Someone at [adult swim] is Lying About Smiling Friends
- Fred
- Mar 1
- 4 min read
So let me get this straight, for my own mental health.
On June 11, 2025, even before the broadcast of Season 3 of the cult-cartoon hit Smiling Friends aired, Adult Swim picked up the series for Seasons 4 & 5. Adult Swim was happy, creators Michael Cusack and Zach Handel were happy, and the fans were happy.
On October 5, 2025, Season 3 premiered to rave reviews. That same week it was announced that Cusack and Handel were creating their own cartoon production studio: Zam Studios.
Now, usually, creating a new cartoon is time consuming. The average episode of the Simpsons takes 6-9 months from conception to being broadcast-ready. With the exception of the South Park guys, who can do an episode in a week, animated series can go YEARS between seasons, something that's not all that uncommon at Adult Swim.
Shockingly, given all that information, since that October announcement Cusack and Handel created 2 more episodes, then said, "we're good here, we're done." The announcement earlier this week nearly broke the internet.
The 2 finished episodes will be broadcast in April and will be packaged as the last 2 episodes of Season 3. Now Cusack developed the Hulu series Koala Man, he's aware of the business model for cartooning. Handel is a YouTube veteran with over a decade of experience. With that being said, it is almost unfathomable that the two animators would walk away from a hit.
Un-fath-om-able.
So now I have to put on my detective hat.
Clue # 1: Adult Swim is in Atlanta, Cusack and Handel built their studio in Los Angeles. Distance shouldn't be an issue, but could the series ending be as simple as logistics? (No.)
Clue # 2: Adult Swim is notorious for mismanaging its hits. Were Cusack and Handel simply burned out, like they claimed to be? (No.)
Clue # 3: Adult Swim also has a reputation for being cheap. They may give you that opportunity of a lifetime to succeed, but they won't pay you what you're worth when you do. Just 2 years ago, a story went viral that delineated how the co-creator of Adult Swim, Andy Merrill, was working at Amazon....not as an executive, but as a driver.
I would bet my house that Cusack and Handel were locked into a crappy Adult Swim-friendly deal, while people from Fox, Paramount, and Netflix whispered in their ears that they could make real, life-changing money at their networks/streamer. I think the creators are done with Adult Swim, but they just didn't know how to say it.
Not today, not tomorrow, and not next week, but in a few years Cusack and Handel will either resume Smiling Friends somewhere else, or will create a spinoff from the Smiling Friends "universe" for another network/streamer.
How can I be so sure? Well, I'm 95% sure. Unfortunately, most things in life come down to money, and I speculate that Cusack and Handel were not seeing the Smiling Friends windfall.
But I could be wrong....
Between seasons 3 & 4 of Rick and Morty was over a two year wait. It wasn't Adult Swim's fault, it wasn't co-creator Dan Harmon's fault, that delay laid squarely on the shoulders of bad-boy co-creator Justin Roiland. Justin Roiland had some very problematic personal behaviors. Dan Harmon's next cartoon, Krapopolis, wasn't very good, but Fox pays him a truck-full of money to continue to do it.
The first episode of Season 4 over at Mr. Pickles had the creators killing off the Charming-Satanic-Dog-Next-Door. But Mr. Pickles wasn't beloved, there were few t-shirts bearing his name or likeness, for everyone that loved Mr. Pickles, there was someone who hated him. The creators said they didn't have anywhere to go with the character and Season 4, episode 2 was technically the spinoff Momma Named Me Sheriff. Momma Named Me Sheriff was still set in Old Town, and everyone was there, except Mr. Pickles. MNMS lasted 15 more episodes before it was quietly cancelled.
The most popular cartoon in Hulu history was Solar Opposites. Created by Justin Roiland (uh-oh) and Mike McMahan, it was the most popular cartoon on Hulu its first 3 seasons. And, unlike over at Adult Swim, the creators were churning out Solar Opposites episodes as fast as they could. When Justin Roiland was fired from the show, they wrote his voice change into the script and just kept going under the steady hand of McMahan. In March of 2025, Hulu stunned everyone by announcing the end of Solar Opposites after season 6. Hulu said it was a joint decision between the streamer and creator Mike McMahan. Within a week, McMahan grabbed a microphone and said he would keep doing Solar Opposites for anyone who would pay him--- then silence. Coincidentally, at the same time, Disney folded Hulu into the Mouse's Tent and Hulu will cease to exist by the end of the year.
Earlier this year, Fox renewed American Dad, the Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, and Family Guy through the 2028-2029 television season.
There is too much money on the table to let a good animated series die after only 3 seasons. The question isn't whether Cusack and Handel will be back, but where, when, and in what form.
Predictions:
Since Solar Opposites was produced by 20th Century Animation, I still think they will end up back at Fox. The hold up is that Solar Opposites is problematic for Disney.
The key here is Michael Cusack. If you followed Koala Man closely (few did), but the outline of the show has it set up for 5 to 6 seasons. Does someone at a streamer, like Netflix, overpay to get Zam Studios to be the cornerstone of their animation universe? Netflix could use Koala Man and Smiling Friends to launch the "next generation of animation." That actually makes sense, business-wise. The question is, does Netflix want a flagship cartoon, like Paramount has attached itself to Matt Parker and Trey Stone?
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