I've seen noone complain about the Under the Sea song parody about being able to poo in the ocean in Harley Quinn but I've seen multiple complaints about fart jokes in a kid's show that hasn't even been out very long.
On first viewing, I didn't think it was very funny and it added little to the episode. I didn't voice any criticism until 'til my daughter mentioned that she also thought it was a low point for the show.
I remember South Park getting statements of "I could have done without the poo jokes" but that's still only generally been on the grosser south park episodes
South Park has some very smart humor at times. So I'd find it more fun to watch without the potty humor. But I think that's kind of the point the show is trying to make by including the bottom feeding kind of joke along with its edgy commentary.
The difference in response to the same sort of humour, when the only difference is the intended audience
I get what you're getting at and I want to agree. I do think that we don't give youngsters enough credit for being able to see what adults see. But it seems like intended audience should matter too.
Thanks for your comment. It's interesting to see someone comment on that Harley Quinn song. I would have thought intended audience should matter in the opposite direction though ie give kids shows a bit more slack because kids are more likely to find simpler jokes funny.
I personally found I never grew out of any type of humour but that my standards for all of it changed a bit, as in it takes better writing for most types of jokes for me to find it funny but as a kid, any fart joke might have made me laugh etc. I mean I love The Young Ones, for example, and it includes both silly / random / alternative humour and toilet humour but that doesn't mean silliness or farts or poop jokes are funny in and of themselves but as a kid I was more than likely less picky about it. If silliness alone was enough for me to find it funny, I'd probably find The Goodies hilarious but I actually don't like The Goodies because it doesn't even really make sense, while The Young Ones or Life of Brian are good comedies imo. The same applies to stuff like fart jokes. A fart isn't funny on its own but jokes involving farts can be. Sometimes it is also a little bit of relatability too. There's an adult cartoon called Housebroken about pets and one of the dogs on it is the focus of some fart jokes and to me and my partner it is funny because it reminds us of our dog. The kids cartoon Bluey has some toilet humour in it (not a lot, but some) and it's undoubtedly relatable for parents but it's also relatable to me as someone who worked in childcare. I do think life experiences make a difference to this sort of thing.
I agree with you about South Park. I prefer current South Park which seems more focused on the social jokes and less on the poo jokes to South Park of a decade or so ago which seemed to be heavier on the poop jokes. Just like how the mix of humour in The Goodies pushes to my limit of my liking for silliness (mostly because it doesn't really make sense), certain episodes of South Park do it for toilet humour for me. Some of them are pretty disgusting.
The point I was making was just more that I see kids shows get criticised and people stating they hate certain characters over jokes that a less gross adult show would make, but get away with without the same criticism and I thought the only time I heard adult shows get the same criticism was South Park, but for much grosser jokes than the ones being complained about in kids shows, but now that some time has passed I realised I have also seen it happen to Rick and Morty about an episode that had a diarrhoea joke which online seemed to trigger complaints and people arguing whether the show is stupid or not (though this is also probably partially caused by the fact people argue over that copypasta about Rick and Morty being really smart too, which is meant to be a joke but people argue over it anyway).
It just seems unreasonable to hate a character or write off a whole show over something as harmless as some silly humour or toilet humour to me but I see it quite a bit. I also see people go "oh this is crap because it's so lol random", which I don't get because that doesn't really indicate quality. Silly / random / alternative humour can be done in so many ways (if it couldn't, Monty Python and The Young Ones and Todd's antics on Bojack Horseman would be exactly the same, but they're not) and they can coexist with serious themes or messages (but they don't need to either) so I can't see how someone can feel so negatively towards a whole type of humour. Tbh while I understand disliking fart jokes more than disliking silly humour, I don't think i would believe someone if they told me absolutely no fart joke could ever be funny to them either. I don't think it is actually possible to truly not be able to enjoy any joke within a certain type of jokes. I think people can think they wouldn't find any jokes of a certain type to be funny, but I think given the miriad of ways that a joke can be made, they are probably wrong to think this. These people act like silly humour and toilet humour are the worst things in the world and hate characters (ie this would be like you deciding you hate King Shark now because his story was what caused poop jokes in Harley Quinn) or whole shows over it (ie if you decided you hated all of Harley Quinn over that poop song) and it is rare that I see views like this expressed anywhere near as strongly towards similar jokes in adult shows to how I see them expressed towards kids shows. The most vocal people doing this really seem to be harsher on kids shows than adult shows for similar "offenses" ime. It might be a case of who is most vocal not representing the opinions not shared by everyone else or what communities I'm around or something creating a bias but from what I see there definitely is a tendency towards being harsher on shows aimed at kids.