I am having a bit of difficulty understanding what ‘conventional anime fans’ means in this context since your definition you use most often is the definition that anime is animation produced for the Japanese market (and usually, by the Japanese).

Japanese have always loved quirky animation, and shows like Ugo Ugo Luga are short run (like a year or so), but memorable shows for Japanese kids.

If you mean the “conventional anime fans” as in, moe anime fans, or that type in Japan (since that is such a popular genre in the otaku community now) personally THAT seems to be less conventional from my point of view since many of us have grown up on quirky animation like, knowing how quirky it is.

There is a market and a sense of appeal these kind of jokes have to the Japanese in my observation.