At 10 PM on Sept. 2, 2001, a voice on Cartoon Network announced, “All kids out of the pool!” The all-animation cable channel already had a lot of adult viewers, but now, for the first time, there was a block meant just for them. Adult Swim has grown a lot over the past two decades, expanding from a three-hour block on Sundays and Thursdays to its own distinct network broadcasting 69 hours of programming a week.
In that time, Adult Swim has changed the TV landscape for the better in many different ways. Here are five of Adult Swim’s biggest accomplishments in its first 20 years on the air.
Pioneering Short-Form Episodes
Many Saturday morning cartoons have been produced as 11-minute segments packaged into half-hour blocks. Adult Swim, however, stood out in applying this kids’ TV formula to the world of adult animation and eventually live-action comedy while also abandoning the half-hour packaging requirement. Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, William Street’s proto-Adult Swim absurdist talk show, served as a model, which was built upon by shows like Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Sealab 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Adult Swim’s short attention span model predated the rise of YouTube and the mainstreaming of short-form video content. The scheduling flexibility afforded by quarter-hour timeslots allows the network to drop stand-alone short films or music videos amidst its regular programming. Without Adult Swim’s line-up of quarter-hour shows, Netflix certainly wouldn’t be producing I Think You Should Leave or Love, Death + Robots — though Jeffrey Katzenberg might have still tried and failed to conquer the short-form market with Quibi.
Making Anime More Mainstream Among Adults
In 2001, anime was growing rapidly in popularity among American kids and teenagers thanks to Pokemon and Toonami, but adult anime fans were still something of a niche audience. By airing Cowboy Bebop right alongside the homegrown comedies on its launch line-up, Adult Swim introduced many American adults to more mature anime storytelling, aired with the minimum of edits. Following Cowboy Bebop‘s success, Adult Swim built a Saturday night block dedicated to anime.
Ratings for anime generally weren’t as high as those for Adult Swim’s American shows, and for a moment after the anime bubble burst in the late 2000s, it seemed as if Adult Swim had stopped putting in the effort to promote its dwindling anime line-up. That all changed in 2012 when a wildly popular April Fools prank led to the revival of the Toonami block on Adult Swim. Toonami continues to this day, developing original anime to stay relevant in the age of streaming. From InuYasha and Fullmetal Alchemist to Attack on Titan and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Adult Swim has been a major gateway into anime fandom.
Saving Family Guy and Futurama From Cancelation
2003 was a big year for Adult Swim, expanding to six nights a week for the first time thanks to acquiring the syndication rights to two shows then canceled by FOX: Futurama and Family Guy. The ratings for these reruns were so huge that, in combination with high DVD sales, FOX revived Family Guy two years later — and the show is now in its 19th season with no end in sight.
Futurama, being a more expensive show to produce, never returned to FOX and wasn’t revived by Adult Swim directly, but its newfound popularity in reruns led to four direct-to-video movies and eventually two new seasons — though those aired exclusively on Comedy Central, with Adult Swim losing the rights. With Disney buying out 20th Century FOX, Adult Swim’s rights to rerun Family Guy are expiring, but it’s doubtful either Family Guy or Adult Swim would be where they are today without each other — and the recent success of Tuca and Bertie shows Adult Swim hasn’t lost its touch at saving shows other networks abandoned.
Direct Audience Communication
Also in 2003, Adult Swim switched out its generalized pool-based bumpers in favor of text-based bumpers speaking to the audience directly. The sardonic voice of Adult Swim’s on-air marketing has been a perfect match for its programming. In an age where linear TV is losing significant ground to streaming, a lot of what makes Adult Swim still feel relevant is how it continues to interact and communicate with its audience.
Arguably, this aspect isn’t as strong as it used to be. Adult Swim’s message boards — once a frequent subject of mockery in the block’s bumpers — shut down in 2016. Its online live streams, which featured a wide variety of shows viewers could call in to, were canceled last year due to layoffs throughout WarnerMedia. However, in this age where every brand tries to be cool and sociable on social media, Adult Swim still handles its advertising voice and fan interaction better than almost any other brand.
Making Experimental Shows No One Else Would Air
The one common thread across Adult Swim’s original programming is that they make shows no other TV network would think of making. Even the block’s more relatively traditional shows like The Boondocks and Rick and Morty likely wouldn’t exist in the form they do now if it wasn’t for Adult Swim. Certainly, the experimental likes of Superjail or Moral Orel would never see the light of day on any other network.
It’s that experimental ethos that made Adult Swim’s forays into live-action programming easier to swallow than those of daytime Cartoon Network. If Adult Swim wasn’t producing Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! or Joe Pera Talks With You, what TV station would? The early morning hours are particularly great for allowing Adult Swim to go absolutely wild; viewers channel-surfing at 4 AM might sometimes find themselves hypnotized by the video remixes of Off the Air or twisted comedy-horror “Infomercials” like the viral sensation Too Many Cooks (just mentioning that certainly got that song stuck in some readers’ heads).
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