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.
