This story first ran within the animation publication “Sketch to Screen.” Subscribe here to obtain a brand new entry each Thursday.
Last yr, “Smiling Friends” felt like Adult Swim‘s new flagship hit. The animated collection, which initially premiered in 2022, was a bizarre novelty, a sitcom about workers at an organization devoted to spreading happiness filled with weird experimental animation and darkish, meta humor. And but the present, in the course of the airing of its third season, was solely getting extra standard, on the tipping level of being one thing resembling a mainstream hit.
“The Simpsons” was referencing it. Viewership was persevering with to rise. It was proving steadily increasingly unavoidable on social media every time a brand new episode aired. Before the season even started, Adult Swim renewed the present for 2 extra seasons, guaranteeing it could be on the air till round 2027. With the channel’s earlier largest success, “Rick & Morty,” now getting lengthy within the tooth and losing its luster, each signal was pointing to the very-online, bizarre web creation of Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack turning into the brand new face of arguably an important animation channel.
Until, simply as all of a sudden, it was throughout. Back in February, Hadel and Cusack made a press release during which they introduced that “Smiling Friends” was over; they determined to renege on producing the 2 upcoming seasons in favor of ending the present at this second. In a video announcing the choice, the 2 attributed the choice to each burnout and a need to let the present finish at its peak.
“Even from the very beginning of the show, we always said ‘how great would it be to try to make this show as good as it can be and really put 110% and then really go out on top,” Hadel mentioned.
The choice was each stunning and, in some methods, one that ought to have been simple to see coming. When I interviewed the duo throughout Season 3’s run, they advised me bluntly that that they had zero curiosity in ever seeing the collection run so long as “The Simpsons,” “South Park,” or comparable animated collection outlined by their enduring cultural energy. And there’s one thing admirable about creators selecting to finish successful like “Smiling Friends” on their very own phrases, and for a channel like Adult Swim to let it occur.
At the identical time, there’s an unavoidable sense that one thing is being minimize brief right here. “Smiling Friends,” for all its success, was an imperfect collection, one that also had room to develop to totally attain its potential.
All the problems that had been subtly affecting “Smiling Friends” are totally clear within the present’s last two episodes, launched on Sunday February 12, as one final deal with for the followers. In their video asserting the present’s ending, Hadel and Cusack emphasised that these episodes will not be a correct finale of any type, and that’s very evident from watching them.
An enormous, goopy, dramatic goodbye would most likely not be becoming for such an irreverent present. Still, the episodes, which Cusack mentioned had been being labored on final yr, unavoidably really feel like leftovers they polished up simply sufficient to be appropriate for launch; notably, each had been produced by Titmouse, versus the South Korean firm Saerom that largely dealt with Season 3.
And the 2 installments show to be among the many weakest entries of the whole collection, failing to shut the present out on a robust word. “”Friend-Bot (Version 12589218731809213528796879521)” is a lazy, unimaginative riff on the debates over AI’s function within the office, following the workers of Smiling Friends as they undertake a service robotic that does every thing for them. It’s a premise that’s uncommonly by-product for the present, and “Friend-Bot” can’t even be requested to come back on the dialogue with a robust level of view, ending the episode with an uncomfortable reveal that the titular robotic was an Indian man inside a fancy dress the entire time.
The true last episode, “Charlie’s Uncle Dies and Doesn’t Come Back” (named in reference to the primary season finale “Charlie Dies and Doesn’t Come Back”) is even worse, indulging the present’s black comedy streak with out the wit or jokes to again it up. Main characters Charlie and Pim are compelled to spend the day with Charlie’s Uncle Bilbert, a proudly misanthropic asshole who takes them on a nasty habits tour of types, together with a violent “Polygon fighter” cockfighting competitors that lands them in jail. The jokes all land with a thud, the sliver of coronary heart that comes with the reveal that Bilbert desires Charlie to face up for himself isn’t notably transferring, and the button that Bilbert is a intercourse felony is extra simply gross than surprising or humorous.
The two episodes, particularly “Charlie’s Uncle Dies and Doesn’t Come Back,” exemplify what “Smiling Friends” was at its worst slightly than its greatest. The present grew to become greatest identified for its intensive use of blended media — claymation, 3D CGI, and characters of all types of completely different configurations and dimensions helped fill out the present’s surreal world. In some methods, these formal components might function a crutch for the present, the primary distinguishing characteristic in its arsenal.
Most of the time, the collection wasn’t fairly as bizarre at its core because it appeared on the floor. Like rather a lot of Adult Swim animated collection, “Smiling Friends” predicated its humor on a really on-line sensibility and an usually misanthropic cynicism that could possibly be exhausting slightly than good; it is a collection that directly referenced notorious web lolcow ChrisChan.
If the present labored greatest as type of an absurdist stew of animated references with a contact of the surreal — one of the best episode remains to be most likely “A Allan Adventure,” a wierd, whimsical odyssey for supporting character Allan that will get a followup within the last two episodes — its makes an attempt to be edgy or topical (see: the present’s election episode in Season 2) had been the place its cracks as a sitcom confirmed. And in these last two episodes, the place the experiments with animation strategies are largely within the margins, all of the present’s weaknesses are in full view.
That’s to not say “Smiling Friends” was a nasty present — there’s at all times room for one thing as unusual and creatively dangerous as this collection in animation, and its greatest episodes managed to discover a solution to marry its edgelord streak with stable situational character writing (Mr. Boss is a person whom I’ll die for, personally). Still, the present isn’t even one of the best Adult Swim collection that aired final yr; the unusual thriller “Common Side Effects,” the endearingly meat-headed comedy “Haha, You Clowns,” and the enthralling queer melodrama “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” all proved extra full, satisfying artistic visions.
Time will inform what the legacy of “Smiling Friends” will likely be, though it in all chance, it can stay a stoner traditional if nothing else. Regardless, it’s a disgrace to see a present with as a lot potential because it had exit not with a bang however with a muted little whimper.
The last episodes of “Smiling Friends” are actually streaming on HBO Max.
