Awesome Adult Swim

If you can believe it, September 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. To celebrate the occasion, here’s a compilation of the original promo segues that ran between shows on the late-night animation block. Soon enough, that’ll be us swimming with the old folks in the pool.

The fifth season of Rick and Morty just wrapped up with quite the ending. But how did we get here? Jesse Gill and Michael Swaim of IGN provide a great retrospective on the series to prepare you for a rewatch of that epic finale. Be sure to bookmark this so you can watch it again before season six drops.

Dan is a man on a mission to find his match while in space. After searching relationship sites, he finally managed to score a date. But it’s not what he had hoped for. Austen Reeder’s short clip is every bit as weird and warped as we’ve come to expect from Adult Swim SMALLS. Take more Star Boat journeys here.

There’s nothing like a peaceful autumn bike ride through the forest as colorful leaves fall around you. Illustrator Julian Glander’s lighthearted animated short for Adult Swim SMALLS starts out that way, then takes quite the unexpected turn about halfway through.

Could you use an extra kid in the house? Caleb and Kegan’s incredibly bizarre clip from Adult Swim SMALLS offers up the most peculiar digital baby since the dancing baby meme. We wonder if they used a 3D printer instead of a 2D one if things would have turned out better.

Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and its spin-off The Brak Show were two of our faves from the early days of Adult Swim. Saad Rahman (aka “Sad Ramen“) and April Son are fans too, and they created this eccentric follow up to the series in which the crew gets separated by space and time, leading to a web of intrigue and mystery.

“Now go out there, and be nobody!” Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s brash and insensitive neighbor Carl Brutananadilewski was invited by Adult Swim to give a commencement speech to the graduates of the Class of 2020. As expected, absolutely zero of his monologue is inspiring, sensible, or politically correct.

The boys are back in the multiverse. After a 6-month hiatus, Rick and Morty returns with the back half of its fourth season. Along the way, they wear unnecessarily badass suits and destroy countless aliens. Oh, and Snuffles (er, Snowball) returns to face a new enemy. The five new episodes kick off 5/3/2020 on Adult Swim.

(PG-13: Gore) Rick and Morty star in this bloodsoaked anime about a group of angry Ninja Ricks who think Rick WTM-72 has kidnapped Shogun Morty, and will do anything to stop him. Directed and written by Kaichi Sato, and produced by Studio DEEN. In Japanese, with English subtitles.

In this short and silly animation, a man is sick and tired of the numerous scooters that have popped up around his city, and he voices his frustration by scooting away from all of it himself. Directed and animated by Daniela Sherer for Adult Swim Smalls. Music by David Hughes, J. Christopher Arrison, and Mason Brown.

Genndy Tartakovsky is best known for creating Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Now, he’s working on Primal, a new Adult Swim series that follows a caveman who befriends a dinosaur on the brink of extinction in a brutal, primordial world. It looks incredible from this brief clip. Drops Fall 2019.

“I could tell he was a real space man… because he had these funny little boots on.” Dan Britt’s animated short for Adult Swim’s SMALLS tells a story of an ordinary man abducted by an alien who needs a little help. But that’s not all…

Adult Swim and Vernon Chatman’s new stop-motion series is described as an “omnibus of painfully riotous emotional parables dripping from the deepest caverns of your unconscious.” And from what we saw in the first episode, they nailed the description. Premieres 12/9/18.

Adult Swim commissioned this CG tribute to Aqua Teen Hunger Force for a non-existent movie starring Master Shake, Meatwad, Carl, and (the ghost of?) Frylock. Directed by Joel Cares, animated by Louis Crevier, and scored and voiced masterfully by Tom Gunia.

Adult Swim Games and Rekim present “the world’s least realistic pool simulator” – a ridiculous new spin of the classic table game, in which all of the pool balls are alive and capable of walking places. Available on Steam and the Nintendo Switch now.

Elastic Man is a goofy time-waster which lets you stretch, bend, and deform the character’s face right in your web browser. It’s a fun, interactive way to kill a couple of minutes, courtesy of Adult Swim and none other than Rick and Morty’s Morty.

Haruko and the Medical Mechanica are coming back. Production IG is making two more seasons – each consisting of 6 episodes – of FLCL, with the help of original series director Kazuya Tsurumaki and more music from The Pillows. Drops in 2018 on Adult Swim.

“He seems to have manifested some sort of butt. He is the smartest man in the universe.” Adult Swim pulled off a reverse April Fools’ prank by including the first episode of Rick and Morty‘s third season in an all-episode continuous livestream.

(PG-13, Gore) Recall the adventures of Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad in Adult Swim Australia’s 35-minute compilation of Aqua Teen Hunger Force clips, from the Larry Miller Hair System for Men to Romulox and his PDA.

(PG-13) “Where would somebody find a large pack of dogs that would eat flesh?” Adult Swim’s short film features a compilation of bloopers made in honor of an anchorman on his last day at work. Kevin Butler’s fallen on hard times.

“Whoever scores the celestial dance of the comet most evocatively will be named the Lord of Synth.” Three legendary musicians compete for the coveted title of Lord of Synth in Adult Swim’s awesome parody of synth icons Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder and Wendy Carlos.

(PG-13 Language) Wubba lubba dub dub! Eclectic Method is here to regale us with his musical take on the beloved Adult Swim cartoon, in a super catchy remix packed with some of our favorite catchphrases from the duo.

Adult Swim joins in on the Shia LeBeouf motivational speech memefest by mashing up Shia’s intense delivery with Dragon Ball, Attack on Titan, Kill La Kill and other anime in Toonami.

Adult Swim followed rap battle veteran Hollow Da Don as he looked for unsuspecting folks to diss in rhyme. Hollow racked up an insane number of wins, but a bird – a literal bird – straight up wrecked him.

(Gore) Adult Swim brings back Halloween with this amazing short film. If you thought Too Many Cooks was creepy, hug your loved ones tight, turn the lights up, put a diaper on and press play. Claridryl: not even once.

The queen stumbles upon her husband checking out pawnography. Animation studio Rubber House will have you snickering at chess pieces. This is one of three shorts that it made for Adult Swim; check out the rest here.