92 Fun Facts About Adult Swim

In Adult Swim's original bumpers, what did the lifeguard shout through a megaphone?

'All kids out of the pool'. An adult swim is the slot when a public pool is reserved for grown-ups, and the first bumpers pushed the joke with footage of pensioners swimming and exercising.

Adult Swim's logo writes the name in lowercase inside which punctuation marks?

Square brackets. The name itself is fair game for jokes: for April Fools' Day 2021 the block posed as Adult Swim Junior and aired a Rick and Morty episode re-voiced by children.

Which head programmer conceived Adult Swim?

Mike Lazzo. A high-school dropout, he started in Turner's shipping and receiving department and worked his way up to run Cartoon Network's programming.

Williams Street, the studio behind Adult Swim, takes its name from its address in which US city?

Atlanta. The studio has been at 1065 Williams Street in Midtown since 1992, in the city where Ted Turner built the cable group that owned Cartoon Network.

Which 1960s cartoon superhero was recast as a talk-show host in the 1994 series that paved the way for Adult Swim?

Space Ghost. Space Ghost Coast to Coast put the old hero behind a desk to interview live-action guests, and the studio that made it was then called Ghost Planet Industries.

Which show opened Adult Swim on launch night with an episode that its original network, UPN, had shelved?

Home Movies. UPN had cancelled it after five episodes, but Cartoon Network bought those, ordered more, and kept the cartoon about an eight-year-old filmmaker going for four seasons.

Which anime was the first broadcast on Adult Swim, on the night it launched?

Cowboy Bebop. It went out at midnight on launch night, and three of its episodes were held back from that first run because their violence sat too close to the September 11 attacks.

In Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a milkshake, some fries and a meatball live next door to which long-suffering human?

Carl. He wants nothing more than to be left alone with his sports and his car, and most of his grief comes from finding the three of them in his swimming pool.

How did Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab 2021 first reach the air in December 2000?

In unannounced pre-dawn airings. Cartoon Network slipped the pilots out with no promotion, more than eight months before the block that would turn them into hits even existed.

Sealab 2021 recycled animation from a 1970s environmental cartoon by which studio?

Hanna-Barbera. Adam Reed and Matt Thompson found a tape of its 1972 series Sealab 2020 while working as production assistants, wrote new dialogue over it, and were turned down the first time they pitched it.

Which actor voices the title character in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law?

Gary Cole. His Birdman, a washed-up 1960s superhero, defends other vintage cartoon characters in court, among them Shaggy and Scooby-Doo on a drugs charge, with Stephen Colbert as his boss.

Which cancelled Fox sitcom did strong Adult Swim rerun ratings help revive in 2004?

Family Guy. Fox had cancelled it in 2002, but strong DVD sales and the ratings for its late-night reruns changed the network's mind, and new episodes began in May 2005.

Robot Chicken, co-created by Seth Green, is animated using what?

Stop-motion with toys. Its animators pose action figures frame by frame for short sketches, and George Lucas lent his own voice to its Star Wars special.

Which Adult Swim series about the Cuyler family of north Georgia ran for 13 seasons?

Squidbillies. The Cuylers are hillbilly mud squids in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and after twelve seasons voiced by country singer Unknown Hinson, patriarch Early was played by Tracy Morgan for the last.

Metalocalypse centres on which fictional death metal band?

Dethklok is so popular that the show calls it the world's seventh-largest economy; creator Brendon Small wrote and played the band's music.

Which Adult Swim series, created by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, ran seven seasons over fifteen years?

The Venture Bros. ran from 2003 to 2018, was cancelled in 2020, and wrapped up with the 2023 film Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart.

Which Adult Swim series is based on Aaron McGruder's comic strip about the Freeman family?

The Boondocks. Regina King voiced both brothers, ten-year-old Huey and eight-year-old Riley, and the fourth and final season was made without McGruder.

On January 31, 2007, Boston police mistook LED signs of which Aqua Teen characters for bombs?

The Mooninites, Ignignokt and Err, were on LED placards promoting the Aqua Teen movie; Cartoon Network general manager Jim Samples resigned over the scare.

How much did Turner Broadcasting and its marketing firm agree to pay after the 2007 Boston bomb scare?

$2 million: half repaid the agencies that responded and half went to homeland security programs, though the same signs had hung in nine other cities for weeks without alarm.

Which 2007 sketch series brought Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's anti-humour to the block?

Awesome Show, Great Job! ran for five seasons of public-access-style sketches, and John C. Reilly's clueless Dr. Steve Brule proved popular enough to get a spin-off of his own.

Which cult 2003 film did Adult Swim air, sex scenes blacked out, as a 2009 April Fools' prank?

The Room. Adult Swim followed it with a Tim and Eric episode guest-starring its director Tommy Wiseau, then aired the film again on the next two April Fools' nights.

Which defunct anime block did Adult Swim revive as a 2012 April Fools' stunt, then permanently?

Toonami. Six weeks after the one-night prank, Adult Swim announced on Twitter that the block, shut down in 2008, was coming back for real, and it returned on Saturday nights that May.

Which comedian co-hosted The Eric Andre Show for its first four seasons?

Hannibal Buress was Eric Andre's deadpan co-host from the 2012 debut; he stepped back in season 5 and was briefly replaced by a lookalike, 'Blannibal'.

Who created Rick and Morty?

Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. The show grew out of Roiland's crude Back to the Future parody, made for a short-film festival Harmon co-founded, which is why its leads echo Doc and Marty.

Which Adult Swim comedy from Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack follows Pim and Charlie, who work at a small charity?

Smiling Friends. Its pilot was slipped out without warning on April Fools' night 2020, almost two years before the series proper began in January 2022.

Which McDonald's item came back because of a Rick and Morty joke?

Szechuan sauce. The 1998 Mulan tie-in is what Rick says he is really after in the season 3 premiere, an episode Adult Swim sprang on viewers without warning on April Fools' Day 2017.

Which episode won Rick and Morty its first Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program?

Pickle Rick. Rick turns himself into a pickle to get out of family therapy, then has to fight his way home through a sewer full of rats; the episode won the 2018 Emmy.

Which 2014 parody of sitcom opening credits went viral after airing at 4 a.m. on Adult Swim?

Too Many Cooks. Casper Kelly's eleven-minute short keeps adding grinning cast members to a cheery theme song until a killer starts stalking the credits.

Which 2010 browser game from Adult Swim Games was set to Erasure's song 'Always'?

Robot Unicorn Attack. Its follow-ups kept the game and swapped the song: German metal band Blind Guardian for the Heavy Metal edition, and The Darkness's festive single for the Christmas one.

Primal, the dialogue-free series about a caveman and a T. rex, was created by which animator?

Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter's Laboratory, made Primal; Spear and Fang each lose their families in the opening episode, which is what turns hunter and dinosaur into partners.

Which Adult Swim block was launched in August 2023 to rerun classic Cartoon Network shows such as Ed, Edd n Eddy?

Checkered Past. The name nods to Cartoon Network's old checkerboard logo, and the block arrived with an expansion that gave Adult Swim more hours of the day than Cartoon Network itself.

Which Cartoon Network action series returned on Adult Swim in 2017 for a darker final season, 13 years after it stopped?

Samurai Jack. The original run had left Jack stranded in the future, so the final season picks him up fifty years on, unable to age and close to giving up.

Which former heavyweight champion plays himself solving mysteries with a talking pigeon in an Adult Swim cartoon?

Mike Tyson. Norm Macdonald voiced the pigeon in Mike Tyson Mysteries, and the real Tyson has kept pigeons since childhood: he says his first fight was with a bigger boy who killed one.

Adult Swim's original theme 'D-Code' remixed a tune by which Latin jazz musician?

Tito Puente. 'D-Code' remixed his recording of 'Mambo Gallego', and it wasn't his first tune to find a second life: Santana's 1970 cover turned his 'Oye Como Va' into a rock hit.

Which hip-hop collective starred in Adult Swim's sketch and prank show Loiter Squad?

Odd Future. Tyler, the Creator and his friends made it with Jeff Tremaine, the director of Jackass, which explains the stunts between the sketches.

Which rapper hosted Adult Swim's 2020 April Fools' night of surprise sneak peeks?

Post Malone. The night opened with the first minutes of an anime parody's new season, which he interrupted, and went on to slip out a surprise new episode of Primal among its previews.

Which anime about humanity sheltering behind enormous walls made its US television debut on Adult Swim in 2014?

Attack on Titan. The walls are there to keep out the Titans, giants that eat people, and the series stayed in the Saturday-night line-up until the story ended in January 2024.

How did Adult Swim 'premiere' the Aqua Teen movie on April Fools' Day 2007, days before it reached cinemas?

In a tiny corner window. After two minutes at full size, the film shrank to a comically small box in the corner of the night's regular shows, more than a week before cinemas had it.

On April Fools' night 2018, Adult Swim's anime block broke its rule by airing shows in what form?

The block ran in Japanese with English subtitles: FLCL Alternative's first episode got a stealth subbed premiere, and the film Mind Game aired subbed too.

'Bushworld Adventures', the 2018 Rick and Morty parody by Michael Cusack, sends the pair where?

Australia. Michael Cusack's short sends the pair to Bendigo in search of a green cube, and its success as an April Fools' stunt led Adult Swim to give him a series of his own.

Adult Swim's deliberately silent tribute bumpers usually show only what?

A name with birth and death years, in white on black with no sound. The format is familiar enough to parody: in 2017 the block ran one for 'the writing on Game of Thrones', dated 2011 to 2016.

Which science-fiction film franchise got an anime spin-off, Black Lotus, on Adult Swim in 2021?

Blade Runner. Where the films follow the hunters, Black Lotus takes the side of the hunted: its heroine is a replicant who wakes with no memory, and Adult Swim made it with the anime service Crunchyroll.

Rick and Morty grew out of a crude animated short that parodied which 1980s film series?

Back to the Future was the target: the short starred knock-offs of Doc Brown and Marty McFly and was made for the Channel 101 short film festival.

Robot Chicken took its title from a dish on the menu at what kind of West Hollywood restaurant?

Chinese food named the series: its creators spotted the dish while eating at Kung Pao Bistro, and passed over titles such as Junk in the Trunk and The Deep End.

Which Star Wars figure voiced himself, mobbed by fans at a convention, in the 2007 special Robot Chicken: Star Wars?

George Lucas signed on after seeing an earlier Robot Chicken sketch online; impressed, he invited its makers to Lucasfilm and let them parody the whole saga.

Which eventual late-night host voiced Phil Ken Sebben and Myron Reducto in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law?

Stephen Colbert voiced both lawyers years before he hosted The Late Show, and came back in 2018 for a special in which Sebben has become US president.

Which Step Brothers star plays the bumbling Dr. Steve Brule on Adult Swim's Check It Out!?

John C. Reilly improvises most of Brule's dialogue, and the people he interviews are real members of the public whose reactions are genuine.

Which Oscar-winning actress voiced both Huey and Riley Freeman in Adult Swim's take on Aaron McGruder's comic strip?

Regina King began voicing the two young brothers in 2005, more than a decade before she won her Academy Award for If Beale Street Could Talk.

Adam Reed, co-creator of Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo, went on to create which long-running FX animated comedy?

Archer came next: Reed and partner Matt Thompson shut their old studio in 2009 and founded Floyd County Productions to make the spy spoof.

The Rick and Morty mobile game Pocket Mortys is a parody of which video game franchise?

Pokémon is the template: the player's Rick catches wild Mortys and sends them into turn-based fights against rival trainers, who are aliens and other Ricks.

Which DC superhero got a new Adult Swim animated series in 2023, with Jack Quaid voicing the lead?

Superman starred in My Adventures with Superman, a series first planned for daytime Cartoon Network that was moved to the late-night block instead.

How does Eric André open nearly every episode of his chaotic Adult Swim talk show?

By destroying the set: André wrecks the backdrop, desk and furnishings during the theme song, then stagehands swap in identical pieces before the interviews begin.

What is the surname of Rick, the mad-scientist grandfather in Rick and Morty?

Sanchez is Rick's surname; Smith belongs to Morty, whose father Jerry married Rick's daughter and resents his father-in-law's hold over the family.

What is the name of Morty Smith's older sister, a main character in Rick and Morty?

Summer begins as a status-obsessed 17-year-old who envies her brother's trips with their grandfather, then becomes a regular on the adventures herself.

Which Scrubs actress voices Beth Smith, Rick's daughter and Morty's mother, in Rick and Morty?

Sarah Chalke plays two Beths: after Rick clones his daughter and sends one into space, the series leaves it ambiguous which of the pair is the original.

Which Saturday Night Live alumnus voices Jerry Smith, Morty's insecure father, in Rick and Morty?

Chris Parnell was laid off from Saturday Night Live in 2001 during budget cuts, then rehired in the middle of the following season.

Which blue helpers in Rick and Morty are summoned from a box and vanish once their single task is done?

Mr. Meeseeks is the name they all share; when Jerry asks one to fix his golf game, the frustrated creature keeps summoning more until a horde decides to kill him.

The fast-food trio of Aqua Teen Hunger Force live in a suburban neighbourhood in which US state?

New Jersey is home, its southern end to be exact, though from the ninth season the very same neighbourhood is identified as Seattle, New Jersey.

Which voice actor plays Master Shake, the loud-mouthed milkshake of Aqua Teen Hunger Force?

Dana Snyder voices Shake, while series co-creator Dave Willis doubles up as both the childlike Meatwad and the trio's human neighbour.

Which Philadelphia rapper performed the Aqua Teen Hunger Force theme song for the first seven seasons?

Schoolly D rapped the theme until the eighth season, when the series began swapping its title and theme music every year as a running joke.

Which comedian and guitarist co-created Metalocalypse and wrote the songs played by its cartoon band?

Brendon Small wrote the music himself, and the first album released under the cartoon band's name entered the Billboard 200 at number 21.

Which lead singer fronts the animated death metal band at the centre of Adult Swim's Metalocalypse?

Nathan Explosion is the band's frontman, so adored that in one episode his fans elect him governor of Florida against his will.

Which Better Call Saul star spotted Tim and Eric's web cartoon Tom Goes to the Mayor and produced it for Adult Swim?

Bob Odenkirk also popped up on screen in many episodes of the series, which Adult Swim itself has called one of its most polarizing shows.

Which former Daily Show correspondent created and starred in Adult Swim's medical spoof Childrens Hospital?

Rob Corddry turned down a rival offer from Comedy Central because it wanted half-hour episodes; Adult Swim let him keep them to fifteen minutes.

Which Seinfeld actor voices bodyguard Brock Samson in Adult Swim's long-running satire of boy-adventurer cartoons?

Patrick Warburton first found fame as David Puddy, the unflappable mechanic who was Elaine's on-again, off-again boyfriend, before voicing the hulking agent.

Which Mike Judge sitcom about a Texas propane salesman filled Adult Swim's schedule in reruns for nearly a decade?

King of the Hill had already dodged the axe on Fox, airing a planned finale in its 11th season before being renewed, and its reruns joined the block in 2009.

Which Matt Groening comedy, cancelled by Fox, won new fans in Adult Swim reruns and returned as direct-to-DVD films?

Futurama reran on the block from 2003 to 2007, and the revived interest persuaded its producers to bring the crew back in feature-length DVD releases.

Joe Pera Talks with You follows a soft-spoken choir teacher in the city of Marquette in which US state?

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is the backdrop as Pera's teacher speaks straight to the viewer about everyday subjects such as pancakes, minerals and iron.

Which Adult Swim satire follows a naive, devout 12-year-old Protestant boy in the fictional state of Statesota?

Moral Orel has been described as Davey and Goliath meets South Park, though its creator says it grew from an idea for a 1950s sitcom send-up starring Iggy Pop.

Which Adult Swim cartoon centres on the Goodman family's Border Collie, a pet that is secretly satanic?

Mr. Pickles is the dog's name, and only the family's grandfather knows that the pet slips away to kill, which is why nobody in Old Town suspects a thing.

In Adult Swim's Delocated, a man in witness protection stars in a reality show while always wearing what?

A ski mask hides his face and a digital filter warps his voice, because the Russian mobsters he testified against could be among the reality show's viewers.

Which rapper teamed with producer Danger Mouse for The Mouse and the Mask, an album built on Adult Swim samples?

MF Doom rapped over beats that sampled the block's shows, and characters such as Master Shake and Meatwad turn up as guests on the record.

Which electronic producer, founder of the Brainfeeder label, made much of the music heard in Adult Swim's bumpers?

Flying Lotus got his break in 2006 after spotting an on-air Adult Swim advert asking for song submissions while he was at his mother's house.

Which cult anime gained two new seasons, Progressive and Alternative, co-produced by Adult Swim nearly two decades on?

FLCL came back as a co-production between Production I.G, Toho and Adult Swim, which then ordered two more seasons, Grunge and Shoegaze, in 2022.

Which anime about brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric hunting the Philosopher's Stone aired on Adult Swim from 2004?

Fullmetal Alchemist follows the brothers' quest to regain the bodies they lost in a failed attempt to bring their dead mother back to life.

Which anime about a Tokyo schoolgirl who falls down a well into feudal Japan ran on Adult Swim from 2002?

Inuyasha is the half-demon she meets there, and the pair spend the series hunting the scattered fragments of a sacred jewel she accidentally shattered.

Uzumaki, Adult Swim's 2024 horror miniseries about a town cursed by spirals, adapts a manga by which artist?

Junji Ito hit on the spiral while trying to draw a story about people living in one very long terraced house, and coiled it to get the length he wanted.

In Primal, the caveman Spear survives a savage prehistoric world beside a Tyrannosaurus known by what name?

Fang is a female Tyrannosaurus who, like Spear, loses her family in the opening episode, and that loss is what throws hunter and dinosaur together.

Which CHiPs star voiced Marco, the engineer of the undersea lab in Adult Swim's Sealab 2021?

Erik Estrada, television's highway patrolman Ponch, played the lab's lieutenant commander, a character whose full name runs to eight words.

Which cartoon by Lisa Hanawalt was cancelled by Netflix after one season, then revived by Adult Swim for two more?

Tuca & Bertie was rescued in May 2020, ten months after Netflix dropped it, though Adult Swim cancelled it in turn in 2022.

Which rapper is behind The Jellies!, an Adult Swim cartoon about a jellyfish family and their human son?

Tyler, the Creator first made it as a web series for his own Golf Media app, then reworked it for television with co-creator Lionel Boyce.

Adult Swim's 2022 surprise horror film by Casper Kelly opens disguised as what kind of cosy holiday broadcast?

A yule log video is how it begins, a fireplace crackling in a holiday cabin; the film was shot in secret over 15 days and aired with almost no advertising.

For April Fools' Day 2004, Adult Swim aired its regular episodes with what scribbled over the characters?

Moustaches were drawn at random across the night's episodes, and the block then reran the very same episodes untouched the following night.

Adult Swim's earliest bumpers, shown between programmes in 2001, featured footage of whom at public pools?

Elderly people were filmed swimming, eating and exercising at the pool, with a lifeguard narrating some of the clips through a megaphone.

Which Parks and Recreation star was an executive producer of Adult Swim's suburban satire Three Busy Debras?

Amy Poehler backed it through her company Paper Kite, and the series follows three deranged housewives, all named Debra, in the affluent town of Lemoncurd.

Which Schitt's Creek actor starred as a US Marshal in Eagleheart, Adult Swim's send-up of Walker, Texas Ranger?

Chris Elliott's lawman even shared his first name, and the series came from Conaco, the production company owned by Conan O'Brien.

Beth Smith, the mother in Rick and Morty, works as a veterinary surgeon specialising in which animals?

Horses are her patients at St. Equis Hospital, and her nagging sense of having settled in her job and marriage drives several early storylines.

Which martial artist and Spawn star reprised his film role as the lead in Adult Swim's Black Dynamite cartoon?

Michael Jai White returned with three of his co-stars from the 2009 blaxploitation spoof, though the cartoon follows a separate continuity of its own.

Which stoic former freedom fighter, Rick's best friend in Rick and Morty, marries Tammy Gueterman?

Birdperson once fought the Galactic Federation alongside Rick and Squanchy, which is why all three were branded terrorists with warrants out for their arrest.

When Adult Swim launched in 2001, the block aired on which night of the week, with a Thursday repeat?

Sunday nights from 10 pm to 1 am Eastern were the block's entire original slot, with the same line-up shown again later in the week.

Which star of The League created and led NTSF:SD:SUV::, Adult Swim's parody of police procedurals?

Paul Scheer first floated the series as a set of fake promotional adverts that doubled as a backdoor pilot, and it went on to run for three seasons.

Which 2014 sci-fi comedy anime about an alien hunter premiered on Adult Swim a day before it aired in Japan?

Space Dandy reached American screens on 4 January 2014 and Tokyo MX the next day, so viewers in the United States saw it before anyone in Japan.