Animated TV shows have a way of sticking around when they get big. Most famously, it’s “The Simpsons,” which has aired on Fox for 35 years with little sign of stopping. But other popular shows — ranging from kids’ fare like “Spongebob Squarepants” to edgier adult shows like “Family Guy” and “South Park” — are 10 or even 20+ years old and counting new seasons under their belts.
Swimming for adultss”Smiling friends,” one absurdist and experimental series which has become a cult favorite online, in its short term has grown in popularity. The show, which follows the never-ending adventures of charity workers dedicated to making people happy, is currently airing its third season, and as a sign of confidence from its network, it was already renewed for two more seasons in 2024. Is there a world where “Smiling Friends” lasts 20 years like “South Park?”
“Hell no,” says “Smiling Friends” co-creator Michael Cusack bluntly in an interview with IndieWire, along with his creative partner Zach Hadel. “It’s been renewed for four and five now and we’ll see how we feel at the end of it. It could be a natural ending then. Zach and I change our minds every day about this. We don’t want it to be a show that overstays its welcome and goes on forever. But we’re also very fortunate to have this show on, so there’s a nice little middle ground where we’ve always promised and honest. Say, ‘Look, do we want to continue this, or do we want to end it on a high note?’ So we’ll do seasons 4 and 5 and see how we feel.”
Until then, Cusack and Hadel have their hands full working on the show; the pair write and direct each 11-minute episode and voice almost the entire main cast along with many supporting or recurring characters. It’s a lot of work, though Hadel describes their creative process as “vibe-based.”
“It starts with me and Michael hanging out, mostly in an online conversation. It used to be Skype, you know, whatever app it is, rest for a while Skype, but we used to just go with it and just shoot shit. And a lot of the time it’s us looking at what we think is funny, what we think is interesting, what engages us?” says Handel. “We kind of test each other and build and build the best version of whatever idea we have, and it’s like Dan Aykroyd’s Crystal Skull vodka. It’s refined through the rocks, over and over until it’s pure.”
Once they have their script, Cusack estimates it takes about a year for an episode to be fully produced. During its first two seasons, “Smiling Friends” became known for its experimentalism animationOften mix different techniques such as 3D animation, claymation and puppetry in its 2D world for surreal effect.
“It’s a hard show to make, it’s a show that probably needs double the crew to make,” Cusack said. “But, you know, after all the chaos and hardship that goes through it, I always look back and I’m like, no, actually, it’s probably good that it’s difficult, because then it creates something special.”
“If we didn’t have a team around us, there would be half an episode of the show out now,” Handel says.
Season 3 of “Smiling Friends” has started with several memorable episodes, including a premiere that introduces a pitiful CGI character named “Silly Samuel” voiced by Connor O’Malley, or the third episode, which parodies an obsessed fan culture with a mole man obsessed with the main characters Pim and Charlie. The most memorable episode so far, however, is the second, which deviates from the series’ typical formula to focus on the supporting character Mr. Frog (voiced by Cusack), a wealthy mega-celebrity humanoid frog who has been the focus of one episode each season.
Cusack and Handel say the character was an instant favorite when they first worked on the show in 2018, and while they usually like to leave other characters featured as clients of the charity Smiling Friends as one-offs, they came up with the idea of doing a “Mr. Frog episode” every season. This one, “Le Voyage Incroyable de Monsieur Grenouille,” sees Mr. Frog (after becoming president in a season 2 episode) go through a spiritual crisis that ends with him finding an inner part and turning into a photorealistic frog. Originally, the episode focused on him going from president to world dictator, but Handel says the idea fell through because it wasn’t original enough, so they veered into a weirder, more serious direction.
“It’s also a thing where the fact that it’s serious is a joke,” says Cusack. “The joke is that it’s Mr. Frog, it’s so stupid, incredibly stupid that he’s going through this. We never want to send serious messages with this show.”
The episode arguably hits its absurdity when Mr. Frog’s father appears in a live-action sequence to undress his son, played in a cameo by a green-hued Creed Bratton, best known for his work on “The Office.” As Handel tells it, neither he nor Cusack had ever seen “The Office” or knew much about Bratton before being cast. But when they were looking for someone to play the character, they had trouble casting the profile of a scary man in his 60s. However, a member of the production staff was friends with Bratton and convinced Handel and Cusack to watch an audition tape he sent over for the small part.
“It’s my favorite kind of cameo, where we didn’t get him for any of the cool reasons. It was just like, ‘Oh, he did that part well,'” says Handel. “I think he nailed it, and that’s why he got it because he did a good job.”
While Cusack and Handel don’t know exactly how long it will be before they finish “Smiling Friends,” they do know how they want to finish it. The two tell IndieWire that a movie spinoff that ends Pim and Charlie’s adventures is the perfect way they want the series to end.
“We would love to end it with that, when we feel like the show has ended, I would feel like that’s a good way,” Handel says. “And I don’t think we would do it in the middle of the show, like other shows have.”
“I like the idea of a movie ending, because we have an 11-minute show, right?” adds Cusack. “It’s hard to do a finale in that format. To do a movie would be the perfect way to end the whole series. We’ve been thinking about it since the beginning, to do a movie like that, and it would be amazing.”
New episodes of “Smiling Friends” Season 3 air Sunday nights on Adult Swim.
