they themed the kid version with 1950s style animation and music. That and 50s nostalgia was real big in the 80s.
I think what also separated A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was the more Tex Avery-style humor. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think any other Scooby-Doo went for that really broad and surreal humor that defines the works of Tex Avery and Bob Clampett in particular.
i swear smosh babies absolutely tormented me when i was like 9 it would always come into my recommended and i knew i wouldnt enjoy it but i had such morbid curiosity i felt like i absolutely had to watch
@@chaochow393with full context it wasn’t actually that bad I watched every episode it was quite endearing this specific person is overly harsh and exaggerating
Looney Tunes lore is wild. Is Baby Looney Tunes a prequel to The Looney Tunes show, which is a prequel to Loonatics Unleashed? No one knows apparently. Are these all separate timelines? Had the show been actually good, would we have gotten Baby Loonatics Unleashed????? Warner Brothers, you have 24 hours to respond.
The reason for why the babies and adults coexist in the DS game Mario and Luigi: partners in time is due to time travel. I really like the way the baby Mario and Luigi interact with their adult selves and how it adds to the game mechanic
Partners in Time is both underrated and over-hated at the same time. It's a really charming and fun game, and the babies were so cute that I honestly missed them in later M&L games tbh lol
@@Simon_QI mean. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are implied to be narrative sequels slightly? But the starbit festivals are supposed to be 100 years apart from eachother. Though, you could read them as two different tellings of the same story, AUs of one another. But it's still somewhat implied that 2 takes place after the original. So there is likely some time shenanigans between the games happening if we want to take it seriously
@@CuantumQ Galaxy 1 ended with everything getting a reset; remember the "Welcome new Galaxy!" line? Galaxy 2 is basically a retelling/follow up. No actual time traveling involved, but with the simpler story given Miyamoto's grievances towards 1... just one of those things.
@@num488 yes, Galaxy 1 ends with everything getting reset. However, Mario and everyone survived the reset. And in Galaxy 2, it's implied that it's still remembered, but Peach says the star festival is still every 100 years. It could be that they used astronomy to determine that in the new universe that the star bit festival would still happen every 100 years, but the reset shifted where they were in the cycle from after the festival to not long before it again I guess
That would've been SO much better. TD itself is a parody of some kind of camp challenge show and so is its 'spin off', the Ridonculous Race (world race or something). A dance moms baby version would've been perfect.
There is a Russian cartoon called Smeshariki (KikoRiki or GoGoRiki in different dubs), which followed this babyfication trend. They made a spin-off called Malyshariki (BabyRiki). The key difference is that they didn't just make characters babies, they turned this series into an actual educational cartoon for actual babies (0-3 years old), teaching them everything from shapes and colours to interacting with disabled people. It's also filled with catchy songs and has a really cute minimalistic art style! Compared to many examples from this video, it feels like not a cheap cash-grab, but a really neat educational project for small children.
The funny thing about Muppet Babies is that they originated from a fantasy sequence in the film The Muppets Take Manhattan. The designs struck such a chord with audiences that the powers at be went full-throttle on spinning them into their own franchise. Considering it was the 80s and peak "everything is to sell toys," I think it was a decent investment.
I did too but thats because one time i watched one of thr movies where theyre yk babies and my dad walked in and had me turn it off bc it was too inappropriate for my age (tbf i was like 3 maybe 4) and i still dont know what he meant to this day and hes probably long since forgotten it happened or that the movie existed bc its probably been taken off Netflix and both me and my sister are old enough to where he doesnt have to filter through stuff as hard. I mean he still does kinda but nowadays the filter is mostly "is it rated R" for me and "is it for adults and rated R" for my sister
I agree! I know they toned down Angelica's mean-spirited behavior a bit, but I think it adds more depth to her character than "spoiled brat who thinks she's the most important person ever."
this affected pokemon a lot. there were so many baby pokemon in gen 2 and even more of them were cut and later recovered in the leaked spaceworld stuff. even then they knew it was becoming a fad of sorts.
the pokemon one is one of the few that kind of makes sense to me though. real animals aren't born fully grown, and they often go through some pretty drastic changes before reaching maturity. it makes sense that something like a jynx or a snorlax would hatch as a smoochum or a munchlax and then grow into its final stage, and it makes the whole evolutionary line feel a little more like an actual species that could exist in the wild. it also lets the evolved form get access to egg moves, which is nice for buffing less used mons sometimes. tbh the only thing that makes this whole thing fall apart is the weird incense mechanic they added in gen 4. i would've rather they just retconned the baby mons as part of the evolutionary tree
My first introduction to babyfication was also Bratz Kidz and Babiez. I didnt know they were teens until later so i think its why its the only babyfication example im fine with. I really wish that more shows would go in the direction of All Grown Up. Like there is so much more interesting stuff to do with a teen/young adult than a baby
You really took me back when you mentioned Bratz Babyz. I kind of loved those as a kid and I think I had a few. I had completely forgotten about them, and I now realize that LOL surprise dolls remind me of them.
theyre both made by the same company, mga! also if you for whatever reason want one in ur life again, they currently have repros of the babyz fr sale alongside their general bratz revival! (
Idk if this counts with the existence of Baby Looney Tunes, but I always admired Tiny Toon Adventures for doing the kid/baby-fication concept in a new way. Yes, the cast is meant to parallel their Looney Tunes counterparts, but they each have their own distinct personalities, too! Elmyra is a perfect example of this. She's not a one to one copy of Elmer Fudd, but you can still tell that's the character she's meant to parallel.
I tend to see Tiny Toon Adventures lumped together in the babyfication genre, and that always bugs me since I’m always tempted to go “Um, actually they’re not younger versions of the toons, they’re their students who just happen to resemble them and share a lot of the same personality traits”.
@@benmalsky9834 Fair point. I see it as technically belonging to this genre, but doing it in a new and unique way that others didn't. But if you think it deserves to be it's own thing I respect that too.
@@sketchnotes2246 I think the whole “no relation” running gag with Buster and Babs can apply to just about every character that has their screen time with the classic toons.
So glad someone talked about this trend. Never really got why every studio wanted to turn their existing cartoons into babies and it still kinda stumps me to this day.
Dora and friends into the city is just a rather alright spinoff (it predicted the original’s soft reboot, where Dora actually is ten!) which must’ve been done much better if not for the sludge of poor quality merch.
I was just thinking about the scooby doo one of these. It's funny because it's clearly trying to be a non-dark version of scooby doo, but scooby doo was already a non-dark version of murder mysteries.
There also seems to be a running trend in doll franchises where the "baby" versions are overtly sexualized, particularly in really weird and gross ways. It makes me uncomfortable
there’s something SO special about looking through dream jelly’s content and just going “wow i am literally the target audience” it’s so nice to be seen
Yeah I was about to say the same thing, it's just trying to do what South Park did with the same concept, but not understanding why it works for South Park
never realized a pup named scooby doo’s redesigns give the characters more 1950s styles, which makes sense given when it would theoretically “take place”
I have said for years that A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is actually the best iteration of the franchise. It upped the zany, cartoonish, hijinks into comparatively absurd levels and was extremely self-aware in its presentation. The fact that they keep using once an episode jokes like "Red Herring" and "Velma said 'Jinkies'" so consistently actually makes these jokes loop around back into being funny. Granted, it is not narratively dense or anything, but the interpretation of the mystery gang there fits very well into what they were going for, I feel.
I think spin-off babies were the precursor to “minionfication” which made very PG characters that all ages could be the target demographic for, from toddlers to boomers on facebook. I think the concept is a super easy greenlight from executives so it helped producers and studios keep jobs while making some money depending on the success rate. I think this concept also extends to the “girl-power” trend which took successful franchises and made spinoffs that were more for a girl target demographic.
15:00 I'm gonna guess that the reason they included the 6teen character in the Total Dramarama is bc they wanted the voice actor for Chris included but Chris is at least 5 years older than the cast and they didn't need two caretakers?
Pup Named Scooby-Doo has to be the best example of this, since they actually changed the formula up a little. It had its own feel to it. Like the running gag with Red Herring.
Broo, same except I had some toy where Rainbow Dash had a mom that pushed her in a shopping cart but she also was Rainbow Dash?? It was kinda weird, lore wise
Those muppet babies plushies... we had the same ones at my grandmas house. I also never watched the show, yet knew of it because of those little guys. Apparently this was a common occurrence.
from what i've seen of We Baby Bears and how different its direction is from the original show it spun off from, i feel like part of the angle some of these aged-down spinoffs usually have is they're seemingly a lot more fantastical in the plots than the main series despite the premise of the show itself and even with the more off-the-wall episodes and characters like Charlie (the sasquatch) and Nom Nom (snooty influencer koala), We Bare Bears always felt more like a slice of life show with some fantastical elements. you still saw the bears trying to assimilate into human life, make human connections, putting fantastic characters in grounded situations. even in the baby bear episodes the premises seemed a little more down-to-earth like being stuck at a shipping warehouse. meanwhile when the baby bears got their own show we see them in much more fantastical situations like strange fantasy towns and character introductions that lean more into folks like Charlie than more human characters like Chloe (the bears' college-going friend) or Ranger Tabes
I do give We Baby Bears some credit for doing something completely different from the original show and justifying its own existence instead of just being We Bare Bears but, they are younger. We Baby Bears not only has a very different style of animation but is also more fantasy themed as opposed to the original show which is a very slice of life style show.
My Theory is that the stars of bugs bunny builders are more than just teens in a cartoonier chibi style, they are also older than what they were in baby looney tunes.
The only good "spin-off babies" shows were the original Muppet Babies, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, and the original Tiny Toon Adventures. Edit: Also Tom and Jerry Kids came out in the 90s, not the 80s. And the Muppet Babies reboot was on Disney Junior and was released a year before Disney+ was a thing.
I really love the art and colorful animation of We Baby Bears but I do prefer the simpler laid-back style of the Baby Bears episodes from the OG series.
pretty sure baby Mario and Luigi are time- travelling, past versions of the Mario brothers in canon. At least they are in Mario and Luigi partners in time.
I’d love to see some spin-off shows that focus on the babies of some now grown-up protagonists with kids of their own along with some spin-off shows focusing on specific characters who are already actual babies!
i always watch ur videos while folding my laundry and today is laundry day. thank u for reading my mind and delivering great content with perfect timing
Muppet Babies was inspired by a scene in The Muppets Take Manhattan where they show a video clip of the Muppets as babies, which apparently tested really well with kids, so it almost sort of makes sense in context. It was, sadly, the idea that launched a thousand ships.
to be fair to mlp, there have been baby ponies since generation one, including baby versions of main characters (the most prominent example being baby moondancer, who appeared in the escape from catrina tv special). but admittedly, the g3 babies were pretty egregious. i was the target age when they were released, and i remember being afraid of their massive eyes. anyways, thanks for reminding me about bratz babiez. in hindsight those were, in fact, super weird.
I remember that my favorite episode of All grown up was the one where they go to this camp and have to follow this ghost story mystery thing. It was great!
My mom HATES baby spinoffs with a passion. She also includes shows like Teen Titans GO! because, even if they aren't necessarily aged down, they "shrink them down"/"make them chibi"(in her words) to make them cuter and more marketable. Certainly helps that, like me, she loves classic Cartoon Network(and SpongeBob + Gravity Falls, in terms of the other cartoon channels), and still watches them with me for fun sometimes(especially Ed Edd n' Eddy since a couple years ago). She has always found them obnoxious, and she's especially salty that it's still a thing.
I know I am commenting this pretty late, but I like the 2018 Muppet babies reboot! I just got into muppet babies unironically, when I found out, that Gonzo is voiced by the same voice actor who voiced Shoutmon (Ben Diskin). I just have Shoutmon in my mind everytime Gonzo speaks lmao
Sitting here with my 8 week old baby. she agrees with many of your points, especially the fact they sit around doing nothing all day. Now I guess I can say I baby-fied myself! soft plushies will be available soon.
The funny thing about Bratz babies is that my mom never allowed me to buy the regular Bratz dolls because she thought they looked "too inappropriate" or "too sexual" but allowed me to have Bratz babies. Like, if she thought the regular dolls dressed too sexy, why would she be okay with me buying a baby doll with the same kind of clothes and make up? 😭 If anything, I think that's worse.
I honestly think smosh babies should be considered more along the lines of something like South Park instead of all these other babyfied shows. I definitely don’t think it was meant for kids, it was meant for older audiences, and the fact that they’re babies was supposed to be like ironically funny
I watched the 2d bratz babyz movie when I was a kid and I kind of interpreted it as how the babies view themselves as being more capable/mature than they actually are. I always thought it was like the babies playing make believe
22:22 wow, I wasn't expecting to get mentioned in a video by you, thank you very much! I feel really validated that you mentioned my video being thorough, as that's always my main goal with my content. I often second-guess the comprehensiveness of my videos, so I'm very glad that my attempts to be thorough came across!
A Pup Named Scooby Doo is still one of the best Scooby shows. I also really liked the Baby Looney Tunes and Clifford Puppy Days when I was little Also fun fact! They did a flash back to Velma’s 5th birthday in What’s New Scooby Doo and they used the designs from A Pup Named Scooby Doo with a color change for the outfits
Ah yes, a fixation I had growing up: Making characters into babies. I grew up with Baby Looney Tunes occupying my sick days, which were plenty, though I also have Rugrats and A Pup Named Scooby Doo. I do think younger characters can be fascinating and cute and that’s been a life long thing. But I have seen some argue that one cannot do much with child/baby characters because kids are developing their personalities, can’t get jobs or act much on their own. There’s also my personal realization that not everyone wants to deal with the “messier” side of kids. Though Total Drama Rama and Smosh Babies play up the grossness of babyhood. Many shows play into being fiction and give the babies some ability to do the same things as older characters can do. But generally it seems a chunk of shows are about making children versions of characters who just act more childlike but many can do what their regular counterparts can do or a lite version of such. Again, this and child characters in general is just a fascination I have, so thank you for covering this. Sorry for the ramble.
I did actually watch Muppet Babies back when it aired. I was on the upper end of the range you mentioned when it started airing, and when you mention timeline weirdness, this is the first show that comes to mind. Here they are, characters created in the '50s (Kermit), '60s (Rowlf), and '70s (Animal, Fozzie, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, Scooter) -- with the exception of the heretofore unseen Skeeter -- having imagination sequences involving Indiana Jones, Star Wars, the first two live-action Star Treks, Bon Jovi... Which all makes sense from a marketing perspective, as keeping them to a timeline consistent with, say, The Muppet Show would see them making references to media of the... '50s? '40s? Further? I think Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time kind of... IS the explanation. "We've got a time machine; what could be the harm of bringing your younger selves forward in time so we can race around some admittedly pretty unsafe tracks?" -- E. Gadd, probably
One of the only things i remember from Baby Looney Tunes (which i loved as a kid) is Lola saying "Oh-lly-yimpics" (Olympics) and i still catch myself pronouncing it that way as a full fledged adult
