Why did kids anime dubs have to be more dumbed down than western cartoons?

[Abomination]

I'd say a huge part of the problem is that American dubs think that the most important thing of all is to have a character speaking for every nanosecond their lips appear to move. As a result, everyone in an American dub of an anime rambles nonstop about unimportant things all the time. Dialogue would be completely re-written constantly and often lose its edge, nuance, or meaning entirely. And mature themes are probably the first casualty to go.

My god you're on the money here. You would think the localizers could apply some common sense and CUT dialogue animation duration from scenes. I think MoJo JoJo from Powerpuff Girls is supposed to be a riff on that very thing how he just keeps talking, saying the same thing, applying different synonyms, or changing the grammatical structure, reiterating, repeating, again and again while still conveying the same message.

All the alien "Djugh!" noises made in the English version do NOT convey anything of use half the time either, it just makes all characters appear indecisive and flat-footed.

Then again, I suppose if you cut all that fluff out of anime the runtime would be halved.