CARS (2006)

A small-town story about a hotshot race car who learns humility on Route 66

Marketed to boys ages 3 and up. Spawned billions in toy and merchandise sales. The five things every parent should know:

1. Mia and Tia flash Lightning McQueen. Two twin red fangirls approach McQueen, yell that they are his "biggest fans," then raise their headlights in unison. The visual directly parodies female fans at concerts and sports events who lift their shirts to expose their breasts at male celebrities. McQueen's response — "I love being me" — plays the joke as enjoyment of the exposure. A child who watches this scene fifty times will eventually understand exactly what just happened.

2. Top Down Truckstop is a strip club. A roadside business shown in the film displays a large sign reading "Top Down Truckstop" with smaller text below: "All Convertible Waitresses." In a world of sentient cars, a convertible with the top down equals a topless woman. Pixar placed an animated strip club into the background scenery of a children's film and built a worker-pun on top of it.

3. The Piston Cup is a urination pun. Say the name aloud. The joke is made explicit when Mater hears Doc Hudson won the Piston Cup three times and responds, "He did what in his cup?" The entire racing plot of the film revolves around a trophy named after a vulgar bathroom act.

4. Sally's tramp stamp. Sally Carrera's pinstripe tattoo is positioned directly above her rear bumper — the exact equivalent location of the lower-back tattoo known in pop culture as a "tramp stamp," a symbol associated with sexual promiscuity. The visual equivalence is intentional and has been openly identified in mainstream entertainment journalism.

5. Doc Hudson's exam scene. Lightning bursts in on Sheriff hoisted on a lift while Doc examines him from underneath. Sheriff asks Lightning, "Did you get a good look?" — a line staged as a gag about an exposed undercarriage, the Cars-world equivalent of exposed genitals. The joke depends on understanding shame about exposure.