For anyone who’s been a longtime fan of Cartoon Network’s beloved late night program block Adult Swim and its diverse selection of animated content, there is now some exciting news. Per a report from ComicBook, a special event on Adult Swim will premiere not just one but four new series pilots for the network, and will be hosted by guru of the unconventional, M. Night Shyamalan. The event is in honor of the director’s highly anticipated upcoming film Knock at the Cabin (2023), and is set to air at “midnight”. The announcement was discovered by @Swimpedia on Twitter, and the post including the official promo for the event can be watched below.
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The promo gives an entertaining glimpse of the animated pilots, and each one seems to stand out perfectly on its own. Adult Swim has long been known for its more adult-themed, experimental and absurdist comedy projects that it contracts from various studios and intermixes with a number of popular, classic anime series. Seldom have any of the network’s choices disappointed, and these new upcoming shows so far seem to fit the bill.
The glimpses we get are brief, but the first of the four is Oh My God, Yes!, which appears to have a hip-hop futuristic element, complete with flying cars. The second is Wet City, which per its name appears to gravitate towards wild-looking sea monsters. The third pilot is Macbeth with Dinosaurs, which just based off the name seems like an awesome contender. Predictably, it stars a bunch of eccentric-looking, talking dinosaur characters. The fourth and final pilot is Yenor, and we see two silly characters looking inside a very glowy, very fuzzy briefcase. The promo concludes with an official poll on Adult Swim’s Twitter feed where fans can vote for the pilot they like most. However, it seems the poll has since ended, so audiences will have to wait and see at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday which one gets picked, if not maybe more than one.
The Endearing Legacy of Adult Swim
While Cartoon Network itself has definitely undergone some changes in the past several years, controversially pulling the plug on a number of the classic cartoons that surged the network’s popularity for years, its late night block Adult Swim has stood the test of time. Since its debut back in 2003, it’s featured a unique and impressive slate of adult-themed animated shows such as Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021 and Robot Chicken. Classic Japanese anime series were featured as well, including Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Dragonball Z, and Inuyasha. The twilight lineup has long been a go-to for its target demographic, which for a long time was almost entirely nostalgic millennials and adults.
Far more recently, the network has been undergoing some notable changes. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is returning with new episodes. Also, after considerable scrutiny for the controversy surrounding one of its most popular ongoing shows, Rick and Morty, Adult Swim fired the show’s co-creator Justin Roiland over domestic abuse allegations. The show’s seventh season is still on the docket, albeit with needed changes, and so it likely will not make its original premiere deadline this year.
With the introduction of at least one new show to the network soon, Adult Swim clearly aims to keep its lineup as fresh and unique as possible, sticking to its guns of high-quality, experimental comedy projects from smaller studios rather than the mainstream. Its formula has worked for the last 20 years and certainly could for another twenty.
