Abstract

Children's animated films have held a lasting influence on their audiences since the rise of their popularity in the 1980s. As adults co-view such films with their children Hollywood has had to rewrite the formula for a successful animated children's film. This thesis argues that a main factor in audience expansion is adult humor. The results show that children's animated films from 2002-2013 are riddled with many instances of adult humor while earlier films from 1982-1993 use adult humor sparingly. It is clear that over the years the number of adult humor occurrences has consistently increased. Furthermore, this research shows that adult male roles consistently deliver the adult humor.

Degree

MA

College and Department

Fine Arts and Communications; Communications

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2013-07-09

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd6449

Keywords

humor, animation, Hollywood, adult humor, children's films, Disney, target audience, motion picture, Pixar, DreamWorks, co-viewing

Language

English

Included in

Communication Commons

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