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Smiling Friends is an adult animated television series created by Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack for Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block Adult Swim, which revolves around the surreal misadventures of a small charity and its four employees dedicated to spreading happiness. The show utilizes a wide variety of different art styles and animation techniques, which include but are not limited to stylized traditional animation, CGI, rotoscoping, stop motion, flash animation, and live-action.
| Smiling Friends | |
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| Theme music composer | Chris O'Neill |
| Ending theme | "Brown Smile" (composed by Chris O'Neill) |
| Composer | Brendan Caulfield |
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| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 17 |
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| Running time | 11 minutes |
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| Original release | |
| Network | Adult Swim |
| Release | January 10, 2022[3] – present |
The pilot episode aired April 1, 2020, unannounced as part of Adult Swim's annual April Fools' Day event alongside the premiere of Cusack's other series, YOLO. On May 19, 2021, Adult Swim ordered a full season that was initially set to premiere in late 2021.[4] A panel dedicated to the series was held during the Adult Swim Festival on November 12, 2021, where co-creator Zach Hadel mentioned the show would premiere "within a few months", pushing the release schedule ahead to 2022.[5] The first season contains nine episodes, including the pilot and an 11-minute special.[6][7][8] The first season eventually premiered on January 10, 2022, with Adult Swim airing all episodes of the season, except for the special, in one night despite initial plans for a weekly release.[9][3][a]
The series received critical acclaim, and was renewed for a second season on February 9, 2022;[10] the season premiere aired on April 1, 2024,[11] with the rest of the season beginning to air on May 13.[12][13] On June 13, 2024, Adult Swim renewed the series for a third season.[14]
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The series follows the misadventures and shenanigans of Charlie Dompler and Pim Pimling, two employees of the Smiling Friends, a charitable company dedicated to bringing joy and happiness to its clients. They are sometimes assisted by their coworkers, Allan Red and Glep, and their supervisor Mr. Boss. Misadventure ensues, as the eccentric people they are tasked with helping prove challenging and thrust them into bizarre situations.
Main
- Michael Cusack as Pim Pimling / Allan Red / Steven Pimling / Mrs. Pimling / Amy Pimling / various Bliblies / Mr. Frog / Meep Foundation Lady / Imp / Ketchup / Fun Twins / Pepper / Witch / Fairies / Grim / Warren Buffett / Rex / Jeremy / Hell Faces / James / Skeleton Pirate / Professor Daniel Psychotic / Fat #1 / Tanning salon guy / Secretary Critter / Squiggly Miggly / Aliens
- Zach Hadel as Charlie Dompler / Glep / Jason / Desmond’s Mom / Screaming Bird / various Bliblies / Mr. Frog Fan / Salt / The Century Egg / Mip / Gnarly / DJ Spit / Mr. Peanut / Ronald Reagan / Charlie’s Grandma / Satan / Grandson Gleppie / Gwimbly / Groxia's Wife / Plilford / Mr. Landlord / Fat #2 / Homunculus / Duncan / TV Alien / Allan's Partner
- Marc M. as The Boss / Airport Guy / Construction Goblin / Bill Nye / additional voices
Supporting
- Mike Stoklasa as Desmond / Purple Alien
- David Dore as Party Bro / Forest Demon / Armzo / Alien
- Erica Lindbeck as Assistant / Jennifer the Barista / Mustard / Princess of the Enchanted Forest / Brittney
- Rodrigo Huerta as Guy In Line / Jacob the Goblin / Devils / Food Delivery Guy / Jombo / additional voices
- Chris O'Neill as Smormu James Carter / Mr. Frog Auditionee / Yeti
- Hans van Harken as Jimmy Fallon / Priest / Hell Faces / Bill[15] / Alien / additional voices
- Mick Lauer as Bug / Guy at the Gym / Crazy Cup / Elf / additional voices
- Harry Partridge as Smormu Announcer / Grease / 3D Squelton / William Worm
- David Firth as Shrimp / Fillmore
- Monica Franco as Zoey / Waitress / Wendy Worm
- Joshua Tomar as Centaur / Grandpa Glep / Cop / Count Groxia / Troglor / OfficeCrap Boss / U.S. Air Force Jet Pilot / Bigfoot / additional voices
- Lyle Rath as Mr. Man / IGBG CEO
Guest
Introduced in Season 1
- Finn Wolfhard as Squatter / various Bliblies
- Nick Wolfhard as Graham Nelly / various Bliblies
- Tom Fulp as Alpha
- Chills as Patron
- Jason Paige as Dream Singer
- Gilbert Gottfried as God
Introduced in Season 2
- Joel Haver as Doug
- Marc Winslow as Pim's Spanish voice[b]
- Edson Matus as Charlie's Spanish voice[b]
- Rich Evans as Brown Alien[16]
- Jay Bauman as Police Alien[17]
- TruVoice Peter Adult Male #1 as Oscar-Jester / various Spamtopia citizens
- Dana Snyder as Rotten the Snowman
Live-action actors
- Jane Badler as Celebrity Show Host
- Jim Knobeloch as Mystery Show Host
- Clyde Boraine as Policeman
- Perry Caravello as Simon S. Salty
- Mike Stoklasa as Himself (split second frame)
- James Rolfe as Himself (split second frame)
- Mike Bocchetti as President Jimble
- Doug Walker as Daniel the Demon Slayer
- Abed Gheith as Tyler
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Series overview
Season 1 (2022)
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Animation directed/led by | Storyboarded by | Original air date [18][a] | US viewers (millions) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Desmond's Big Day Out" | Jake Ganz | Zach Hadel & Michael Cusack | April 1, 2020 (April Fools' Day preview) January 10, 2022 (series premiere) | 0.31[19] | |
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Pim and Charlie are called to help Desmond, a suicidal man who keeps a gun pressed to his head at all times. He cheers up a little when taken to an amusement park, but subsequently goes on a nihilistic rant, causing the optimistic Pim to suffer a paralyzing existential crisis. Meanwhile, Allan finds that the office has been infested by small creatures called "bliblies". When the Friends come back to the office with Desmond, they find the office overrun with the bliblies crucifying Allan. Desmond uses his gun to shoot a bliblie, which gives him a renewed sense of purpose and inspires him to start a pest control service. Note: This is the series' pilot episode. It was aired as part of Adult Swim's annual April Fools' Day event, and would later air with the rest of the episodes as part of the series premiere. | |||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Mr. Frog" | Georgia Kriss | David Hootselle | January 10, 2022 | 0.31[19] | |
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The illustrious career of famed celebrity Mr. Frog is jeopardized after he attempts to eat a TMZ reporter. Pim and Charlie are tasked with rehabilitating Frog; first, the two try to get him to quit drugs and have him donate money to the city, which goes awry when Frog accidentally slices off the hands of the city comptroller during the ceremony. They then put him on "sleeping pills" given to him by Charlie, only for a lucid Mr. Frog to say something extremely offensive on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, getting him completely blacklisted from the industry. Meanwhile, Glep is hired as Frog's replacement on The Mr. Frog Show, but the show's ratings-obsessed producer finds his ordinary behavior too "toxic" and forces him to tone himself down. The show's audience reacts with disgust to the reboot during its filming. Frog then appears in the studio to apologize and ends up eating the producer for refusing to rehire him, regaining the public's love and becoming rich enough to host the show himself. | |||||||
| 3 | 3 | "Shrimp's Odyssey" | Georgia Kriss | Jakub Zieba | January 10, 2022 | 0.30[19] | |
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A preview asks the audience to vote on whether a new character, "Smormu," should be added to the show. Pim and Charlie are called to help Shrimp, an awkward, reclusive gamer who was recently left by his girlfriend, Shrimpina. Charlie believes Shrimp should move on, while Pim aims to reunite the two and seeks her out to set her up on a blind date with Shrimp. However, Pim ends up developing feelings for Shrimpina and tries to steal the date for himself, but changes his mind once he sees Charlie with a miserable Shrimp at the agreed upon meeting spot and reluctantly reintroduces the two. As it turns out, the woman Pim located was not Shrimpina, but a stranger named Jennifer. However, Jennifer finds herself attracted to Shrimp anyways, leaving a heartbroken Pim with Smormu - who had been voted in by the audience - attempting to cheer him up. The "In Loving Memory" running gag of the series' credits shows that "Smormu James Carter" was later beaten to death. | |||||||
| 4 | 4 | "A Silly Halloween Special" | Georgia Kriss | Michael Dockery & Jason Kruse | January 10, 2022 | 0.25[19] | |
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Before the episode, a Robert Stack-like host walking in an alleyway comments on the horrors of the unknown. Pim is tasked with retrieving firewood for the company's Halloween party, but gets lost and is attacked by a demonic forest creature. It chases him back to the office, where the partygoers mistake its skin tone for blackface, burn it to death, and eat its remains, while Mr. Boss thanks Pim for "saving" Halloween. The live-action host concludes that the greatest horrors come from the mind, when a cop suddenly arrives telling him to stop loitering and the host leaves the alley, revealing that he is not wearing pants. | |||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?" | N/A | Mark Sheard | January 10, 2022 | 0.23[19] | |
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While getting dinner at the popular fast food restaurant Salty's, Pim and Charlie find founder Simon S. Salty dead in a back room. They call the police, who explain that the murder investigation division was moved to a separate company due to budget cuts; Mr. Boss then calls and informs them that the Smiling Friends are in fact the police's new division. They interrogate Salty's team of living mascots, all of whom display alarmingly unhinged behavior. They eventually recover security footage from the discontinued "century egg" mascot that reveals that Salty had ultimately died of a heart attack from his own unhealthy diet (ironically, after eating what he swore would be his last burger before changing his lifelong eating habits), but that all of his mascots later separately attempted to kill him for their own reasons, unaware that they were attacking a corpse. Gleefully after they declared innocent, the mascots leave the restaurant and immediately begin to wreak havoc in public. In a post-credits scene, the Friends bury the century egg in China at his request, only for Charlie to dig him back up when Pim wonders what he tasted like. | |||||||
| 6 | 6 | "Enchanted Forest" | Georgia Kriss | Jakub Zieba | January 10, 2022 | 0.21[19] | |
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While on a mission to help the princess of the nearby Enchanted Forest smile for a portrait, Pim and Charlie get sidetracked by a hobbit-like forest dweller named Mip. Charlie undertakes several quests despite his earlier apathy towards doing so, causing Pim, who wanted to do the quests beforehand, to accidentally kill Mip in a jealous Gollum-esque struggle. Remorseful, he and Charlie give the princess the gift Mip had intended for her, but she reveals that Mip was her stalker; inside the box is a bomb, which she frantically discards in a panic before finally smiling upon learning of his demise, much to the duo’s confusion. In a post-credits scene, back at the office, Charlie has an allergic reaction to a "potion" Mip had urged him to drink on a quest, claiming it was a cure for headaches. | |||||||
| 7 | 7 | "Frowning Friends" | N/A | Michael Harris | January 10, 2022 | 0.21[19] | |
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A rival company called the "Frowning Friends", run by a pair of lookalikes named Grim and Gnarly, moves in across the street, and besmirch the Smiling Friends' reputation when they begin spreading gloom across the town. As the company's profits plummet, Mr. Boss has a psychotic break and attempts to assassinate Grim. Grim sobs and begs for his life in front of his supporters, revealing that his nihilistic attitude was a sham and causing former Frowning Friends patrons to boycott the company. Mr. Boss convinces Grim and Gnarly to smile for the first time, only for them to be killed by passing "Renaissance men" on horseback, to the consternation of Pim and Charlie. | |||||||
| 8 | 8 | "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back" | N/A | David Hootselle | January 10, 2022 | 0.22[19] | |
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While fetching a Christmas tree for the office on Christmas Eve, Pim and Charlie argue about the latter's pessimistic attitude until a tree falls on Charlie and gruesomely kills him. He awakens in Hell, which has frozen over as Satan is suffering from a bout of depression. Charlie travels to Satan's castle and offers to make him smile, on the condition that Satan must send him back to Earth if he succeeds. Satan finally smiles after harming Charlie and realizes that torturing people gives him pleasure, and tries to back out of their deal, only for God (Gilbert Gottfried) to reveal the whole thing was a test, and send Charlie back to Earth during his funeral. An elderly Glep, who has been narrating the episode the entire time, informs his grandson that the story is true and that Christian Hell is real before wishing the audience a Merry Christmas. | |||||||
| 9 | 9 | "The Smiling Friends Go to Brazil!" | Paul Ter Voorde | Michael Dockery, Michael Harris & Mark Sheard | August 6, 2022 | 0.27[20] | |
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The Smiling Friends arrive in Brazil, only to discover that Pim forgot to book the hotel as he assumed Allan was responsible for doing so. They try to book another hotel nearby, but learn everything is fully booked as Mardi Gras is currently occurring. The crew get seated at an airport restaurant and call Mr. Boss for advice, but he offers nothing. Ultimately, the gang accepts that their best option is to catch the next flight back home, unaware of a plane that is about to crash into a mountain in the background. This entire sequence of events is presented as a single shot. | |||||||
Season 2 (2024)
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Storyboarded by | Original air date | US viewers (millions) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 1 | "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition with DX 4K (Anniversary Director's Cut)" | Paul Ter Voorde | James Cunningham, Michael Cusack, Michael Dockery & Zach Hadel | April 1, 2024 | 0.24[21] | |
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Pim and Allan try to help washed-up video game mascot Gwimbly after he ends up on the company's doorstep by getting his parent company to make him a new game. When the CEO refuses, they decide to crowdfund the game themselves, leaving him enraged that they are using his intellectual property without permission. As he hunts them with the company's new mascot, Troglor, the trio discover that Gwimbly's ex-nemesis is busy with his family life and his sidekick has died of a fentanyl overdose. Meanwhile, a violent, burly man named James breaks into the Smiling Friends office and forces Charlie to do increasingly degrading things to (unsuccessfully) make him smile, culminating in him tearing Charlie's nose off. The CEO chases Pim, Allan and Gwimbly into the office, where James stabs the CEO to death; satisfied by this, he finally smiles and leaves. Gwimbly and Troglor later join a Super Smash Bros.-esque crossover fighting game, with Mr. Boss also joining as a playable character. In a post-credits scene, James drunkenly expresses remorse for how he treated Charlie, believing Charlie to have been the only person who cared about him. | |||||||
| 11 | 2 | "Mr. President" | Tina Tomar | Michael Cusack, Michael Dockery & Zach Hadel | May 13, 2024 | 0.28[22] | |
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Pim and Charlie get a call from the concurrently running and very unpopular President of the United States, the unhygienic and unintelligent Jimble (Mike Bocchetti), requesting help in winning the upcoming election. He is struggling to run against Mr. Frog, who is launching a smear campaign against him. Their attempts at earning him a higher approval rating fail as Jimble soils himself during a speech, inadvertently crashes the economy trying to make everyone rich, and establishes a foreign policy with an infamous dictator that has committed genocide against an entire race of people. While walking out in frustration, Charlie accidentally discovers a secret society of worms in the White House basement that are trying to sabotage the vote in favor of Mr. Frog, but accidentally persuades them into supporting Jimble instead upon revealing that frogs eat worms. A despondent Jimble admits his shortcomings at the Presidential Debate through a motivational speech, swinging public favor in his direction. However, a single vote submitted by Glep in Pennsylvania causes Mr. Frog to win the election anyway via the electoral vote. In a post-credits scene, Jimble relaxes at a beach, taking advice Charlie had given him earlier in the episode. | |||||||
| 12 | 3 | "A Allan Adventure" | Paul Ter Voorde | Michael Dockery, Jake Ganz, Paul Georghiou, Paul Ter Voorde & Sheldon Vella | May 20, 2024 | 0.18[23] | |
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Mr. Boss tasks Allan with buying more paperclips for the office. Allan obtains them from an electronics store, but is faced with various obstacles and misadventures before he can make it back to the office - namely a thief, a helicopter chase with the U.S. Air Force, a Sasquatch, a crew of undead pirates, and finally a massive leviathan that swallows Allan and ejects him from its blowhole. He washes ashore with the box of paperclips, but opens it to find it empty aside from a ransom note telling him to retrieve the paperclips from his own apartment complex. There, he meets his landlord, who reveals he orchestrated the entire escapade to get Allan to spend time with him, threatening to detonate a bomb that will ravage the entire city if he refuses. Allan reluctantly complies before using a paperclip to defuse the bomb. Ashamed at having been outsmarted, the landlord commits seppuku. Allan returns to the office with the paperclips and is rewarded with a miniature figurine of Mr. Boss. Uninterested in keeping it, he gives it to Charlie instead. In a post-credits scene, the landlord resurrects in a morgue, swearing that Allan will hang out with him again. | |||||||
| 13 | 4 | "Erm, the Boss Finds Love?" | David Hootselle & Anthony Price | Michael Dockery, Paul Georghiou & David Hootselle | May 27, 2024 | 0.28[24] | |
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After Mr. Boss marries a malformed succubus named Brittney, the company undergoes a complete rebrand under her influence. Suspecting Brittney of having sinister intentions, Pim, Charlie, and Allan do more research and learn that "Brittney" is actually Filia Diabolus, the daughter of Satan who manifests every 100 years to kill influential men and grant their belongings to her father, and that the only way to defeat her is to kill her during a full moon. Since the moon is full that night, they race to Brittney's castle. Pim's attempt to stab her in her sleep fails when the knife Charlie had drunkenly purchased from a fellow wedding attendee turns out to be a prop knife, but she wakes up and becomes so distraught upon learning of their intentions to kill her (though admits that their assumptions were correct) that she jumps out a window, becoming fatally impaled by her own rose bush. Mr. Boss thanks them for freeing him and declares that his true love is his work before singing to the four uncomfortable employees. In a post-credits scene, Mr. Boss (who obtained 25% of Hell following Brittney's death) and Satan argue over fence line property boundaries. Note: Doug Walker makes a cameo appearance in this episode, portraying a parody of his Nostalgia Critic persona; a demonology-focused YouTuber whose videos Pim, Charlie, and Allan consult for information.[25][26] | |||||||
| 14 | 5 | "Brother's Egg" | Anthony Price | Tijmen Raasveld & Jakub Zieba | June 3, 2024 | 0.20[27] | |
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Pim and Charlie are called to help aspiring mad scientist Daniel "Professor Psychotic" create life. As Daniel explains his plan, his older brother Doug (Joel Haver) enters to complain about his lack of volume control and inability to find a proper job, ultimately evicting him. Charlie has lunch with Daniel to console him and unsuccessfully find him a new purpose in life. Meanwhile, Pim visits Doug at his job at a construction site to convince him to give Daniel another chance, and is successful after they witness Doug's coworker mourn his estranged brother being crushed to death. Pim and Charlie mediate an intervention between the brothers, which devolves into a physical altercation after Daniel accuses Doug of being addicted to painkillers and not being present for their mother leading up to her death. One of Daniel's eggs then hatches and implores the brothers to stop fighting. The brothers resolve to put aside their differences and raise the homunculus together before sharing a tearful embrace. In a post-credits scene, Alan and Glep cry over a film that is also about estranged brothers reconciling, while Mr. Boss cries over his inability to revert his face back to normal, after changing it into a dog's face earlier. | |||||||
| 15 | 6 | "Charlie, Pim, and Bill vs. the Alien" | David Hootselle | David Hootselle | June 10, 2024 | 0.17[28] | |
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Pim takes Charlie to his UFO sighting group – Bill, Duncan, and Fillmore (David Firth). The meeting proves uneventful until a UFO arrives and abducts Pim, Charlie, and Bill – the latter of whom is dissected and eaten. The aliens that abducted the trio are then abducted by a different alien race, who are hosting a party that Pim and Charlie unwillingly participate in. The hosts (Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans) implore Pim and Charlie to vaporize a populated planet as a "prank", promising to take them home if they do and threatening to place them in an eternal torture chamber if they refuse. They reluctantly comply, only for the aliens to reveal that the planet was devoid of life, the torture device was fake, and the ship can't fly backwards, rendering them unable to return home. During the ensuing argument between Charlie and the aliens, police arrive to arrest them for destroying public property and disturbing the peace. As the partygoers flee, Pim and Charlie manage to hijack a flying saucer and fly back to Earth, which they discover is flat and encased in a glass dome. A post-credits scene shows that Duncan and Fillmore have been falsely imprisoned for Bill's murder and Charlie and Pim's disappearances. Note: The official description for the episode is intentionally false, describing Pim in the plot of Mars Needs Moms.[29] | |||||||
| 16 | 7 | "The Magical Red Jewel AKA Tyler Gets Fired" | Jeff Liu | Max Collins, Tijmen Raasveld, & James White | June 17, 2024 | N/A | |
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After firing an employee named Tyler, Mr. Boss informs the Friends that he must journey to the foreign country Spamtopia to purchase a magical red jewel. Pim accompanies him, as he speaks the local language, Spamish, having learned from his childhood pen pal Oscar. While obtaining the jewel from the elusive "Mr. Jester", Pim disobeys Spamtopia’s sole law by making eye contact with Mr. Jester, who, revealing himself to be the ruler of Spamtopia, sentences the two to death. However, he turns out to be Oscar and spares them after remembering Pim, ultimately eschewing the law entirely; Spamtopia thus descends into anarchy. Meanwhile, Mr. Boss has tasked Allan, Glep, and Charlie with babysitting his son Jason, but Jason inexplicably dies shortly after Mr. Boss and Pim leave. Mr. Boss is initially horrified, but uses the jewel to resurrect Jason, who sprouts butterfly wings. Charlie attempts to inquire about a manifesto he found hidden in Mr. Boss’ desk, but the glittery dust spread by Jason deafens and blinds everyone whilst triggering the building's alarms and sprinklers before Jason lunges at the audience. In a post-credits scene, Tyler, while at a bar with Charlie, resolves to focus on a music career instead of returning to Smiling Friends. | |||||||
| 17 | 8 | "Pim Finally Turns Green" | Paul Georghiou | Paul Georghiou & Michael Cusack | June 24, 2024 | N/A | |
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The Friends build a snowman out of garbage, naming it Rotten (Dana Snyder). Rotten comes to life after Pim attaches a radioactive daffodil to its head, and Pim decides to teach him about the pleasures of life. Pim denies Rotten's request to visit the beach, claiming the sun will kill him; horrified at the concept of death, Rotten suffers an existential crisis and starts screaming uncontrollably. Charlie enlists Bill Nye to teach Rotten that death is natural and not something to fear, but Nye dies when his hot air balloon flies into power lines. Pim and Charlie leave Rotten on a snowy mountain so he can live forever, but he is returned to the office by a frustrated yeti. Glep suggests storing Rotten in the office freezer, which initially leaves him content, but as time passes, he becomes depressed. As the Friends leave for a trip to the beach, Pim realizes he can take Rotten by putting him inside a cooler, but he melts when another beachgoer accidentally knocks it over. As they mourn him, he suddenly reappears as an ocean wave, along with the ghost of Bill Nye. In a post-credits scene, the Friends question the logistics of Rotten's new state of being before he consumes a boat and sends a tsunami towards the shoreline as horrified beachgoers evacuate. Note: The title and official description for the episode is intentionally false, instead stating: "After eating a mysterious artifact found at an ancient burial ground, Pim suddenly and mysteriously turns bright green to everyone's dismay."[30] | |||||||
| 18 | 9 | "An Smiling Friend's Romantic Valentine's Day Adventure" | TBD | TBA | 2025 | TBD | |
Smiling Friends was created by animators Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, noted for their individual successes as content creators for Newgrounds and YouTube. Already well-acquainted with each other online, the pair conceived the idea for the show in 2017 whilst dining at Gus's Chicken in Burbank, California (during a visit from Cusack, who is based in Melbourne).[31] Hadel stated in an interview that the pair's goal for the show was to base it around "a group of loveable characters, with a simple kind of concept, which we could take anywhere we wanted to". They settled upon the premise of a hotline for people who were unhappy, which became "the connective tissue that made it all click together". However, Hadel stated that although "the company is an important aspect of the show, it's really the springboard" and that they "have episodes where it's not even about the job at all". The pair singled out South Park and Seinfeld as amongst the show's biggest influences. The duo developed the show's art style as a 50/50 blend of their own individual styles, though Cusack noted that his own drawings tend to go through a "final Zach gloss".[32][33] Early in development, the series went under the working title Little Helpers, with an entirely different cast.
Hadel and Cusack pitched the series to Adult Swim, which greenlit production on the pilot in 2018. Hadel had previously attempted to sell his and Chris O'Neill's web series Hellbenders to the network, but the project was not picked up while an independently produced pilot was shelved during production; O'Neill would later compose the Smiling Friends theme song.[34] Cusack created the Rick and Morty short Bushworld Adventures, which premiered as an April Fool's Day stunt on the network in 2018, and also created the series YOLO: Crystal Fantasy, which premiered in August 2020.
The Smiling Friends pilot, which the pair consider the first official episode, aired on Adult Swim on April 1, 2020, to positive reviews[35] and became the most viewed episode of any show on the network's website.[10] The network subsequently ordered seven additional episodes in May 2021. Serving as showrunners, Hadel and Cusack were hands on in all aspects of production, from writing, storyboards, character designs, final animation and sound design, which the duo considered unusual for an adult animated series. According to Hadel, the budget for the entire first season was equivalent to that of a single episode of Family Guy (an estimated US$2,000,000).[33][36]
The show is primarily animated by Studio Yotta and Princess Bento Studio, a joint venture between the Australian media company Princess Pictures and the American animation studio Bento Box Entertainment. The studio has additionally worked on Cusack's other animated series, such as season 2 of YOLO and the Hulu original series Koala Man. Since Cusack lives in Australia and Hadel lives in the United States, the show is produced remotely.[37]
Adult Swim renewed the series for a second season on February 9, 2022.[38]
On May 18, 2022, Hadel announced on Twitter that a special would be released sometime before the second season.[39] A listing for an episode titled "The Smiling Friends Go to Brazil!" appeared on Rotten Tomatoes on July 21, and was confirmed by Hadel and Cusack at Adult Swim's San Diego Comic-Con panel the next day. It aired on August 6, 2022. Lead-in promotion to the episode purposely suggested a more conventional vacation episode than what was actually presented, with a poster of the Smiling Friends relaxing on a Brazilian beach,[40] and a summary suggesting that the episode would be about the gang relaxing in a beautiful Brazilian beach town.[41]
During Adult Swim's panel at New York Comic Con in October 2023, it was confirmed that the second season would premiere in 2024, and would continue to explore a variety of animation styles, such as stylized 2D, 3D, stop motion, flash animation, rotoscoping, and live-action content.[42]
On June 13, 2024 at Annecy International Animation Film Festival, it was announced the series was renewed for a third season.
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The pilot initially premiered on Adult Swim in the United States and Canada on April 1, 2020, during the network's April Fools premiere event.[43]
The series officially premiered on January 10, 2022, at 12:00 a.m. with the episodes "Mr. Frog" and "Shrimp's Odyssey". The rest of the series was then broadcast in an unannounced premiere marathon in its entirety starting from 12:30 a.m. followed by a repeat at 3:00 a.m. The episodes would re-air with two separate episodes airing in the intended premiere slots for the following 4 weeks afterwards, including another marathon on the night of February 13, most likely to pick up viewers tuning away from the end of Super Bowl LVI, as well as to promote the series' availability through HBO Max and the recent news of renewal for the series.[44]
In Canada, the series premiered simultaneously on Adult Swim with new episodes airing weekly. The series later premiered on E4 in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2022, and Adult Swim in France on January 24, 2022.[45][46]
The series was made available to stream on HBO Max in the United States and StackTV in Canada on February 9, 2022.[47][48]
The second season began with the season premiere airing on April Fools Day 2024 during the annual Adult Swim April Fools Day prank, with three episodes from season 1, remade with various types of puppetry, shown prior. The remaining second season episodes were premiered beginning May 12.[12][13][49]
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Warner Bros. Home Entertainment released the first season on DVD and Blu-ray on August 29, 2023.[50]
Lex Briscuso of New York Magazine praised the show's tone and animation style, particularly its use of "unnerving close-up cuts and creepy supporting character design".[51] Margaret Lyons of The New York Times praised the show's humor and compared it favorably to Aqua Teen Hunger Force.[52] Noah Dominguez of Comic Book Resources also made this comparison, and additionally praised the show as "unique" and commended its "bizarre humor" and "surrealist tone."[35]
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