For me when it comes to being disappointed in a lot of kid’s
movies these days it’s not so much them not being scary, but lacking emotional
weight. Many kids movies just seem to be going through the motions with cookie
cutter plots, humor ranging from okay to awful out of date pop-cultural
references, and no real stacks involved. The kids movies that stand out to me
these days are the ones willing to put emotional weight in their story or at
the very least an artistic creativity that feels personal rather than being cooperate
mandated (recent examples including Rango, The Adventures of Tintin, Fantastic
Mr. Fox, The Secret of Kells, Coraline, Paranorman, any recent Pixar movie excluding
Cars 2)

I think it’s the sense of danger (and not necessarily) which
adds a lot of palpability and determine which kids movies stand out. For
instance in Rango easily the most memorable scene in the movie is the introduction
of Rattlesnake Jack and the weight comes not from Jack being scary (although I could
imagine younger children finding him scary) but the fact he takes control of
the movies narrative away from our hero and we feel that if Jack wanted he
could kill Rango. Or even looking a slightly lesser example in Kung Fu Panda 2
in the flashbacks we see the villain Lord Shen leading a genocide against the
Panda’s and this allows the final battle against his armada a greater impact as
we know the danger of what he is willing to do to amass power. Probably
clearest example would be the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie, verse
its sequels. In the first movie despite having silly moments and jokes, still
had moments of darkness and danger and I believe it is because of this that the
first movie is still fondly remember. In comparison the sequels gave into the complaints
from parents about the films violence (a charge I found laughable re-watching
the film recently and comparing to other recent films) and became completely
silly and fluff movies that had absolutely no lasting impact on the greater public
mindset.

The push to sanitize North American children’s entertainment has been there since the days of Howdy Doodie. But in 1990 is started to go off the rails when the 1990 Children’s Television Act was enacted. The act demanded a certain percentage of educational content per week. But since no one besides PBS could make anything educational and worth watching, they resorted to segments like “The More You know” and made sure they ran for a total of 3 hours per week. The segments at the end of G.I.Joe also counted.

Then came Captain Planet. Now the networks had something that they could run for 30 minutes each weekday that more than satisfied the requirements and got the FCC off it’s back for as long as the show ran every weekday. Now, lots of people KNEW about Captain Planet, but it was a show few really enjoyed (not like TMNT or Power Rangers), but it ran seemingly forever despite having little core audience. This was why. This is also why there was a sharp decline in segments like “School House Rock” and “Now You Know” style breaks. They were now eating up valuable time that could be spent selling more commercials. But who cared? Captain Planet satisfied requirements, so they were educating kids right?

On top of this, parents groups went on a RAMPAGE in the mid to late 80’s about the violent content of childrens cartoons, convincing the next generation of children’s entertainers to tone down violence. Everything had to be like Raffi. Compare the average modern kid’s cartoon movie to 80’s The Care Bears Movies. Even the fucking CARE BEARS MOVIES had their legitimately intense and somewhat violent moments. Death was a real possibility, characters are in shock and crying in terror. While I’m loathe to defend Care Bears movies it illustrates the way things were done then. Hell watch the beginning of that Rainbow Bright movie. You are not gonna see a scene like that done in a kid’s film today.

The funny thing is, America is obsessed with the messages in media in a way that few other cultures are. We worry so much about what it tells people about themselves, that it leaches away entertainment. Goto Japan or Taiwan and see how they deal with this stuff. It’s much more reasonable. Those cultures don’t obsess on this like we do and as a result their entertainment takes more creative risks.