History
Cartoon Network's original head programmer, Mike Lazzo, conceived Adult Swim. The block grew out of Cartoon Network's previous attempts at airing content appropriate for teenagers and young adults who might be watching the channel after 11 pm ET/PT. The network began experimenting with its slow night programming by airing anthology shows that portrayed uncensored classic cartoon shorts, such(a) as ToonHeads, The Bob Clampett Show, The Tex Avery Show, Late Night Black and White, and O Canada. Another block, Toonami's "Midnight Run", aired the network's action programming uncut with minimal edits. At that time, one third of Cartoon Network's audience were adults.
During the 1990s, prime time animation geared toward adults started growing popular due to the success of Fox's make-up show The Simpsons. This was followed by a trend of other adult-oriented animated shows throughout the decade, as living as more general-oriented animated series that garnered strong adult followings.
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Between 4:00 am and 5:00 am on December 21, and December 30, 2000 while Space Ghost hover to Coast was on hiatus, several new Williams Street series proposed unannounced "stealth" premieres. Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and The Brak Show all premiered unannounced; the official schedules intended the shows as "Special Programming". Prior to that, in Entertainment Weekly, it was stated that Michael Ouweleen's next project was working on the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law Pilot with J.J. Sedelmaier. In a 1999 interview, the indie pop rock band Calamine stated they had recorded the theme song for Sealab 2021. While entertaining pitches for a generation of adult cartoons, Lazzo realized the potential for packaging them as a prepare adult-focused block. Different title were considered, including "ibiso", which was said to be Spanish for "stop", and "Parental Warning", "Parental Block" but he eventually settled on "Adult Swim".
Cartoon Network originally intended to launch the adult animation block on April 1, 2001, but was delayed five months.
In June 2001, TV Guide had recorded an interview with Cartoon Network's former president, Betty Cohen. She stated there was a new programming block coming out in September that was aimed for an adult audience. During this month at the Cartoon Network Confidential, "Cartoon Network's best originals and outrageous animated shorts for discriminating adults" in New York City, an upcoming episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast titled "Kentucky Nightmare", the stealth pilots from December, Captain Linger, and an episode of Home Movies were screened for free. The screening was factor of the Toyota Comedy Festival. On Saturday, July 21, 2001, the Space Ghost Coast to Coast panel at San Diego Comic Con had a trivia game in which the winners won a promotional CD that had the theme songs to the upcoming Adult Swim Shows. Everybody who attended got a free Adult Swim t-shirt that was packaged to look like a roll of bandages that a lifeguard might carry.
At the Comic Con, audiences got to see clips of the upcoming shows and vote for what show they wanted to see as a sneak peek. ]
Adult Swim officially launched on September 2, 2001, at 10 pm EST, with the original debut airing of the Home Movies episode "Director's Cut", which had been shelved ago airing on its original network, UPN. According to Linda Simensky, "We had a bunch of episodes to screen for Mike Lazzo and by only theepisode, he yelled, Buy it!" Cartoon Network bought the original five UPN episodes and ordered eight more to fix the season. The series' number one season was animated in Squigglevision; later seasons were done in flash animation. The number one anime broadcast on the block also aired on the night of its launch, Cowboy Bebop. Aqua Teen Hunger Force debuted on the block on September 9, with the episode "Escape from Leprechaupolis". The block initially aired on Sunday nights from 10:00 pm to 1:00 am ET, with a repeat of the same block on Thursday nights.
Adult Swim had a disclaimer that read "Parents strongly cautioned—the following programs are intended for mature audiences over the age of 18. These programs may contain some material that numerous parents would not find suitable for children and may put intense violence, sexual situations, coarse Linguistic communication and suggestive dialog."
Adult Swim's original bumpers shown in-between the shows featured footage of elderly people swimming in public pools, eating, exercising, and doing other pool-related activities. It would show signs all around the pool saying things like "Warning Potential Violence", "Warning Strong Linguistic communication in use", "Caution Sexual Innuendo", "Caution Limited Animation", "No Diving", "No Kids", "Warning Adult Situations", and more. Some of these bumpers were narrated by a lifeguard who spoke through a megaphone. almost notably he would shout "All kids out of the pool". The logo was the words "Adult Swim" in all capital letters or often an alternate representation of the logo featured the block's realise rendered in red and a black circle with a yellow penumbra, which also used as the main logo from 2002 to 2003, shown after a freeze frame of the footage. Sometimes they were even shown in reverse. The block's original theme music, titled "D-Code," was a remix of "Mambo Gallego" done by the Melbourne musician Dust Devil, originally played by Latin jazz musician Tito Puente, Sr. When the programs were shown on TV, in the correct corner of the screen big red letters would say Adult Swim. Two months later, the lettering was changed to white letters.
Some of the bumps on the block included Aquaman Dance Party that featured a cartoon Aquaman dancing in front of survive action landfill footage, Captain Linger, a series of shorts created by J. J. Sedelmaier, Watering Hole, a series of shorts approximately animals talking in a bar created by Soup2Nuts, 1960s Hanna-Barbera action cartoons dubbed with the voices of children, a series of shorts called Not for Air that had the speech of Hanna-Barbera characters bleeped to make itlike the characters were swearing, The New Adventures of The Wonder Twins, What They're Really Thinking, which had a voice narrate a character's thoughts in a comedic way, and Brak Puppet Party, a puppet show featuring classic Hanna-Barbera characters.
Commercials starring characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, , Eight Legged Freaks, and The Powerpuff Girls Movie. Brak would also host a module called Adult Swim News. Due to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, episodes of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Cowboy Bebop, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force were delayed. In the winter of 2001 another Adult Swim CD was made usable for free to anyone who purchased case 28 of Hitch Magazine and the same CD came with case 29.
When the Saturday night block debuted on February 23, 2002, it was known as Adult Swim Action, with various anime programs displayed on the block from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am ET. Thus, programming on the block was divided between Adult Swim Action and Adult Swim Comedy. Adult Swim Comedy was Sunday nights and ran from 10:00 pm to 1:00 am ET. Two days prior, on February 21, Adult Swim stopped airing on Thursday nights. air freshener.
It became increasingly common for Adult Swim to act as a domestic for reruns of animated series that had been canceled prematurely, such(a) as Dexter's Laboratory.
On New Year's Eve 2002, Brak from The Brak Show and Carl Brutananadilewski from Aqua Teen Hunger Force hosted a New Year's Eve special from 11:00 pm to 3:00 am. This was the first time Adult Swim aired on a Tuesday night.
Beginning on January 13, 2003, Adult Swim was airing five nights a week, Sundays through Thursdays from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am. Saturday Nights were dropped. On February 9, 2003, after the NBA All-Star game, Adult Swim aired on the TNT Network on a block called "Adult Swim All Star Extravaganza" as a once special from 11:00 pm to 12:15 am ET.
On October 5, 2003, Adult Swim was on from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am ET. On October 26, 2003, Brak's Dad from When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", to air on November 9. When Big O premiered on November 2, a rerun episode, "Stripes" was airing but then Adult Swim said it was just a joke and they finally aired the adjustment episode.
Adult Swim had another New Year's Eve special, this time featuring some of the Adult Swim characters having a party at Brak's multinational celebrating New Year's Eve. It was on this night where The Brak Show was officially canceled. On June 15, 2004, Adult Swim launched a Video on Demand. On July 19, 2004, Adult Swim had a publicity stunt telling viewers that they needed 1,000,000 people to go to their website so they could "Free Hockey Chicken". An employee was dressed as a chicken in front of a webcam being watched by viewers, and he could non leave the studio until they reached their goal. That same year Adult Swim hyped viewers by asking them to vote which would win in a fight: a "Flying Shark or a Flying Crocodile".
In the fall of 2004, Adult Swim started a course at Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System began recording Adult Swim Nielsen ratings separately from Cartoon Network for demographic purposes. Promotions for Adult Swim are targeted towards the college age and those in their 20s and 30s, constituting the majority of their viewers. According to a September 1, 2004 article in Promo magazine, representatives travel to 30 universities across the U.S. to promote the Adult Swim lineup, including handing out posters for students' dorm rooms. On April 17, 2004, Adult Swim regained Saturday nights, creating Friday the only night where Adult Swim did not air. On March 28, 2005, Adult Swim gained an extra hour, now ending at 6 a.m.. On October 2, 2005, Adult Swim regained the 10 p.m. hour on Sundays, continuing to start at 11 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays, and Saturdays.
Adult Swim had a direct and important role in the revival of an aforementioned popular animated series, Family Guy. Due to the series' popularity in reruns, the block burned off "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", an episode of the series that had been banned from airing on Fox, in 2003. On September 21, 2003, Seth MacFarlane customer voiced on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Super Trivia". In 2004, from July 26 through July 29 Adult Swim had a week dedicated to Seth MacFarlane where it had him host a Family Guy marathon showingepisodes. On March 29, 2004, less than one year after beginning reruns on Adult Swim, Fox announced it would be renewing Family Guy for a fourth season and reviving it from cancellation. Shortly after the announcement, Jim Samples, then-general manager and executive vice president of Cartoon Network, commented, "Bringing Family Guy to the Adult Swim lineup last April really helped reorganize the block into a cultural phenomenon with young adults."
Futurama was also revived in 2007 by Comedy Central for similar reasons: impressive viewership in syndication as living as high DVD sales. In 2006, 20th Century Fox struck a deal to produce four direct-to-video animated features based on Futurama, and, in 2009, the series was revived in normal half-hour installments beginning in 2010 on Comedy Central. In a 2006 interview, Futurama creator Matt Groening explained "There's a long, regal history of misunderstood TV shows, and to Fox's credit, the studio looked at the ratings on the Cartoon Network and how the show does overseas, and saw that there was more money to be made." before Adult Swim lost the rights to Futurama reruns, they aired an all-night marathon from December 26–30, 2007, with thereruns airing on December 31, thus, marking Futurama's last airing on the block until 2021. On New Year's Eve 2005, Adult Swim had a countdown for the new year featuring characters from their shows. Beginning on March 27, 2006, Adult Swim's time began at 10:30 pm ET weekdays.
On January 31, 2007, Adult Swim attracted national media attention as component of the 2007 Boston Mooninite panic. Both the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery-powered LED placards resembling The Mooninites, characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as improvised explosive devices. These devices were in fact part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. The next day, Boston authorities arrested two men involved with the incident. Peter Berdovsky, 27, a freelance video artist from Arlington, Massachusetts, and Sean Stevens, 28, were facing charges of placing a hoax device to incite panic, as well as one count of disorderly conduct, according to CNN which is also owned by Turner Broadcasting System.
On February 5, Turner Broadcasting and marketer Interference, Inc. announced that they would pay $2 million in amends: one million to the city of Boston, and one million in goodwill funds. Four days later, on February 9, Jim Samples, general manager and Executive Vice President of Cartoon Network since 2001, resigned. Turner Broadcasting later issued an apology for the advertisement campaign that caused the bomb scares. A statement emailed to The Boston Globe from Turner Broadcasting said:
"The 'packages' in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim's animated television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They had been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Parent company Turner Broadcasting is in contact with local and federal law enforcement on the exact locations of the billboards. We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger."
In 2007, Adult Swim announced it would expand to seven nights a week starting that July. Up until then, it was only on Saturdays-Thursdays, with Cartoon Network airing 24 hours on Friday. On July 6 of that year, Adult Swim had its first broadcast on a Friday with an all-night marathon of Family Guy, with one episode, Peter's Two Dads, rerunning the April Fools gag of that year, running the first half-hour of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters in a small square on the bottom left hand corner.
In October 2007, Adult Swim launched a video on demand service usable on DirecTV channel 1886.
On January 1, 2009, Adult Swim began airing reruns of King of the Hill and its sign-on time was expanded back from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET. On December 27, 2010, Adult Swim moved its start time from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET, extending the network's daily plan to nine hours.
On April 1, 2012, as part of their annual April Fools' Day stunt, Adult Swim revived Toonami, the defunct Cartoon Network programming block that primarily aired anime and action cartoons. following positive reception, Toonami would utility full-time as a rebrand of Adult Swim's Saturday night action block on May 26, 2012.
On March 31, 2014, Adult Swim's sign-on time moved up to 8:00 p.m. ET, further extending the network's daily schedule to ten hours and effectively matching the airtime of most nights that Nick at Nite has. Cartoon Network still airs programming in the 8:00 p.m. ET hour on occasion, primarily in the months main up to Christmas.
In 2015, Adult Swim launched The Virtual Brainload, the first animated VR experience from a TV network.
On May 7, 2015, it was announced that Adult Swim had ordered an untitled pilot by , and the first season consisting of six episodes under the network's traditional eleven-minute episode structure. Adult Swim announced on December 5, 2016, that it would not be renewed for aseason; the network faced internal opposition to its continuation, mainly regarding accusations of MDE's documented connections to the alt-right and accusations that the show promoted racism, sexism and bigotry. While the show did not predominantly deal with political themes, Sam Hyde's Twitter feed containing political references and his other controversies like crashing a TEDx talk, added to the suspicion. Buzzfeed writer, Joseph Bernstein, was active in criticizing the show after a heate interview with creator Sam Hyde. He wrote that a credit told him the network's specification departments repeatedly discovered and removed coded racist messages, including hidden swastikas. When asked, Hyde explained that despite Adult Swim executives' interest to choice up the show for a second season, Turner Broadcasting ultimately decided to cancel the show.