I don’t like the show smiling friends or the people behind it.
Did anyone at adult swim or hbo listen to the podcasts these guys made before giving them unlimited money to make a tv show that looks absolutely shit? Seriously they were friends with shadman, how are you supposed to watch a show that’s message is “be kind” and “don’t be an asshole” when they made their careers off of being edgy. Some dipshit c suite exec who they’re probably related too took one look at them and thought “maybe we can get the Rick and Morty demographic and get chuds to riot in a McDonalds over chicken nuggets”. Also the mixed art style makes it the cartoon equivalent of Fortnite, no substance, no identity. A bland product that can be sold and commodified. I really fucking hate this show.
The show is really good actually and the animation is cool as well. It's basically one long love letter to early internet animation so if you know you know.
But the creators do have a right-wing cultural slant that shows up in their work. I don't support that of course.
I like it. Idk the history or background of the American guy but if he's like a Filthy Frank style edgelord I'm pretty sure it's a good thing he's grown up and moved away from it.
As for the show itself, some of the messages aren't exactly bad. The video game executive that's sitting on an IP to not make new games with until nostalgia gets to the point where they can make them a DLC character for the Fortnite/Smash Bros stand in gets murdered on screen and that's the good ending. The TV executive that micromanages a TV show to maximise appeal and profit gets murdered in live TV and the entire crowd cheers. There's a scene of a worker with 6 arms stocking shelves while his boss is a guy with no arms, calling him slow and useless and threatening to fire him despite the fact that he's the only employee and does all the work.
If anything the show makes fun of edgy people, possibly as atonement, to the point where the antagonist of the week, the edgy nihilists, get humiliated in front of a crowd and get murdered. Another episode has this evil scientist who thinks the world is fucked and he can replace people with his own homunculi to create a better world and he's shown to be a socially inept NEET who lives in his brother's house rent free.
Edit: also, as for the McDonalds Rick and Morty viral video, that was staged. The guy hates Rick and Morty fans with a passion so he threw a public tantrum under the guise of a Rick and Morty fan to make them look bad. It's still cringe, but in a different way.
As for the show itself, some of the messages aren't exactly bad. The video game executive that's sitting on an IP to not make new games with until nostalgia gets to the point where they can make them a DLC character for the Fortnite/Smash Bros stand in gets murdered on screen and that's the good ending. The TV executive that micromanages a TV show to maximise appeal and profit gets murdered in live TV and the entire crowd cheers. There's a scene of a worker with 6 arms stocking shelves while his boss is a guy with no arms, calling him slow and useless and threatening to fire him despite the fact that he's the only employee and does all the work.
Cool, the Simpsons did all that thirty fucking years ago, except they were also funny.
I get it if you don't find it funny, but solutions to like 50% of the episodic villains in Smiling Friends tend to be defeated by being murdered on screen, and it's shown to have no drawbacks whatsoever and way more effective than working within the system. It's kinda not really seen in a mainstream TV series. It's not even like the Rick and Morty "oh Rock avenged his wife by beating her killer to death with his bare hands, but now he feels hollow and sad". It's "oh, the antagonist was brutally killed? The problem is solved".
TV executives ruining an otherwise good show to maximise appeal and profit? Eaten alive. Video game CEO ruining a beloved franchise? Knife through the skull. Eldritch abomination trying to kill you? Drawn and quartered. Creepy incel stalker? Disemboweled. Terrible landlord? Driven to commit literal seppuku with a katana. Demonic succubus possessing your boss and making your work life even worse? Defenestration.
Half the episodes are played kinda straight, but the other half is literally "violence is sometimes the answer". One of the only 2 episodes this season where they don't resort to violence is the one where the protagonists lose. The episode in question is where the POTUS is a bumbling, incompetent idiot but his opponent is a comically evil psychopath TV billionaire who pours radioactive waste into rivers for fun. They work within the system to get him re-elected because the other guy is way worse, and the psychopath ends up winning anyway.
Hey, I saw the avi of Shadman. Fucking yikes. Is there a place to know about his background and/or the creators of Smiling Friends?
Earlier this week, I talked to a friend about the lack of complex women on the show.
It's not much on its own, but I think it's interesting that the makers of an Adult Swim show couldn't get a woman on board. Then again, with the way these workplace cultures work, it's probably for the best.
Shit, now that I think about it, the show does a lot of punching down and inappropriate jokes. Making fun of addiction, mental illness, different body types, disabilities, etc.
I watched the first episode and had to turn it off half way through. It just looked ugly and gross for the sake of being ugly and gross. Didn't know the creators were shitheads but it doesn't surprise.
Anecdotally, one of my irl friends worked with Michael Cusack on a non Smiling Friends project and she said he was a pretty nice guy, so there's that.
The American on the other hand I didn't really hear about before this show.
ETA: as for the show itself, the pilot is a pretty mid episode. There are scenes/episodes later that show the animation team is doing what they're doing on purpose, like the Bakshi Lord of the Rings homage character that I believe is hand drawn animated on 2's being on screen at the same time as a .PNG character model being clicked and dragged away to show movement. Kinda like Cruelty Squad looks shit on purpose? The flash animation esque character on screen with Joel Havel rotoscoping is another example.
Hearing they were friends with Shadman is fucking rough. Not gonna act like Smiling Friends isn't my kind of humor, though. It's wacky and the mixed artstyle gives me Gumball vibes.
Haven't watched it other than a clip here or there because the artstyle is so off-putting. Just looking it up now and it's funny that one of the creators is a colleague of OneyNG, because I also don't watch his content because it, too, seems too edgy. Makes sense for newgrounds 15 years ago, but it seems like they haven't changed since.
I know the show and remember when it came out. The show seems to be a quirky oddball one. I think its fine. I remember watching the pilot cause it had mike from redlettermedia. Never fully watched the show.
I don't know much about the creators but I have gleaned a bunch from stuff I ran into. They seem to have some youtube gaming posse where they do cumtown lite. I never listened but have read about it online. I mainly know cause that group had some weird beef with ex channel awesome youtuber linkara. Their fans seemed to harass linkara.
Anyway that's mostly what I know and never bothered.
This association with some predator seems clearly gross. But I don't know much about their association.
I don't know if tv execs care or something. If I remember the show originally shelved but greenlit later. I can see why. As for the gross design I guess that's part of the show.
I've watched like three episodes and it's just really mediocre and it feels like there's just nothing to it. I guess the animators and directors are pretty talented and I do like the mixed-media stuff quite a bit, but the whole vibe just feels a decade plus out of date. No idea what you'd get out of it if you have spent any amount of time on the internet before the advent of apps.