Why are children's cartoons littered with sexual symbols?

I thinks it's some sort of semi subliminal hook to keep the adults watching. Like all of the double entendre jokes in spongebob only more subtle.

Kids don't see it like adults do and believe it or not kid's cartoons were made for kids.

I almost fell off the couch laughing at the CUN-T reference in Spongebob when I first saw it.

Melisandre121 wrote: »

Tommy squirting his "milk bottle" at the screen at the end of The Rugrats theme

I'd say that one was accidental but once you see it that way you can't shake it off at all. Remember how after a while they changed that part of the opening credits so that the screen got covered with all these 3D animated Nickelodeon symbols? At the time I hadn't a clue why they done that, just assumed Nickelodeon were extremely proud of the show or something.

In general*, it's just the animators amusing themselves by seeing what they can manage to slip in, nothing more. Certainly not a conscious attempt by the production company to amuse parents.
There's definitely plenty of cases where people really desperately try to find sexual connotations to kids shows too though, which seems like a stupid thing to waste your energy on but whatever.


EDIT: Just to counter the "oh kids shows aren't what they used to be" nonsense I see popping up, shows like Adventure Time, Over the Garden Wall and Gravity Falls are ridiculously good, far more inventive, original and fun than the vast majority of post-Simpsons snark filled stuff I had.