Adult Swim Announces 'Smiling Friends' Season 3, Two Series Orders At Annecy
Animation is being greenlit again, hallelujah
For those who have noticed that Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Branded Television have moved off of Upfronts, Annecy International Animation Film Festival is where you want your attention to be because Warner Bros. Animation and Disney have moved their animation slate reveals there. This year’s edition was held this week, and boy did they deliver. Adult Swim did their presentation today, announcing the greenlight for two new series and the renewal of Smiling Friends for a third season, heading into the seventh episode of the second airing this Sunday.
Oh My God, Yes! A Series of Extremely Relatable Circumstances follows three best friends in Los Angeles who collectively navigate the worlds of sex, dating, and womanhood in the year 2102. It’s a quarter-hour comedy created by Emmy-winning writer and executive producer Adele “Supreme” Williams, who came from My Dad the Bounty Hunter inspired by her book of a similar name (it turns out “series” is more about the format; the book’s full title uses book in that spot). Its pilot actually already aired on the network in February 2023, and was uploaded to the network’s YouTube channel yesterday in very probable anticipation of the pickup announcement. It’s executive produced by Dominique Braud and produced for Adult Swim by Six Point Harness.
Then there’s Ha Ha You Clowns, putting in full bloom what was born a fan-favorite Adult Swim Smalls animated short series. The new quarter hours will continue to follow the three jacked yet kindhearted brothers accompanied by their loving and similarly jacked father on bonding adventures after their mother’s passing. Instead of traditional jokes or punchlines, the series’s surreal comedy comes from its premise: that a group of deep-voiced, musclebound bros are actually sensitive, well-educated and articulate sweethearts who would do anything for one another. Created by Joe Cappa the show forgoes traditional jokes or punchlines in favor of surreal comedy mined from a sensitive, well-educated and articulate group of manly men. The show was created by Joe Cappa.
Meanwhile, Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of six series across Cartoon Network and Adult Swim including Dexter’s Laboratory and Primal, is developing a seventh, titled Heist Safari, a 10-episode comedic robbery with the feel of a musical. The robbers are three estranged brother frogs. There’s James the control freak, neurotic Issac, and little George, who has an ego giving him an inflated sense of intelligence. They meet up at their father’s funeral, and are told they will only receive their large inheritance if they pull off a bank heist, stealing the contents of bank vault 88. Each of them cut side deals individually for help from a Japanese yakuza tiger, a Russian mafia hippo and an Italian gorilla mobster respectively. The series also features wildebeest police, where every episode has an EDM score and is executed as just one shot which will not be told in chronological order.
“This whole show came to me because of how quick media is getting. We’re all flicking through entertainment this quickly. And so asked myself: How can I do a show that’s fast and intense but is going to trap you so that you can’t click past it,” Tartakovsky said.
Smiling Friends co-creators and stars Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel remarked on the show’s foundation “It’s like a really weird looking character but they’re in debt or they’ve got to pay taxes. That contrast was the DNA of the show. They also showed gratitude for the freedom Adult Swim has given them. “Of all the notes we get, Adult Swim’s are the most organic. We never feel boxed in. It’s always suggestions. When you do get such a great collaboration with someone like Cam [Tang] and Adult Swim in general, it pays dividends because it makes us even more excited, because we know that we can kind of get away with a lot,” Cusack added. The Annecy showcase also included the Rick and Morty The Anime opening scene, as well as the network’s first-ever Spanish-language series Women Wearing Shoulder Pads, a stop-motion telenovela created by Gonzalo Cordova, previously a writer on Tuca & Bertie and Adam Ruins Everything. A preview clip for Sunday’s Smiling Friends episode "The Magical Red Jewel AKA Tyler Gets Fired" was also released Thursday, more out of the typical weekly cycle than anything caused by Annecy.
