How to get your cartoon on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim

Cafe Society
1

  1. Fluid animation is for weenies. Experiment with animation techniques using jump cuts or cutouts.

  2. The more primitive the art looks, the better.

  3. The more offensive, the better.

  4. The more surreal and disjointed, the better.

  5. The more juvenile, the better.

  6. The more graphic (in all ways you can concieve the meaning of that word), the better.

  7. Mocking pop culture, especially of the late Seventies and Eighties, is a huge plus.

(This is borderline MPSIMS, but I just had to see if others shared my observations!)

2

Well, that’s true for the humor shows, but seriously? You can’t deny the excellence that is Venture Brothers!

Also, you’re overlooking the large, and impressive, line-up of anime on Adult Swim. While some shows like Inuyasha are formulaic and (disappointingly, given the original comics) mediocre, most are excellent, high-profile shows like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Cowboy Bebop, or Full Metal Alchemist.

3

I was under the impression that Adult Swim was popular because of the humor, not the artwork.

4

Well, that can’t be, because they’ve abandoned humor in favor of taking on Tom Goes to the Mayor for another season. :rolleyes:

Seriously, everything that’s come out of Wililams Street for the past two years has been terrible. It started around the time the last season of Sealab started up. Did Harry Goz put a curse on it before he died or something?

And in the meantime, while they obviously wouldn’t even bother with anime if it WASN’T popular, they sure don’t seem too enthusiastic about it, even if they have acquired some pretty kickass series in the meantime. I can’t say I blame them, though, since those ratings cards they put up suggest that their audience isn’t all that keen on it to begin with. They want their absurdist crap instead (I disagree with your third point, Leaper: they try too hard. It’s like, “Am I grossing you out yet? Aren’t I IRRITATING? hur hur hur”). It’s baffling that Tom Goes to the Mayor was even given another shot.

Seriously, though, have I just aged out of their target demographic? Is this what the “generation” behind me has deemed popular? I thought their target audience was 18-35; I’m still 24! Have my tastes just diverged from the mainstream or have more people noticed the suck?

Frankly, I’m a concerned as to what will happen once CC gets Futurama.

5

They’re taking risks, which means that sometimes they fall flat on their faces. I hate Tom Goes to the Mayor and 12 Oz. Mouse, but I admire them for giving them a shot.

But Venture Brothers and Robot Chicken are genius!

6

Adult Swim has The Boondocks. It has for a good while now. Does that not count or something? Or is it considered anime?

Yes, I like The Boondocks when the preachiness doesn’t get in the way of the comedy. Of course, watching the psychotic Iraqi War vet do Rumsfeldian Pulp Fiction is pretty damned amusing as well.

The full list of their shows, so we’re all on the same page. It’s broken down into ‘Action’ and ‘Comedy’. ‘Action’ being their term for ‘anime’, apparently. (Yes, this is a Cultural Thing with American cartoons vs. Japanese cartoons. I recognize that.)

I don’t watch the anime for fear of being dumped into some ongoing plotline with no clue about who everyone is and why they’re doing what they’re doing. I don’t watch regularly enough to invest in a show or shows that goes on for who knows how long. I don’t invest in any other TV shows, either.

The comedy is somewhat hit or miss, but you can’t accuse them of being too conservative and bland. I think their two biggest original hits are Robot Chicken and Moral Orel, both of them extremely offensive stopmotion shows. Their two biggest turds are Tom Goes to the Mayor and 12 Oz. Mouse, which are made in Crap-o-Vision and Lazymation, respectively. I’m also a fan of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the Venture Bros., and Sealab 2021, all of which are more or less conventional animated shows.

If I had one big change to make to AS, I’d cut the fat (shows like Super Milk Chan and Perfect Hair Forever that haven’t been aired recently) and create more new shows. Get some more outside talent and give some hungry kids a chance. Sure, a good deal of the result will stink up the place, but remember that the Simpsons began as a one-off on a variety show.

7

Someone doesn’t know the story behind Big O. The show was done for one short season in Japan, and was not renewed because of mediocre ratings. The US showings of it quickly garnered a devoted fanbase, and they continually harangued AS because they thought they simply weren’t picking up the remainder of the series (the first season ended on a cliffhanger). Eventually, AS got Cartoon Network to pay the animation studio to finish the series with a second season, making Big O the first anime ever to be explicitly made for a non-Japanese audience! I don’t know that I’d say they’re unenthusiastic about showing anime.

Also; they run special warning fades whenever certain episodes of GitS:SAC and FMA air, because, as they say “they’d rather not show the episode at all then edit out the mature content in them.”

I think if they didn’t care about the anime, they wouldn’t bother with things like these.

8

Adult Swim is partially responsible for the returns of Family Guy and (likely) Futurama. So it gets a thumbs up from me.

Also, it’s going to start showing Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Which was my favoritest show as a youth. Herald the return of Cowboy Morpheus!

9

Minus 1 and 2 and I think you’ve got the secret formula most TV execs buy into for successful comedy shows, period.

That said, I don’t see anything necessarily negative about any of those things except excessive use of number 5.

10

Yes, it covers most of the OP’s seven points, but adds racism to the mix. So far, nothing I have seen on “adult swim” has been funny, with the exceptions of repeats of past greats like Futurama, etc.