Adult
Swim came into existence in 2001 when I was in college, right smack in
the target audience for their programming. It was considered a risky
experiment for Cartoon Network at the time, since the idea of cartoons
for adults was still considered novel. Sure, FOX had their Sunday night
animation block, but that was still considered family-friendly fare.
The only animated shows that really needed to be shown late at night due
to content concerns were things like "South Park" and "Celebrity Death
Match." Moreover, Adult Swim, based out of Atlanta's Williams Street
Studios, was very conscious of the fact that they were sharing space on
the dial with Cartoon Network, which had been unambiguously aimed at
kids from the very beginning. So the early commercial bumpers sternly
warned small children that it was time to get out of the pool. There's
still a buffer zone in the evening hours, where reruns of network
sitcoms like "Family Guy" and "King of the Hill" help transition to
the more hard-edged stuff that airs after midnight.
From
the start, I was primarily interested in the Saturday night anime
block, as I was still in my rabid otaku phase. It's a much lower
profile part of the Adult Swim brand, but this is still the place
American television where you can most reliably find broadcasts of
popular anime like "Attack on Titan," "Naruto," and the ever-popular
"Cowboy Bebop." And despite some ups and downs over the years, and a
period where the anime was almost phased out of Adult Swim completely, I
think that Adult Swim has done right by its anime fans. They've taken
some big risks on various programs over the years, and a generation of
American anime fans owe them thanks for popularizing some of their
favorites. I haven't watched the block in years since I stopped having a
schedule that regularly let me stay up until 2AM, but I was gratified
to see that the current lineup is still full of weird, wild, and
wonderful shows like "Michiko and Hatchin" and "Parasyte the Maxim" that
would never get broadcast anywhere else.
Of course,
Adult Swim really gained its notoriety for the original shows they
premiered on Sunday nights. I liked the action spoof "Venture
Brothers," nostalgic action figure sketch show "Robot Chicken," and a
scattering of the others, but mostly I found the offerings from the
early years bizarre. They all tended to be very short, crude, and
horrifically violent. "Space Ghost," "Harvey Birdman," and "SeaLab
2021" recycled old Hanna Barbera cartoons into dark absurdist sitcoms.
"Aqua Team Hunger Force" followed the adventures of super-powered fast
food items, and famously spawned the guerilla marketing campaign
that caused the 2007 Boston bomb scare. Then there was the shoestring
surrealism of "12 oz. Mouse," which looked like a child's crayon doodles
brought to disturbing life. Could these shows have existed anywhere
else on cable television? I suppose "The Boondocks" could have aired
somewhere else, but not with the same amount of creative freedom.
Moreover,
the whole attitude of the network (which became independent of Cartoon
Network after 2005) was uniquely casual and experimental. They
would play infuriating April Fools pranks on their audience, like
pre-empting shows to broadcast Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" multiple
times. They often mocked themselves, their content, and their audience,
with deadpan wryness. They ran contests that let specific viewers
decide the programming on certain dates. The famous white-text-on-black
commercial bumpers often came straight from viewer submissions.
I knowfirsthand, because one of mine made it on the air once. There was
a nice sense of both anarchy and audience participation at the same
time. I got the distinct feeling that it really didn't matter what
Adult Swim aired as much as the subversive, snarky, Millennial-friendly
atmosphere they cultivated. They put out a lot of crud back in the day -
strange, interesting crud, but still crud. I'm still not sure what to
make of "Perfect Hair Forever" or "Tom Goes to the Mayor," shows only
the most addled of stoners could love.
Developing
that creative free-for-all environment at Williams Street played a big
part in Adult Swim's recent successes, though. As a staunch animation
defender, I was a little resentful that the block started airing live
action programming a few years ago, but soon I understood that
"Childrens Hospital," "The Eric André Show," and the rest were in the
same vein of cheap, weird, unhinged programming as Adult Swim's animated
shows. And then last year, after well over a decade of obscurity,
suddenly Adult Swim went mainstream. Syndicated reruns of shows like
"Family Guy" had been bringing in big ratings for a while, but "Rick and
Morty" was their first home-grown hit, regularly beating everything in
its timeslot on both cable and network television. Then their sporadic
"infomercial" block premiered a live action spoof on '80s sitcom theme
songs called "Too Many Cooks," which immediately went viral and was all
anybody wanted to talk about for several days last October.
There
have been various imitators over the years, but nobody's managed to
match Adult Swim's commitment to uncompromisingly original programs in
the same way. And adult animation has quietly flourished in various
corners of television thanks to Adult Swim. I know "Archer" and "Bojack
Horseman" wouldn't be around without it. Heck, "Family Guy" wouldn't
still be running if "Adult Swim" viewers hadn't latched on to it. I
don't know what the future holds for television as the landscape
continues to change, but I'm glad that there's still a place where
grown-up animation and surreal black comedy and kickass anime and Tommy
Wiseau and Dan Harmon truly have a home.
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