Line #42 SubvertedKidsShow/Music


1	* Music/LilyAllen's "Alfie" is set in a brightly-colored house that looks like the set of a children's show, but is offset by a rude little hand puppet smoking joints, masturbating and generally being horrible.
2	* The video for Will Young's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR4kZ8-qrFI/ "Who Am I?"]] digitally inserts him into a number of old children's shows, including ''Series/BluePeter''. Unlike many of the examples on the list, it doesn't have any specifically NSFW content, but the use of old clips set to a slow and melancholy ballad make it clear the video is aimed at an adult audience.
3	* Music/KateNash's "Pumpkin Soup" is set in a children's TV set, with certain homages to ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'' visible...
4	* The set for the music video of Hard 'n Phirm's "Pi" is "Zap", which apes the TV show "Series/{{Zoom}}".
5	* The video for Music/{{Lostprophets}}' "A Town Called Hypocrisy" features the band as characters in a parody of kids shows such as ''Playdays'' or ''Playbus'' called "Town Time", intercut with a debauched cast party.
6	* Dizzee Rascal's "Dream" is a spoof of British children's shows in the 50's, with a miniature Dizzee interacting with puppets atop a piano, presided over by a grandmotherly looking woman.
7	* Rather than a kid's show, Music/{{Muse}}'s "Invincible" featured the band on an amusement park ride obviously modeled after the ''It's a Small World'' ride. The ride shows a very abbreviated history of man, [[HumansAreBastards with an unsettling focus on wars]]; after the September 11 recreation, everything goes completely insane.
8	* Serj Tankian's 'Empty Walls' video takes place at a day care (where he seems to perform) rather than an actual show. And then the little kiddies start acting out America's 'War on Terror' on each other..
9	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtffv9bpB-U Green Jello/Jelly's "Three Little Pigs"]] consists of a retelling of the classic fairy tale that features rather child-unfriendly elements, such as one of the pigs being implied to be a stoner and the song ending with the pigs hiring Franchise/{{Rambo}} to gun down the Big Bad Wolf. The music video is even in stop-motion animation and features a brief glimpse of a woman sunbathing topless.
10	* Inverted on Music/RobZombie's ''I'm Your Boogieman'' music video for ''Film/TheCrowCityOfAngels'' in which the framing device (a 1950's-esque children's show a la Creator/{{Ghoulardi}}) is relatively harmless compared with the bits of the movie and Rob Zombie singing...
11	* Music/KanyeWest has pictures of TEDDY BEARS on his first three rap albums.
12	** [[AllAnimationIsDisney The bear going cartoon]] didn't help much.
13	* Music/{{Primus}}'s video for "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" has them in kids-show appropriate cowboy costumes and animations of Winona with a pet beaver to lyrics like "[[{{Double Entendre}} Wynona loved her big brown beaver and she stroked it all the time]]." It was so well-executed that not even the kids caught on.
14	* While Kunt and the Gang never fit the DepravedKidsShowHost archetype, much of his music fits into this trope; examples include "Fucksticks" (about a phrase the singer and his late grandfather shouted whenever bad things happened to them), "Gentleman's Wash" (about how it's proper etiquette to wash one's genitals in the sink on the off-chance that the woman you date will want to fellate you), "I Was Pissed Out Of My Head" (where the singer mentions incidents where he injured or killed people while extremely drunk) and "Wank Fantasy" (where the singer talks about women in erotic situations he's fantasized about while masturbating), which sounds like Music/TheWiggles' evil twins broke into their recording studio.
15	** Later double-subverted: as part of a campaign to get "Fucksticks" played at the Royal Wedding, he issued a family-friendly version aimed at small children.
16	** Taken to CrossesTheLineTwice extremes in "Jimmy Savile and the Sexy Kids", in which he is actually singing in the persona of RealLife DepravedKidsShowHost Creator/JimmySavile justifying his [[BlackComedyRape hundreds of child rapes]] by blaming it on '[[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming sexy kids]]'.
17	* In Germany, ''Franchise/TheSmurfs'' song by Vader Abraham (Vader as in Dutch for "father", not the ''Franchise/StarWars'' one) is a popular target for this.
18	* The Music/PaulAndStorm song "Epithets" is a ''WesternAnimation/SchoolhouseRock''-inspired tune (specifically, a pastiche of "Interjections") about the most common applications of shouting profanity.
19	** Similarly, "Pirates and Emperors."
20	* It's [[http://youtu.be/5BXzphHiHD8 The Bad Ronald Show!]] (a.k.a. Bad Ronald's video for "Let's Begin")
21	* The video for Music/ElP's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZptOs8Gu9k The Full Retard]]" stars both El himself, and a Muppet who kills people (including a little girl!) and injects himself with heroin.
22	* The video for Music/AliceInChains' "[[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r0_2Wq9Aos4 The Devil Puts Dinosaurs Here]]" revolves around one of these.
23	* Music/ImagineDragons' video for "Radioactive" is kind of a live-action DarkerAndEdgier, BloodierAndGorier ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' pastiche, with adorable fluffy CartoonCreature monsters duelling in an apocalyptic cockfighting ring, surrounded by grimy criminals betting on them.
24	* Music/MileyCyrus' performance at the 2013 [=VMAs=] used a lot of this as part of her FormerChildStar persona. For instance, she showed up with her hair in two little childish topknots, and was wearing a teddy bear leotard -- the teddy's face had [[TheStoner bloodshot, unfocused eyes]] and was sticking its tongue out lasciviously. She also had teddy bear-costumed backup dancers, portrayed by twerking black women with big butts, while singing a song about partying on molly and coke. And that's just the start. In short, despite being a star marketed towards children for most of her career, her performance in that show absolutely should not be viewed by children. [[CringeComedy Or anyone else.]]
25	* Music/{{AWOLNATION}}'s music video for "Kill Your Heroes" takes the form of three children watching a ''Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood'' parody entitled ''Awol's Fun Time''.
26	* The music video for Music/{{Mastodon}}'s Deathbound is that [[TotalEclipseOfThePlot a solar eclipse]] has caused everyone in [[Series/MrRogersNeighborhood Magicland]] to go AxCrazy while demons rise from the earth and aliens invade, destroying the world.
27	* [[Music/MelanieMartinez Melanie Martinez's]] work could best be described as Subverted Kid's Music. The songs' scores typically sound like lullaby-esque pop music, and with her cute outfits and song titles like "Dollhouse", "Tag, You're It", and "Milk and Cookies", [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForLittleGirls a parent could plausibly mistake her for a children's entertainer]]. Except those songs typically have surprisingly crude lyrics, and even when they don't, the themes are often dark or mature. (The aforementioned songs alone are about a [[StepfordSmiler Stepford Smiler's]] dysfunctional family, a woman getting kidnapped, and the same woman [[MurderBallad killing her kidnapper]], respectively.) The fact that her work runs on AmbiguousInnocence doesn't help.
28	* The music video for Music/{{Radiohead}}'s [[Music/AMoonShapedPool "Burn the Witch"]] features a ''WesternAnimation/CamberwickGreen'' pastiche... based on the plot of ''Film/{{The Wicker Man\|1973}}''.
29	* The music video for "In This Cold Place" by Music/{{Moby}} is built around this trope.
30	* The first few (English) lyrics in {{Music/AronChupa}}'s "I'm an Albatraoz" sound like a kid's story. Then "hoe" gets dropped...
31	* Music/SlickRick's "Children's Story" is set like a story told by an uncle to a pair of children. This story just happens to be about a young gangster doing robberies and getting killed by police.
32	* A frequent theme in Music/{{Eminem}}'s work and music videos during his early-career era of [[MediaScaremongering courting as much moral panic as possible]].
33	** All of ''Music/TheSlimShadyLP'' is handled as Subverted Kid's Music, featuring a little girl and Slim Shady's crayon handwriting on the cover, cartoony skits, sound effects and voices, Slim rapping in a cheerful squeaky voice, a public service announcement warning that children should not listen to the album "with laces in their shoes", and lyrical content about childish topics like school bullies and getting revenge on teachers. It's also extremely foul-mouthed and violent.
34	*** His signature IAmSong "My Name Is" [[EstablishingCharacterMoment starts]] with [[AlterEgoActing Slim Shady]] addressing a group of children. The video shows Eminem playing various characters on midcentury-style children's TV - a science teacher, a ventriloquist's dummy, a 50s suburbia sitcom dad, and a light entertainment host.
35	--->Hi kids!\
36	Do you like violence? (''Yeah, yeah, yeah!!'')\
37	Do you want to see me stick [[Music/NineInchNails nine-inch-nails]] through each one of my eyelids? (''Uh-huh!'')\
38	Then do you want to copy me and do exactly what I did? (''Yeah, yeah!'')\
39	[[TheAggressiveDrugDealer Try 'cid]] and get fucked up worse than my life is? (''...huh?'')
40	*** "Role Model" starts with him cheerfully telling kids that he's going to commit suicide, and that you should try it at home and be "just like me". [[AntiRoleModel It gets worse from there]].
41	** Starting from ''Music/TheMarshallMathersLP'', Eminem added elements to his image of a CorruptionOfAMinor-themed TeenIdol, making numerous parodic TeenPop songs which encouraged teenagers to shoot up their schools, take drugs and commit suicide.
42	*** "Marshall Mathers" imitates the Latin Pop-inflected boyband pop of the time, with Eminem's sung vocals delivered in a dreamy, heartthrob style and panned to sound like a group chorus. It then details into outrageous ChaoticStupid boasts, ArtistDisillusionment, and death threats.
43	*** "I'm Back" features outrageous bloodthirsty lyrics, a light-hearted pop sound, and [[KidsRock a chorus of adorable children]] who cheer "''Slim Shady!''"
44	*** "The Kids" is about Slim Shady explaining over a beat of happy children's music why DrugsAreBad. His stories are clear nonsense and the children heckle him, but he's relatively well-behaved here for Shady standards, at least apart from when he [[TeenyWeenie starts asking them if they've seen his penis]].
45	** Eminem's daughter Hailie, a prepubescent in all of her appearances in his discography, provides vocals on several of his songs, which was highly controversial considering the content of the songs in which she makes an appearance. On "'97 Bonnie and Clyde", she provides burbling [[TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether while helping her father dispose of the corpse of her murdered mother]]. On "My Dad's Gone Crazy", she [[WackyParentSeriousChild attempts to control her father as he raps obscene verses and snorts coke]]. On the ProtestSong "Mosh", she calls out to the world at the end, as the voice of the new generation.
46	** The music video for "Without Me" is done in a bright, comic-book style and involves Slim Shady dressed as Robin from ''Series/Batman1966''. It also has references to drugs, his role as TheCorruptor of children, and a bunch of assault threats to other artists.
47	** TheDissTrack "Can I Bitch" is a parody of Music/SlickRick's "Children's Story" (which is already this), has the single silliest and most childish beat of Eminem's entire career, and is just a comedic story along the lines of the 'Em and Music/DrDre as 1960s superheroes' theme with a lot of childish insults. This appears to have been done to soften the offense Canibus could have taken from the track - Eminem wasn't trying to destroy Canibus's reputation, only to [[TheGadfly wind him up]] with [[InspirationalInsult insults intended to snap him out of his obsession with Em in the hope that Canibus would go and make some proper music]]. If so, it worked - Canibus was so confused by how seriously he was supposed to take the track that he didn't bother to respond to it, causing the beef to cool for a while.
48	** Much of ''Encore'' is childish ToiletHumor, and there's even a song on there about a father's love for his little girl which ends in a nursery rhyme. It's still full of swearing and disgusting sexual perversion, with "Just Lose It" in particular being a disco song about paedophilia. The video for "Ass Like That" has Muppet-like puppets smoking weed and showing off their tits.
49	** Eminem returned to his kiddish tone on his 2020 project ''Music To Be Murdered By'', which has been categorised as "Children's music" by Google. The music video for "Godzilla" is in a colourful style reminiscent of his old videos. The song "Little Engine" is named after ''Literature/TheLittleEngineThatCould'' and uses famous lines from the book as hooks. It's also a typically foul BoastfulRap using Eminem's typical Slim Shady themes of drug abuse and murder. There's also a [[{{Camp}} ridiculous]] RapRock song about a child Shady murdering his abusive stepdad.
50	* The video for [=Y2K=] and bbno$'s song "Lalala" takes place on the fictional children's show ''[=Y2K=]'s Big Fun Fun Show'', on which bbno$ is a special musical guest. The set design is wacky and colorful, complete with puppets in [=Y2K=] and bbno$'s likenesses. While nothing explicit actually happens in the video, its childishness is a contrast to the song, whose lyrics mention sex and drugs.
51	* The music video for Unknown Mortal Orchestra's [[https://youtu.be/UJXccBGs_IY "That's Life"]] initially depicts a Muppet-like hand puppet dancing by a pool, but as the song continues, the puppet character grows more sickly until it is last seen stranded in a desert, sallow, stripped down to his underwear, bleeding from cuts and delirious. It matches the song's message about the destructive pursuit of hedonism and partying.

Context SubvertedKidsShow / Music