Smiling Friends
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Smiling Friends is an American-Australian animated television series, created by and starring internet personalities Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, airing on Adult Swim. The pilot episode "Desmond's Big Day Out" aired on Adult Swim on April 1, 2020, and the rest of the first season premiered on...
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This article is about the television series. For the company, see Smiling Friends Inc.

Smiling Friends is an American-Australian animated television series, created by and starring internet personalities Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, airing on Adult Swim.

The pilot episode "Desmond's Big Day Out" aired on Adult Swim on April 1, 2020, and the rest of the first season premiered on January 9, 2022.

On February 9, 2022, the series was renewed for a second season[2] which premiered on May 12, 2024. Its first episode, "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director's Cut)," aired on April 1, 2024 after puppet-ified versions of Season One episodes.

A third season was announced at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 14, 2024.[3]

Premise

Smiling Friends follows Smiling Friends Inc. employees Charlie, Pim, Allan, Glep, as well as their boss, Mr. Boss, as they face misadventures while trying to make people smile, or otherwise bring happiness to their clients.

Production information

In Early 2017, YouTubers Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel conceived the idea of a show titled Little Helpers, inspired by South Park and Seinfeld, while dining in a Californian chicken restaurant, which featured "a group of loveable characters, with a simple kind of concept, which we could take anywhere we wanted to." The premise of these characters working at a hotline for unhappy people became the "connective tissue there that made it all click together."[4][5]

Images and Videos of this concept were posted in June 2017, and the first character shown in the concepts, Gremblo, became well known for a few months. Ultimately, all references to him and Little Helpers got wiped from Twitter sometime in 2018.

On April 1, 2020, a pilot named "Desmond's Big Day Out" premiered as a part of Adult Swim's annual April Fools Day event alongside another work of Cusack's, YOLO: Crystal Fantasy.

On May 19, 2021, Adult Swim and the show's creators announced that the series had been greenlit along with Royal Crackers and that it was set to premiere later in 2021.

On July 22, 2021, co-creator Zach Hadel announced that Season One would contain eight episodes, including the pilot, "Desmond's Big Day Out", which would end up being considered the first episode of the season.[5]

On November 12, 2021, during the Adult Swim Festival panel featuring Smiling Friends, co-creator Zach Hadel mentioned the series would premiere "within a few months", pushing the release schedule to 2022.

After overwhelmingly positive reception from viewers, on February 9, 2022, Adult Swim renewed the series for a second season along with Birdgirl. The first episode of the second season was previewed on April 1, 2024, with the rest of the season premiering on May 12, 2024.[2]

On June 13, 2024 at Annecy International Animation Film Festival, it was announced the series was renewed for a third season.[3]

Cast

Main

Zach Hadel as Charlie, Glep, Jason, Desmond's Mom, Bliblies, Screaming Bird, Meep Society Lady, Mr. Frog Fanboy, Salt, Century Egg, Mip, Gnarly, DJ Spit, Mr. Peanut, Ronald Reagan, Satan, Charlie's Grandma, Glep's Grandson, Duncan, Gwimbly

Michael Cusack as Pim, Allan, Amy, Pim's Mom, Steven, Bliblies, Lucas the Magnificent, Mr. Frog, Rex, Ketchup, Pepper, The Witch, Fairies, Grim, Warren Buffett, Demon, Jeremy, MeepEats Deliveryman, James, Professor Psychotic

Marc M. as The Boss, Guy At The Airport, Goblin, Bill Nye

Recurring/Guest-Starring

Mike Stoklasa as Desmond, himself, Purple alien

Finn Wolfhard as Man Living in Wall, Bliblies

Nick Wolfhard as Graham Nelly, Bliblies

David Dore as Party Bro, Forest Demon, Alien, Armzo

Tom Fulp as Alpha

Perry Caravello as Simon S. Salty

Chris O'Neill as Auditioning Father, Smormu[6]

Erica Lindbeck as Assistant, Mustard, The Princess

Hans van Harken as Jimmy Fallon, Priest, Hell Faces, Frozen Head, Bill

Jane Badler as Celebrity series Host

Mick Lauer as Bug, Guy in Gym, Crazy Cup, Elf

Rodrigo Huerta as Jacob, Guy in Line

Chills as Patron

David Firth as Shrimp, Fillmore

Harry Partridge as Smormu Announcer, Grease, 3D Squelton, William Worm

Clyde Boraine as Policeman

Jim Knobeloch as Mystery series Host

Monica Franco as Zoey, Waitress, Wendy Worm

Joshua Tomar as Blue cop, Centaur, Elderly Glep, Count Groxia, Troglor

Lyle Rath as Mr. Man, Warren Buffett, IGBG CEO

Gilbert Gottfried as God

James Rolfe as himself

Rich Evans as Brown alien

Joel Haver as Doug

Abed Gheith as Tyler

Dana Snyder as Rotten the Snowman

Marc Winslow as Pim (S02 Ep05)

Edson Matus as Charlie (S02 Ep05)

Crew

Producers

Ollie Green - Executive producer

Laura DiMaio - Executive producer

Paul Moran - Executive producer

Casey Rup - Executive producer

Cody DeMatteis - Executive producer

Directors

Zach Hadel - Series creator, executive producer, storyboard artist, writer

Michael Cusack - Series creator, executive producer, storyboard artist, writer

David Hootselle - Storyboard artist, animation director

Writers

Hans van Harken

Animators

Chris O'Neill - Composer, storyboard artist

Jakub Zieba - Storyboard artist

Jason Kruse - Storyboard artist

Michael Dockery - Storyboard artist

Mark Sheard - Storyboard artist

Episodes

Main article: Episode Guide Season Episodes Start date End date 1 8 January 9, 2022 Brazil Special August 6, 2022 2 8 April 1, 2024 June 23, 2024

International release

Canada: The series aired weekly from January 9, 2022 to January 30, 2022 on the 24-hour Canadian version of Adult Swim.

United Kingdom: The series aired weekly from January 20, 2022 to February 10, 2022 on the British TV channel E4. The first season is currently available to stream for those in the UK and Ireland on the free video on demand service All 4.

France: The series premiered in France on January 24, 2022. Two episodes premiered that day on Warner TV Next during the Adult Swim block, with the rest of Season 1 appearing on demand. The series is also available via the WARNER PASS subscription on Prime Video, and became available on Max during its launch in France on June 11th.

Latin America: The series premiered on HBO Max Latin America (now branded as Max) on February 9, 2022. It also debuted on Adult Swim in October 31, 2023, the same day it was launched.

Brazil: The series premiered on HBO Max Brazil (now branded as Max) on February 9, 2022 alongside the Latin American release. The series also debuted on the Brazilian Adult Swim channel sometime around 2023.

Spain: The series premiered on HBO Max (now branded as Max) in European countries on February 9, 2022, including Spain.

Germany: The series aired weekly from March 22, 2022 to May 10, 2022 on the German subscription-based channel WarnerTV Comedy which has an Adult Swim-programming-block and airs numerous sitcoms including 2 Broke Girls, The Prince of Bel-Air and King of Queens. Notably, Pim is voiced by the German voice actor of Kyle Broflovski, a character from one of Smiling Friends' inspirations, Jan Makino.

Central-Eastern Europe: The series premiered on HBO Max in Central-Eastern European countries such as Poland, Romania, Czechia and Hungary on June 22, 2022.

Australia: The series was added to the Amazon Prime Video streaming service in Australia on March 29, 2023. The entire series is also available for digital purchase in the country on Apple TV and iTunes.

Videos

Trivia

The Comic Sans font was intended to be used for the credits, but they were unable to acquire the rights to use it.[7]

The show's logo is comprised of various colors, each color seemingly represents one of the Smiling Friends

Yellow represents Charlie.

Purple represents Pim.

Red represents Allan.

Green represents Glep.

Blue was initially meant to represent the Blue Janitor Dude, but he was cut. The color represents Smormu in the first season and Jombo in the second season.

Zach Hadel, the series' co-creator, is better known online as psychicpebbles, and got his start in animation on Newgrounds.

He and Chris O'Neill (OneyNG; series' composer for additional music and a minor voice actor) collaborate together frequently on YouTube channel OneyPlays.

Likewise, many cast and crew members experienced in creating web content, predominantly videos or animations (on Newgrounds) have worked on the series; from cameos (Tom Fulp, creator of Newgrounds, as Alpha in "Desmond's Big Day Out," Doug Walker (Nostaliga Critic) as Daniel the Demon Slayer in "Erm, the Boss Finds Love?," etc.) to crew member roles (David Hootselle (shigloo) as directing (animation) and storyboarding, Chris O'Neill composing "Brown Smile," the outro theme song, etc.).

Many aspects of the series - such as the design for Mr. Boss - were likely lifted from Zach and Michael's initial Adult Swim pitch, Little Helpers.

With the upcoming release of Rick and Morty: The Anime, Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel have considered doing an anime-related episode of sorts, though not necessarily an anime adaptation.[8]

Smiling Friends on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Smiling Friends on the Internet Movie Database

Smiling Friends on Adult Swim

Smiling Friends on Channel 4

Smiling Friends on Max

References