It’s been a tad noticeable that adult swim has been pumping out quality stuff over these last couple years. Maybe Bojack Horseman might not be up to your tastes, but the recent golden gems that adult swim has been producing is clearly a sign that adult swim is heading towards better times, long distant from the era of literally producing nazi content then just cancelling it out of shame (coughWorldPeacecough).
Smiling Friends is one of those quality products from adult swim that have been produced very recently. A show created by animation youtubers Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack in a fever dream of hyperactive, nonsensical sugar rush. It narrates the misadventures of Charlie and Pim as they work for a non-profit organization called Smiling Friends, which is dedicated to make people smile. This simple premise is then devilishly distorted into an insane, hyperactive rollercoaster ride where different characters, also voiced by a variety of youtubers, including Zach himself, make for an entertaining experience.
What do I say about this? This show is amazingly a work of passionate art. It showcases the talent of animation that has been long gone since animation has been drowned in low-effort content on YouTube. It truly shows that, when life gives you lemons and a bunch of clickbait videos about how to stop the train in GTA V, you just make lemonade with as much sugar as possible.
The show has kept me cackling like a hyena at times, despite not being able to watch anything other than disembodied parts from YouTube, since I don’t reside in the US to be able to watch Cable TV for it, the one-off segments of dialog especially make it appealing. It’s the sort of good random humor you’d find in a YouTube animation, or Newgrounds. There’s so much memeable and funny content down there in Smiling Friends that it keeps rolling around my head for months.
I’d definitely recommend to watch it. It’s not yet available internationally, I wish it could be on Netflix or so where we spaniards can easily watch, but it will be definately like stealing all the candy from all the babies in the world and eating it all.
