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The concept of sneaking adult themes into kids’ shows has never been more insidious.

Not to distract from the point in your post but as a child actor Shirley Temple starred in some really gross and creepy shit just under a century ago. Idk if it would be classified as kids' shows specifically but I think it was intended for a general audience.

Baby Burlesks was her first role in film. As in burlesques.

This was pre-Hays Code Hollywood too, which was pretty astonishing for how salacious some of the movies they were putting out given the era and how it's easy to imagine this time period being as conservative as the 1950s when it really wasn't that way at all. Basically all of the code was a reaction to the content that was pretty rampant in Hollywood prior to it being enforced and it has some of the code says a lot, such as the prohibition of depicting "children's sex organs" and encouraging that the "deliberate seduction of girls" be dealt with in a tasteful way that does not stray into vulgarity or licentiousness. Note that elsewhere in the code, women are not referred to as girls but specifically as women. The choice of wording it as "girls" appears to be intentional.

What happened to Shirley Temple off-camera was even worse though. When you have Hollywood producers sexually abusing a child star and then you have really odd and distasteful stuff happening on set, it gets a lot harder to dismiss the decisions made in the films as being unintentional or "from a simpler time".

At the time a few prominent figures spoke out denouncing this shit for what it was and, naturally, other rich white men who occupied a position of power in society applauded it and professed to being in love with Shirley Temple. Graham Greene, true to form as a member of the privileged upper class in Britain and as a Catholic, wrote very descriptive, sexualised praise of Shirley Temple's screen appearances.

I don't have any conclusions to draw here aside from the fact that this shit is endemic and it has been for a long time. And if you decide to look into Shirley Temple's acting career or to watch clips from the films she starred in, you do it at your own peril.

Oh man watch the whole thing it’s wild

I liked Drake and Josh a lot, and I watched iCarly but every once in a while there’d be a “joke” that I would just find offputting and not funny. Victorious and later Sam and Cat I didn’t watch and every time I did see them they made me intensely uncomfortable, something just seemed so intensely off about those shows and I didn’t know what it was at the time.

Brings to mind the Paris Hilton documentary about the “troubled teen” industry, which I haven’t actually watched and cannot watch.

Episode 2 made so so nauseous. I've been seeing people come to the wrong conclusions too. Like blaming the parents or thinking it's just Dan. The doc did a good job showing how abusers can be successful, especially in an industry with power imbalance between up and coming stars and established/profitable crews. It's an industry wide problem and getting rid of this person or that person will not correct the industry.

Did you see Dans interview with Tebo from iCarly in response?

Link?