I talked about it in greater length a decade ago here. Amazingly, the part-time network is still going strong despite all the cord cutting because I think [adult swim] has made the transition to streaming. If not, it’s made a good argument to get HBO Max. Oddly, anything new on HBO Max isn’t getting labeled as an [adult swim], DC Comics or HBO production. It’s odd. I would’ve put the new J G Quintel show Close Enough in this camp as it has no appeal to kids.
What has changed since 2011? The biggest one would be Rick and Morty. A cartoon so successful, the main characters got to be in a Simpsons couch gag pretty quickly. With the Fox and Disney merger, I figure the days of recycled Fox cartoons (Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy) will run down. American Dad is a mystery as it moved to TBS but I don’t know if Fox TV remains the primary producer. I don’t [adult swim] has much to fear. They lost Loren Bouchard to Fox (again, Bob’s Burgers), the Sealab 2021 team to FXX (Archer) while Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim are landing roles in mainstream films…I think the talent pool will grow. With the rise of streaming the boundaries of time limits American TV imposed from day one are breaking and it gives everybody a chance to do something riskier than even cable would try.
Yet the beloved channel has succumbed to the same gripe I have with the rest of cable. Too many fuckin’ ad breaks pushing the same crap repetitively, I’m giving you the bird AT&T; plus it pads 90% of the time with stuff I’ve seen a few times. I applaud their courage in taking on Tuca & Bertie like they did with Home Movies 20 years ago. They just need to push onward through HBO Max, screw cable since I will eventually blow through all the best stuff in the back catalog. Give it another year if they could secure the rights to other past stars that got a new life: Oblongs, Mission Hill and Baby Blues.
On to the next 10 years!