“Smiling Friends” (2020-)
In the midst of the Warner Bros. animation purging crisis, “Smiling Friends” has now become a mega-hit.
Starting in August of 2022 Warner Bros., via their streaming platform Max (formerly HBO Max), deleted a number of films and series, turning them into “lost media,” so they could be written off as a loss on the company’s taxes. The media erasure was met with a number of complaints from both fans of the content and the content’s creators. One of the largest complaints was that the practice unfairly targeted animated series on the platform.
Fast forward to January 10, 2024, and Warner Bros. released the first episode of the animated series “Smiling Friends” via their subsidiary production company called Adult Swim. From the get go, “Smiling Friends” became an internet sensation. With numerous memes spawning from the first season alone (including three separate clipped audios trending on Tiktok), “Smiling Friends” exceeded the expected audience for a first major project from two relatively unknown animators.
But relatively unknown isn’t exactly unknown, especially in the case of “Smiling Friends.” The creators of the show, Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel, are YouTube animators who managed to create a made-for-TV animated show. Alongside some other new shows, like “Hazbin Hotel,” “Smiling Friends” is one of the first animated shows to have creators that made from YouTube to television.
Hadel and Cusack’s YouTube backstory shapes the humor of “Smiling Friends.” To put it simply, the show appeals to those with a chronically online sense of humor, mainly Gen Z and younger Millennials. “Smiling Friends” is one of the first, if not the first, adult animated show to appeal to Gen Z.
Additionally, the series contains near-constant references to different online creators and phenomena, including having online creators cameo in the show as different characters. These jokes reinforce the tone of the show without alienating audiences unaware of the meme or reference.
Tying into the online culture of the show to promote the release of the second season, all of the first season’s episodes were completely redone with puppets instead of 2D animation. The puppet edition of season one was released for free on YouTube by Adult Swim, and it allowed more fans to enjoy season one without having to pay to watch the first season.
Alongside the official puppet edition was the unofficial release of the “Smiling Friends” commentary by Hadel and Cusack from the season one DVD on YouTube. The commentary has been ripped from the DVD by a number of different YouTube channels and remains on the platform, but this was predicted by the creators of the show in the first fifteen seconds of the commentary:
“Thank you for buying this [DVD] or watching it on YouTube for free,” said Michela Cusack, the co-creator of the show, as an introduction to the commentary track.
The show’s initial success wasn’t just lighting in a bottle. The show’s second season, which was released between May 12, 2024, and June 23, 2024, has been just as much of a hit. The Google traffic for the show reached its highest point as the new season of the show spawned multiple memes, further expanding its online community, and clogging every social media’s trending tab with its continued presence.
With the release of the second season, “Smiling Friends” has become one of the top recommended shows on Max, maintaining its position in the top three shows on the platform’s “Top 10 Series Today” spotlight for the entire eight weeks that season two was being released.
In a twist of irony, an animated series has become one of the most popular shows on a streaming platform now infamous for purging animation. It is safe to say that even if “Smiling Friends” was deleted and forcibly made into lost media, it would not be forgotten.
