"Cartoons are for kids."

Seriously, people are still thinking this way.

The stigma hangs over animation like a dark cloud of radioactive stupid. To the people outside of America, (where we just can't get enough of innacurate stereotypes) this line of thinking is as foreign as monarchies, clean air or a stable economy is to us. Unfortunately, we're the one producing a good 99% of all entertainment, which includes animation. So as long as Disney maintains its money-grubbing, rodent-eared stranglehold on the world of animation, most animated features will continue to be relegated to dumbed-down, straight-to-DVD level fare.

But every once in a blue moon, however, an animator or studio will light a single foul-mouthed, deviant candle in the G-rated darkness and give us adults something to enjoy. While definitely a rarity, there are some prime examples of fully animated movies with enough objectionable contect to make fundamentalists write angry emails as soon as they get their children to show them how to use the computer. The following list is just the cream of the crop. So send the ankle-biters to bed to dream of Spongebob and Disney princesses, cuz we're gonna have grown up time:

1. Beowulf

CGI and motion-capture films are a dime-a-dozen nowadays, but even so, for reasons known only to Hollywood execs, in a time when computers are capable of generating scary-realistic images, the majority of most CGI-animated fare is kid's stuff. Cutesy kids stuff. Cutesy, easily-marketable, highly profitable, intelligence-insulting, society-destroying kid's stuff. That's why it's refreshing to see Robert Zemeckis taking the tech and using it to craft a crazy-violent, nudity-filled, sword and sorcercy epic dealing with greed, seduction, moral comprimise, betrayal and ultimate sacrifice. From our first nightmare-inducing glimpses of Grendel, to the lascivious undulations of Angelina Jolie as Grendels mother, it was clear this was not going to be another "Polar Express". Extra points for being released in IMAX 3D.

Highlights: Beowolf strips down to his birthday suit so it'll be a fair fight with Grendel and from that moment on we're treated a amusing series of conveniently placed props keeping the audience from seeing too much of Beowolf's uhm... sword.

2. Heavy Metal

By today's standards, the animation and style of this gem seem horrendously dated, but something about the theme of this adult sci-fi fantasy seems timeless. Rampant nudity, graphic violence, drug use and swearing abound in this tlae of a green glowing ball o'evil that connects seveeral other ranging from the ridiculous (Captain Sternn) to the terrfying (B-52/Gremlins). Ultimately this movie is nothing more than an adolescent fantasy, (almost shamelessly so in the "Den" sequence where a nerd gets transported to a magical dimension where's he's a studly killing machine who beds women left and right), but when you come to the scene of the two aliens getting high while driving their starship, you start to realize this is what late night television was created for.

Highlights: Watching the "Harry Canyon" sequence and realizing how shamelessly it was ripped off in The Fifth Element.

3. Cool World

Ralph Bakshi's mix of animation and live action honestly wasn't that great a film, but honestly that's not why it made the list. This tale of a nightmare urban animated landscape and the comic book illustrator who thinks he invented it made it into this list just for the creators having the brass stones to release it just a few years after Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which to date is the definitive "cartoons meet humans" flick. Being billed as essentially Roger Rabbit on crack, Cool World busted more than a few taboos, including toliet humour, violence, and having an animated character (Jessica Rabbit wannabe Holly Wood) having sex with a very flesh and blood Gabriel Byrne. Added points for being one of Brad Pitt's first major roles as the slick 40's style detective trying to maintain balance between cool world and the real world.

Highlights: Bakshi's schizophrenic animated asides happening in the background of nearly every scene.

4. Akira

What is there to say about Katsuhiro Otomo's classic anime epic that hasn't already been said a million times before? Yes the plot is hard to follow, and yes the dialog is kind poorly translated (although a re-translation a few years back took care of that particular hurdle). But obviously the animation is freaking gorgeous, and to this day, Akira boasts some of the most sanity destroying images in animation. Remeber the giant stuffed bear? The creepy toys? The wrinkly children? Tetsuo's violent rampage through the city and his mutation into some kind of giant techno-goo? If you're not into anime, this might not be your cup of tea, but even so you should still watch it, because this is the movie that got me into anime in the first place, and even apart from the myriad of japanese animation out there, this still stands solid and firm as a seriously creepy window into one man's descent into madness

Highlight: The motorbike rumble versus the clowns.

5. A Scanner Darkly

Richard Linklater is not exactly known for his adaptations of cyberpunk prose, so when he released this adaptation of Phillip K. Dick's most personal novel, it raised a few eyebrows. Utilizing a smoother version of the rotoscoping animation over live actors that he used in Waking Life, Linklater crafted a mind altering tale of addiction, lost indentity and nihilism. The animation gives the entire production a hallucinogenic feel and surreality that lead character Bob Arctor/Fred (played by Keanu Reeves) must feel as his brain fragments due to an overdose of substance D. There are plenty of things that make this rotoscoped cartoon solely for adults, nudity, drug use and the like, but this one made the list soley for the director's refusal to spoon-feed the adudience the plot; that Fred and Arctor, though the same person are no longer cognisent of each other, and Fred, a cop, is being used to gather evidence on Arctor the junkie, aka, himself.

Highlight: Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as Arctor's paranoid conniving roomate Barris.

6. Fritz the Cat

Ralph Bakshi is a pioneer of sorts when it comes to cartoon smut. If you need proof of the preceding statment, look no further than his 1972 treatment of Harry Crumb's anthropomorphic swinging sixties, perpetually horny feline and his travels through the turbulent world of the sixties. This film, a statement of sorts on life and politics during the nixon era contains no less than five sex scenes, rampant drug use, liberal droppings of the F-bomb, racial content, explicit violence and full frontal nudity, all involving cartoon animals! When released, this film was a surprise hit with theatergoers. So much so that it became the first independent animated film to gross more than $100 million at the box office.

Highlight: In a not-so-subtle wink to the audience, police in the movie are portrayed as... you guessed it: pigs.

7. Persepolis

While I can't reccomend some of the flicks I've just gone over, this one is sheer gold. The story of Iranian Marjane Satrapi's journey through the Iran/Iraq war, and everything after that led to her being a 21 year old expatriate didn't make this list for "mature" (meaning objectionable) content, but for it's mature (meaning mature) content. Not only a damning critique of the the Iranian Islamic Revolution (to the point where the Iranian government has gone out of it's way to decry it and would only screen it in Tehran with half a dozen scenes cut out for sexual content), it's also a personal portrait of a girl who has been forced into the role of outsider, the trials she faces and the music that inspires her. The animation has a retro, almost kitchy feel to it (mirroring the look of the grphic novel the film is based on) and you know an old school punk rocker from DC like myself is only going to fall madly in love with the soundtrack.

Highlight: Watching the scene transition to the tune of Srvivor's Eye of the Tiger while the lead character pumps her fist and nods her head to the music.

8. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

Come on, did you really think this one would escape my attention? The very title is a double entendre! While this film definitely was a phenomenon, (as a musical, it rivaled Beauty and the Beast) it was nothing if not a middle finger aimed squarely at the MPAA. Not only are there dirty words, horrendous violence, swear words, sexual innuendo, cursing, a giant floating vagina and dirty words, but the plot itself is satire at it's best, as the parents of a nation go to war over the fact that their kids now know swear words (conveniently forgetting the fact that THEY'RE the ones who let their kids watch the movie that taught them those words to begin with). This line from the movie pretty much says it all:

"Rememeber what the MPAA says; 'pervasive deplorable violence is ok as long as nobody uses any naughty words'!"

Highlight: What Would Brian Boitano Do?

9. Heavy Traffic

Ralph Bakshi makes his third appearance on this list with this, his percursor to Fritz the Cat, and storywise it's nearly identical, only with humans instead of animals. The story of artist/loser Michael Corleone and the adventures he goes through (ultimately in his own mind) are ripe with sex, language and violence and the nihilism is (God help us all) turned up a few notches. One can only assume that Bakshi got a more positive outlook as he grew older, seeing as how his later days were spent directing things like Ren and Stimpy and the new Mighty Mouse cartoons. When all is said and done, you gotta admire the "warts and all" depiction of life and over the top stereotypes in New York. Added points for the pinball allegory. After all, we're all aimlessly rolling around and bumping into each other. Blinking lights, Rude bastards, Wild rides.

Highlight: Michael's Jewish mother's consistently hilarious attempts to off her husband.

10. Bambi

This one is nothing short of depressingly futile. The story of a little boy deer, raised by his single mother until her violent death, when he's placed in the care of his absentee father. Our hero manages to avoid becoming venison, nearly gets roasted as his home burns down around him, and has to take down another deer who's gettin all up in his kool-aid. When the movie finally ends, what do we see? He's had a kid and where is he? Not by the side of the girl he knocked up, but way off in the distance, just like his deadbeat dad. Sigh... it's a vicious cycle.

Highlight: Watching Bambi trying to ice skate... freaking comedy gold.

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