Looks like nautical nonsense is something Peter would wish.
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly."
If a character enjoys a TV show, book, movie, game, toy, etc. marketed to a younger demographic which they've been expected to outgrow, the audience may be scratching their heads in confusion. On the upside, works primarily marketed to children tend to attract an older demographic due to clever writing, unique animation, likable characters, Parental Bonuses, and other material they might have paid little attention to as a young child. On the downside however, this could be an attempt to portray a character as immature or The Ditz, especially if the work is geared to infants, toddlers or preschoolers. Their enjoyment of this series can be a sign that they're a Kiddie Kid/Manchild or Cloudcuckoolander. However, there are occasions where this is just used as a one-shot gag Played for Laughs and never brought up again. The work is usually a Show Within a Show parody of a Real Life work, especially in children's cartoons where copyrighted names are less frequently appearing.
If the character is otherwise mature to the extent of an Only Sane Man, their enjoyment of a children's work could be a Hidden Depth to show they're Not So Above It All.
For the inverse, when characters (mainly children) enjoy a work intended for older audiences, see Entertainment Above Their Age.
Sub-Trope of Periphery Demographic. Can be deconstructed and subverted by Animation Age Ghetto, Subverted Kids' Show, What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?, or What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?. For real-life people who have goofy tastes, see One of Us. Don't worry: we're not going to judge.
Examples
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Advertising
- The Japanese commercial for Hey You, Pikachu! has a middle-aged business man being enamored with the game and cooing over Pikachu, with kids giving him odd looks.
Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You:
- Kusuri plays with this idea. On the one hand, she is eighteen years old and loves a children's anime featuring a cute penguin character named Pentarou to the point she'll drop whatever she's doing when it comes on TV to watch; on the other hand, Kusuri and her family spend the vast majority of their time in the bodies of eight year-olds because of Kusuri's failed Immortality Drug, and Kusuri is the only one for whom The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body applies. Chapter 29 of the manga has Kusuri playing pretend with a Pentarou toy. In the process of doing so, she reverts to her adult self and immediately find herself too embarrassed to continue. Off to the side in this chapter is Shizuka, age 15, who was actively participating in the play where others mainly just went along.
- Kishika is prone to Emotional Regression and behaves like a baby whenever she is treated as one, even with something as simple as an Affectionate Gesture to the Head. Chapter 203 features Meru telling fairy tales to other members of the Rentarou Family, Kishika falls into baby mode just watching. Earlier, when Meru was being introduced to the family, Kishika was immediately enthralled by Hahari's offer to read her a story.
Hahari: Ohh, Kishika-taaan? Want Mommy to read you a bedtime story, sweetie?
Kishika: Mommy! Read Kishika a story, Mommyyy!
- In Doraemon: Nobita and The Space Heroes, Nobita (a fifth-grader) is a fan of a toku show whose target audience is children half his age. What's even better is that Doraemon himself is revealed to be a fanboy too.
- Gals Can't Be Kind to Otaku!?: Part of why Takuya and Kei find being into Glittermon to be an Embarrassing Hobby is because it's a show aimed at young girls, while they're already high schoolers.
- Hajime and Nene, from New Game!, openly love tokusatsu shows like Insect Five and Magical Girl anime like Moon Ranger, the latter explicitly noted to be aimed at little girls. Hajime even blows most of her pay on toys from these and other shows, leaving her constantly flat broke. Hifumi is a more closeted case, but is shown to be a big Moon Ranger fan herself.
- Nodame Cantabile: Nodame is a 20-year-old university student who's a huge fan of the Show Within a Show Puri Gorota, an anime that's heavily implied to be aimed at young children given its similarities to Doraemon.
- Rent-A-Girlfriend: Sumi is in college like most of the cast, but she's a big fan of a Magical Girl anime called Cure Cure which is stated to be aimed at children. However, the most recent season apparently deals with the subject of capitalism, which is rather complicated for a children's anime.
- The Way of the Househusband: Career woman Miku is a huge fan of the Magical Girl anime PoliCure, which (like its inspiration) is strongly implied to be aimed at young girls.
Asian Animation
- BoBoiBoy: In "Fan Mail", one of the fan letters is from Ahmad Kassim bin Abu Kassim, the father of one of the previous fans who had sent a letter. Ahmad is immediately commented upon by Probe and Computer as the series is for children.
Probe: Hmm, a fifty-five year-old fan of BoBoiBoy?
Computer: Sounds like this old man is young at heart!
Fan Works
- Little Hands, Big Attitude: Justified with Obsidian, aka Mephiles, who has been de-aged to an infant. Tom and Maddie put on TV programs aimed at toddlers for him to watch since they don't know how old he mentally is and he has no way of conveying that. He also has a favorite plush toy (a duck) which is a Security Blanket to him.
Films — Animation
- Inside Out 2: Riley secretly still watches her favorite preschool show, Bloofy's House, despite having turned 13 at the time of the film. This leads to her mental version of Bloofy getting locked inside her mind's Vault, since she views her love for the show as a Guilty Pleasure.
Films — Live-Action
- Bullet Train: Lemon is an adult assassin who is rather obsessed with Thomas & Friends, a show mostly aimed at preschoolers, much to Tangerine's chagrin. He views it as a philosophy and owns a large collection of Thomas stickers.
- Clueless: Cher and Josh are shown watching The Ren & Stimpy Show on TV. Josh judges Cher, questioning why she still watches cartoons as a 16-year-old, but Cher reassures him by stating that Ren and Stimpy are "existential." It's downplayed, though, because Ren and Stimpy, while officially a kids' show aired originally on Nickelodeon, was hardly appropriate for small children.
- Dr. Who and the Daleks opens with a panning shot around the living room of the eponymous genius scientist, ending with the man himself in an armchair chuckling over an issue of the children's magazine Eagle (known for its adventure comics like Dan Dare).
- It (2017): Every adult shown watching television is tuned into the same children's show as a sign of IT's influence on the adults of the town. If you listen closely, the show is always talking about playing in the sewer with clowns, and Pennywise eventually uses it to influence Henry Bowers into killing his father and then attempting to kill the Losers.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: I Love Wolffy 2: Despite being a grown man who doesn't have the best temperament, the Commander loves to watch Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf as much as a kid would. In fact, the only thing saving someone he has captured from Tickle Torture is the show coming on.
Literature
- The Baby-Sitters Club: A mild example with Claudia, a junior high student who loves reading Nancy Drew mysteries even though her parents regard them as below her reading level and wish she would read something “more challenging”. (It should be noted that Claudia’s older sister is a Teen Genius who reads far above her age level, so maybe Nancy Drew just seems simple by comparison.)
- Cookie: Although she is very intelligent, Beauty's favourite TV show is Sam and Lily in the Rabbit Hutch, which is for very young children. Her mother, Dilly, also likes it.
- Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World: June is a fan of the children's books Ivy's mother writes and illustrates, and even notes "they're for younger kids".
- From The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole:
Came home from school early with a severe migraine (missed the Comparative Religion test). Found my father watching Play School and pretending to be an acorn growing into an oak. Went to bed too shocked to speak.
- Manimal Crackers: An accidental example appears when Jessica Rothenberg tries to entertain Simon MacCorkindale by showing him Monty Python, but due to her mother using it to tape VeggieTales instead, she accidentally shows him The Wonderful World of Auto-Tainment instead. As it turns out, not only does he not mind, but finds the show to be quite charming. His favorite character on the show is Archibald Asparagus, for obvious reasons.note
- C. S. Lewis addresses this in the dedication of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:
My dear Lucy, ... you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
- Welcome to the NHK: Yamazaki is obsessed with Ojamajo Doremi, an anime that's aimed at young girls.
- You Like Me, Not My Daughter?!: Ayako absolutely loves a magical girl show she started watching with her daughter Miu when she was little, and she continues to love the show long after Miu herself has outgrown it. Ayako tries to use this to dissuade the much-younger Takkun from pursuing a relationship with her, only to fail because he's also a fan.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: B5 Chief of Security Michael Garibaldi is shown several times to enjoy Looney Tunes cartoons. At one point Ambassador Mollari asks Zack if a picture of Daffy Duck on Garibaldi's wall is "one of his household gods", and Zack fibs that it's "the Egyptian god of frustration".
Mollari: Hm. Suits him.
- The Big Bang Theory: The main guys, particularly Sheldon, get hit with this the most, due to the juxtaposition of their incredible intellects with their manchild tendencies and interests in superheroes, collecting action figures, cosplay, and such. However, all of the main characters have moments of this, and the changing cultural opinion towards nerdy things during the series run made this get downplayed over time:
- Sheldon calls Penny out in "The Nerdvana Annihilation" as a hypocrite for calling the guys' interests childish when she herself still keeps stuffed animals in her apartment and wears Hello Kitty lounge shorts.
- Neuroscientist Amy has a deep fondness for the Little House on the Prairie children's books, to the extent of writing self-insert fanfics and getting a themed birthday around the series.
- All three of the women play hooky from work to go to Disneyland and get princess makeovers in one episode.note
- Doctor Who:
- The original incarnation of The Master was shown in "The Sea Devils" to be strangely fascinated by The Clangers, whistling along with them and joking about "a rather interesting alien lifeform". This got a Call-Back in "The Sound of Drums" when the Simm Master was similarly intrigued by Teletubbies.
- In "The Rings of Ankhaten", the Doctor's Newspaper-Thin Disguise when spying on young Clara is The Beano Summer Special.
- Fringe: Walter Bishop, a sixty-year-old man who spent seventeen years in a mental institution prior to the beginning of the show, occasionally dips into this. An early episode has him pull a bunch of his adult son Peter's old toys out of storage, only to begin playing with them himself when Peter expresses disinterest; over the course of the first few seasons he would use several of them (as well as other toys procured for him by Astrid) as part of practical demonstrations of the scientific principle behind the Mystery of the Week, but it's implied that he does them as much for his own amusement as any practical purpose. In a mostly straight example, a one-off joke shows Walter and Astrid watching an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants; they both enjoy the show, but Walter's enjoyment seems to be at least partially due to What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?.
Walter: And this is a show for children?
Astrid: Yeah, it's huge.
Walter: Surprisingly profound for a narrative about a sponge. - Full House: Joey loves cartoons, especially Hanna-Barbera ones like Yogi Bear. He can do quite good impressions of characters.
- Good Luck Charlie:
- PJ, age 17, is a fan of The Gurgles, a singing group and TV show of the same name for toddlers.
- In "Sleepless in Denver", one of the movies Amy rents for Gabe and his friends during their sleepover is Monkeys Go Bananas, which is for children age four and up. As a ten-year-old, Gabe finds the movie lame. However, Amy's husband Bob is seen watching the movie in a later scene and cracking up at it.
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus in Kamen Rider Zeztz reveals that protagonist Baku Yorozu, who is in his twenties, still plays with educational building blocks rather than, say, modern Legos or Nanoblocks. The shot that reveals this also juxtaposes the blocks against a modified Rubik's Cube, showing how he's both a child at heart with his love of cheesy spy flicks and someone refined enough to handle the real profession.
- Lizzie McGuire: The episode "Lizzie and Miranda's Magic Train" shows that Lizzie and Miranda secretly still love their favorite childhood show, The Magic Train, a preschool show about a group of people dressed in animal costumes singing songs to small children. They become eager to see them perform live once they hear their band is coming to town. Deconstruction comes into play when Alpha Bitch Kate Sanders sees the girls at their concert and makes fun of them for going there alone, while Kate was only there to chaperone her little cousin. Lizzie takes a stand towards the end when she tells the entire school that Clover and Daisy, the two protagonists of The Magic Train, can teach them a lesson in loyalty and confidence, ending the episode with the entire school (sans Kate) joining in a musical cover of a dorky song from the show expressing pride in silliness.
- At the start of the Scrubs episode "My ABCs", J.D. enters the doctor's lounge and is disappointed to find that Turk has claimed the TV for his baby daughter ... until he realises they're watching Sesame Street, which was what he was wanting to watch anyway.
- Smallville: According to Lois Lane, Clark Kent has a Tweety Bird nightlight well into high school, implying his love of Looney Tunes. This is a reference to the fact that Superman is a DC Comics property, which is owned by Warner Brothers, who also own Looney Tunes.
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Zach, a college student, is a fan of PAW Patrol and claims to quote the show to calm himself down.
Manhua
- An Old Master Q strip sees the titular character (who's at least in his fifties, emphasis on old) rushing home from work, taking a quick shower, and eager to catch the late-night channel... a kid's cartoon.
Video Games
- Takane Shijou from THE iDOLM@STER is 17 in the first vision games and 18 in the second vision games, but loves to watch shows intended for preschoolers.
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: Nomi-Nomi is at odds with their Heliopause peers in part because they still enjoy entertainment they were expected to outgrow a good few years ago. A recurring pattern in dialog choices that will lose existing friendship with Nomi-Nomi is suggesting that they are too old for the entertainment they turn out to be enjoying.
- Planescape: Torment: It's possible to purchase a small, articulated figurine of a Modron at one of the stores in the game. While it's actually used to access the Bonus Dungeon, you can also choose to have The Nameless One play with it like a small kid with an action figure. Not only will they express joy at vanquishing imaginary foes with it, Morte will become jealous if he sees you playing with it and ask for a turn. The game gently lampshades this - play with it enough and your Character Alignment will begin to push towards Chaotic due to the sheer silliness.
- In The Sims 4, Sims with the childish trait enjoy watching kids' TV and playing with toys.
- Undertale: Despite being old enough to hold a steady job, Papyrus's favorite book is Peekaboo with Fluffy Bunny.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- Seventeen-year-old Maya Fey is very into the Toku series Steel Samurai despite acknowledging that it is specifically for kids younger than her. Spirit of Justice shows that she hasn't outgrown it; she still enjoys the Khu'rainese rip-off, Plumed Punisher, at age 28.
- Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, who is seven years older than Maya, is also a fan of Steel Samurai, though he doesn't much care for Plumed Punisher. He actually has Steel Samurai merchandise on display in his office, and the only reason he's a Closet Geek is because no one is willing to believe that someone as serious and uptight as him could possibly be interested in a TV show for kids; he only denies being a fan whenever it would be funniest. Awkward Zombie pokes fun at him here
, where his denial sets off Phoenix's Psyche-Locks.
- Little Busters!: Kyousuke Natsume still greatly enjoys shonen manga, even though he's set to graduate from high school soon and is at the age where most characters at least start to outgrow manga for that demographic.
Web Animation
- The Most Popular Girls in School: In "Babes Having Babies", after Brittnay has an extremely angry, profanity-riddled rant, Shay sarcastically asks Saison and Blaine if they want to go and watch Dora the Explorer. Despite both being seventeen, both Saison and Blaine genuinely agree, and Blaine even mentions that he prefers the Spin-Off, Go, Diego, Go!.
Web Videos
- Dayum: Mia, an adult woman from “Types of People at Theme Parks Portrayed by Minecraft”, is keen to meet an Elmo mascot, which causes her to be described as childish.
- Dubbed by Strangers: Korri and Frankie are two teens (now adults) who are fans of shows such as The Mr. Men Show.
- Man Carrying Thing: In "how we'll all be watching youtube after the 18+ policy," Man, an adult with a mustache, ends up being mistaken for a child due to his video history, such as watching The Incredibles 1 clips.
- Random Encounters: The Baldi's Basics series is kicked off when AJ's (Adult) character, upon discovering what he thinks is a perfectly ordinary edutainment game aimed at children, decides to give it a shot for fun.
- Mission CRTical: Aigis, a robot who was effectively Born as an Adult, enjoys The Backyardigans. When criticised for this, she replies firmly that the singing makes her happy.
- Vester and Friends: Bowser loves watching preschool shows such as Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! and Teletubbies on his iPad. In the case of the former, he even starts dancing to the intro.
Western Animation
- American Dragon: Jake Long: In one episode, Trixie mentions that Spud's favorite show is Mr. Piggy's Playhouse.
- Animaniacs: The episode "Babysitter's Flub" shows that Pinky is a fan of the children's music group The Groggles, which is a parody of The Wiggles.
- Arthur:
- In the episode "That's a Baby Show!", Arthur becomes addicted to a Teletubbies spoof called "The Love Ducks". As the title of the episode implies, he fears judgment from his friends for liking a "baby show", and when he finally admits to watching it, they initially mock him before giving the show a chance — and they end up getting addicted too!
- In the episode "The Squirrels", Arthur and Buster are scared after watching a squirrel-based parody of The Birds. Trying to work through their fear, they rent a bunch of preschooler-oriented cartoons about squirrel characters (and even D.W. lampshades that the cartoons are too kiddy even for her). The owner of the video rental store also comments that this happens every time The Squirrels airs on TV, that countless kids end up clearing him out of any squirrel cartoons for the same reason (albeit with the excuse that they're doing homework over squirrels).
- In the Bob's Burgers episode "The Equestranauts", Tina Belcher is a fan of the eponymous magical talking horse adventures show, and she and her dad are equally surprised to find there's a massive following of adult male fans who call themselves "Equest-icles".
- Invoked in The Buzz on Maggie episode "The Flyinator", where Maggie and Rayna sneak into the titular adult-oriented action flick. While Maggie stays throughout the movie to endure the trauma, Rayna is too scared to continue watching it and runs into the theater that's showing The Prancing Princess, a princess movie for toddlers, to watch it instead; she sings along with the theme song and collects the merchandise. At the end, Maggie's older brother Aldrin is shown secretly playing with a Prancing Princess doll while his family isn't looking, only for his little brother Pupert to fight over him with it because it was Pupert's doll in the first place.
- Camp Lazlo: Scoutmaster Lumpus (a grown man with a job) prefers to watch the saccharinely-titled "Mr. Cotton Goes to Bubbleland" over horror movies.
- Family Guy:
- In "You Can't Do That on Television, Peter!", Peter gets into the preschool show Jolly Farms when stuck watching over Stewie.
- In "Road to Rupert", Peter annoys Meg while she's driving and watches SpongeBob SquarePants (see the page image above).
- The Loud House: Clyde McBride, age 11 at the start of the series (12 as of the fifth season) , is a fan of Blarney the Dinosaur (a parody of Barney the Dinosaur), which is meant for a preschool demographic.
- In The Owl House episode "Any Sport in a Storm", it's revealed that The Good Witch Azura is written for ages 6 to 11. Luz Noceda and Amity Blight, the only two fans of the series seen in the show, are both 14 years old. While Luz at the very least is shown to have been following the series since she was in the target demographic, it would have been impossible for Amity to have started reading it any earlier than when she was 12. Not to mention, Luz has a deep emotional attachment to it, due to the fact that her father gifted her a copy of the first book before he passed away and reading it helped her through her grieving period.
- Phineas and Ferb: Fifteen-year-old Candace has been a fan of the Japanese children's show Ducky Momo since she was little; the episode "Nerds of a Feather" has her attend a Fan Convention so she can get her hands on some rare Ducky Momo merchandise, but she goes in disguise so no one else will find out that she's still a fan. The one time the audience get to see Ducky Momo for themselves, it's a blatant parody of real-world preschool shows in general, and the kind of Fake Interactivity seen in shows like Dora the Explorer in particular.
- Ready Jet Go!: Dr. Skelley likes the Show Within a Show Commander Cressida, just like her daughter Sydney.
- The Recess episode "Bonky Fever" centers on Mikey turning 10, and realizing that Growing Up Sucks because his mom won't be there to accompany him at the bus stop anymore. In a regressive attempt to hold on to his childhood longer, Mikey develops an obsession with Bonky the Dinosaur (a parody of Barney & Friends). This is a Compressed Vice, as he grows out of it once he realizes he doesn't have to act childish to retain his childhood, and that he still has a long way to go to grow up.
- Robot Chicken has a sketch where a teenage girl's father gets addicted to Inuyasha, an anime aimed at teenagers. Towards the end of the sketch, he also gets hooked on Gossip Girl (2007).
- Rugrats:
- In "At the Movies", the whole family goes to the theater to watch the latest "Dummi Bears" movie. The children (and Grandpa Lou) lose interest quickly, while the rest of the adults become enraptured. Stu in particular is distraught when the film is disrupted and they never get to find out if Little Shauna survives.
- In another episode, they go to see a Reptar On Ice show (with a very cheesy Romantic Plot Tumor). The kids go off in search of Reptar, Didi and Stu fall asleep, and Grandpa actually gets into it.
- In "Dummi Bear Dinner Disaster", the adults visit the Carmichaels when the creator of the show, Paul Gatsby, is over for dinner. The poor man spends the whole dinner fielding questions about the show by the enrapt adults. When Chas admits to being sick with worry when "Jelly Bear caught the gloomies," he finally explodes with, "What is wrong with you people???"
- In "Looking for Jack", the mafia boss Jack Montello is revealed to be an obsessed Dummi Bears fan, which is what convinces him to take Charlotte and the kids to a Dummi Bears concert.
- The Simpsons:
- The episode "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken" shows that Milhouse still watches Teletubbies at the age of 10 and even wears Teletubby underwear.
- In "Rosebud", Homer is briefly shown watching Barney the Dinosaur and enjoying it.
Homer: Heh-heh-heh! I can see why this is so popular!- In "The Book Job", Milhouse is shown to be a fan of Barney and Friends and is upset when a dinosaur show he attends is not similar to that series, throwing his Barney doll onto the stage in reaction.
- In "The Color Yellow", Ralph Wiggum, an eight-year-old, is shown to be a fan of Sesame Street when he presents a drawing of a dream he had where he had a party with Elmo and Buzz Lightyear.
- A minor Running Gag on South Park has Butters loving things for preschoolers—he auditions to join a boy band Cartman and the gang formed with "Little Bunny Foo-Foo," loves to play pretend by imagining himself as different characters like "Detective Butters," and is often seen humming nursery rhymes to himself for fun. It's weaponized in the "Imaginationland" trilogy when Butters' big imagination gives him Reality Warper powers in the titular world.
- Squirrel Boy: The episode "I, Stan Corrected" features a gag of The Bully Kyle watching a preschool sing-along videotape with a song called "Licking Lollies" which repeats the title in the chorus thrice followed by an "I love you!". Kyle starts singing along to while wearing a lollipop costume.
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: A running gag in "First First Contact" is that Ensign Boimler is over-the-moon excited to celebrate the upcoming "Captain Freeman Day", and is not deterred in the slightest whenever somebody reminds him that the event is primarily a crafting day for toddlers.
- An episode of X-Men: Evolution has a scene in the Brotherhood's hideout, where two of their members, the teenagers Blob and Toad, are shown watching a Powerpuff Girls Captain Ersatz cartoon while having breakfast.
- Zeke's Pad: In "The Big Picture", while flipping through the channels on the giant TV he drew, Zeke lands on one playing a colourful program intended for toddlers. Fourteen-year-old Jay seems to enjoy himself, which he justifies by saying that he watched it when he was young. Zeke comments that the show just came out.