Smiling Friends

An amazing piece of animation that highlights the philosophical absurdities of life in the style of the great French philosopher Albert Camus.

The crude amateur animation is actually a veiled commentary on society's crude obsession with transient pleasures which we oftentimes define to be the goals of our life and not simply a passing fad.

Finally, the voice performance of legendary actor Mike Stoklasa blew me over. He has channeled the persona of his iconic creation, the fictional film critic Mr. Plinkett, into the character of Desmond and the result just screams perfection. That deep sagacious voice truly resonates with the absurdist notions of life as projected by this cartoon.

I am interested in more future episodes and I really hope they bring Mr. Stoklasa back for more side cameos.

I've been a fan of Zach Hadel for years, since psychicpebbles started. While Hellbenders never got off the ground, I'm glad he finally got a show on tv. Being 11 minutes an episode and on adult swim none of his idiosyncrasies have been smoothed out for a network, it's clearly his and Michael's humor.

But what makes this stand out besides for it just being extremely creative and funny is that it isn't mean spirited like so many adult animated cartoons.

Sure the jokes can be messed up or grotesque at times, but the universe it takes place in seems to be legitmately optimistic. Many shows can do those things well but it's nice to see something unique and creator driven that is also upbeat.

I loved it and I want more. Thats all I wanted to say. Also I can't wait for this show to get big.

When i first saw the poster of that show, immediately in my head was like: great another adult swim sh💩y show incoming.

But then after watching the whole 1st episode i actually wanted to see another. And after watching the entire season i rewatched it.

The show has unique artstyle, characters, and story. The jokes are surprisingly good. They are not trying hard to throw every possible edgy joke they can think in our faces. Some character desgins look ridiculous and bizzare and they were funny and i wasnt disgusted by it, for example mr. Frog who looks like it was drawned by pre-schooler but at same time looks good and its original which i can say for the artstyle of this show.

I hope this show gets season 2. :)

The landscape of comedic adult animation - often dominated by Simpsons duplicates, try-hard attempts at gross edginess that yearn to be the next South Park or Drawn Together, deliberately bad/ironic ones that try to mimic Xavier: Renegade Angel or Aqua Teen Hunger Force without the method to the madness, and whatever the f-ck Big Mouth is - has been enriched by Zach Hadel. You may know him by his YouTube/Newgrounds persona Psychicpebbles.

Exceptions to the rule of lame modern-day "adult cartoons" have included Bojack Horseman and, at one point, Rick and Morty. Now, we have something truly unique in the form of Smiling Friends. After seeing its pilot last year, I knew it had the potential to become its own full-fledged series on Adult Swim (which has now finally been confirmed) and while I maintained a healthy dose of pessimism, given the network's rejection of Hellbenders, there was reason to have faith this time.

Hadel's rapid-fire grotesqueries, some of them so brisk you'll miss them if you sneeze, and agonized-looking lifeforms are as unmistakable as his fluid animation style. However, his characters are often interchangeable morons, e.g. The Hellbenders, hence why that pilot failed to take off on Adult Swim (who instead went with Mr. Pickles, a great example of the tryhard-edgy brand of adult cartoons I named earlier). With Smiling Friends, the main characters Pim and Charlie are of very different personalities and attitudes, working off each other in a way that's sustainable and will surely lend itself to many great episodes - even when the moral of the story is that "happiness" will always be a distraction from the inevitability of doom unless you find a solid life purpose, such as murdering small animals for money.

The cast unites all sorts of Internet greats, including Hadel himself, co-creator Michael Cusack, Red Letter Media founder Mike Stoklasa, and also Finn Wolfhard, who frequently interacts with Psychicpebbles when he isn't on the set of Stranger Things. There's also Finn's brother Nick and even Newgrounds' daddy himself, Tom Fulp. Indeed, what a triumph of animation this is, especially in the year that would end Flash.

If you haven't seen the pilot, give it a watch in anticipation of what's to come. You will laugh, squirm, wake up screaming from a subsequent nightmare of both existential despair and body horror, and also possibly crave some cheese.