Smiling Friends is one of the best shows on television right now, and Gwimbly mania proves it

Have you watched Smiling Friends? If not, get to it!

Do you have nostalgic flashbacks to the simple days of hanging out in your family room, hopping on your PlayStation and helping Gwimbly and Mr. Millipede find the creamed corn and fight Count Groxia (with a “Oooh, ooooh, ooooh!” victory dance thrown in there for good measure)?

Okay, it’s not really nostalgia as much as it is something the internet has run wild with since the second season premiere of Smiling Friends debuted on Adult Swim last month.

Indeed, Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack’s gleefully deranged, painfully funny masterwork officially returns to televisions on May 12 for a new season, as Pim and Charlie venture into their strange world to bring smiles to the sad.

If you’re unfamiliar, imagine if the cartoon strip character Ziggy ventured into the hazy midnight block of early 2000’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force Adult Swim while trying to cheer up Superjail! versions of all those bizarre Flash cartoons you found on the internet in middle school.

Smiling Friends feels as anarchistic and violent as Rick and Morty and as sweet and oddly affirming as Inside Out. It’s an indelible blend of genuinely uncomfortable lurches into oddity with the scream-funny wit and shock of South Park. It’s ability to change animation design on a troubling whim feels very influenced by Courage the Cowardly Dog, and its quick-cut editing to heighten the punchlines and visual gags feel fresh and unexpected.

From the seismic hilarity of the Mouse Quest II-obsessed Shrimp trying to get over a breakup, to the dementedly brilliant send-up of celebrity scandal with Mr. Frog, Smiling Friends feels very attuned to the society around us and the very specific ways that a life on the web has shaped our world view.

Adult Swim is responsible for some of the most popular animated shows of the new century, but Smiling Friends feels special, even by the network’s lofty standards. Honestly, it’s probably the best adult cartoon show of the 2020s so far… and one of the best shows on right now, period.

Just watch this season two preview and this clip from “Shrimp’s Odyssey” to see why.

Some NSFW language to follow: 

The Gwimbly-themed episode immediately took the internet by storm. Seriously, people have already turned this 11-minute character appearance that didn’t exist until a few days ago into its own pop phenomenon. The way it collectively commemorates and mourns a lost culture of 1990s video games is absolutely breathtaking in such a short time span, and fans on the internet have responded in kind.

Few other television shows inspire internet culture like this.

Just 10 episodes in, Smiling Friends is already a genuine achievement in the medium, something so wacky, obtuse, hysterical and creatively compact with so much inspiration and ingenuity. While it probably helps to have grown up online among the more depraved delights of the early millennium, all you really need to get into this show is an open mind and a healthy appreciation for the wilder side of what animation can do.

The first season (TV-MA for a reason) is available on Max, with the new season officially premiering on Adult Swim on Sunday. Crack open a fresh can of creamed corn and do your Gwimbly victory dance to celebrate the return of an outstanding program that pushes boundaries and makes you, well, smile.

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