The 2010s gave us the golden age of “animation for grownups disguised as a kid’s show.” Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Regular Show — they walked so the current cohort could run. So why don’t we quite have a 2026 equivalent? Let’s overthink it.
The decade in question
Network TV was weirdly willing to take risks. Pixar had kind of plateaued. Cartoon Network had a programming lead who’d say yes to ideas that sounded like fever dreams. The result: five years of shows that made adult animation writers cry, and a full generation of kids who turned into illustrators.
What made these shows different
- Serialized storytelling — episodes had a memory
- Characters grew up visibly. Steven literally hit puberty onscreen.
- Off-kilter tone: slapstick in one scene, grief in the next
- Small writers’ rooms meant a single voice could really ring
Where did the follow-up go?
The short answer: streaming wars. The longer answer involves budget cuts, tax write-offs, and a weirdly specific preference for slash-the-episode-count renewals. The result is that current animated shows are often one-season wonders that never get the breathing room to become legendary.
You can’t make a classic cartoon in 10 episodes. You need 40. And you need a second season to mess it up and recover.
Nina Okafor, storyboard artist (see: last week’s interview)
What to watch instead
- Scavengers Reign — serialized, gorgeous, cancelled too soon
- Hilda — the quiet masterpiece everyone slept on
- Blue Eye Samurai — grown-up animation back from the dead
- Castlevania: Nocturne — yes, still
The good news: people still want these shows. The bad news: the industry is still figuring out how to make them again. Hang in there. Rewatch Gravity Falls. We’ll get there.