watcha watchin, crispy? 10-year-old jane is really into the next generation of animated tv series: cartoon network's adventure time and regular show. anticipated by chowder and misadventures of flapjack, these shows are characterized by a kind of humble, hand-made, emphatically 2-d, not-beautifully-drawn animation that still manages to do many interesting things. they're constantly surreal, happening in worlds with seemingly arbitrary physical laws, etc. the scripts are often hilarious, filled with clever sortofjokes and incongruous or arbitrary observations. they're transgressive here and there and are not designed for young children, although maybe your kindergartner would dig it on her own level.
adventure time is particularly charming, from the basic concept to the theme song to the drawing-style to the characterization. it has an amazing real innocence and a thousand knowing meta-ideas. it's about a kid - finn the human - who lives in a fairy-tale world that seems to be created to make him into a hero who can date a princess. plus he's got a completely matter-of-fact magic dog buddy to keep his feet on the ground, and an awesome hat.
regular show has a bit of a darker edge; the two main characters (a blue jay and a raccoon) are worst enemies as well as best friends, and sometimes the whole plot is just kind of pitiful and everybody is very much no hero. still it is mordantly funny once you find the rhythm. and in comparison to sponge bob or looney tunes or ren and stimpy (the classics of their eras), these shows are remarkably quiet; they have a very slow rhythm; that's surprising if you think communication has to always get faster; it's kind of a relief though. the very opposite would be something like fairly oddparents: just excruciatingly screechingly loud and idiotically fast throughout. anyway you'd have to give a lot of credit to the cartoon network for getting these on the air; they are initially very unprepossessing and they take (well they took for me) a while to sink in or to it takes awhile to start feeling the jokes. you probably can get adventure time and regular show in on demand-type services on cable and satellite.