Word: cartoons
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Adult Swim's roots go back to 1994, when Mike Lazzo, senior vice president of Cartoon Network (which, like TIME, is part of Time Warner), was asked to create an inexpensive, late-night show for adults, who were tuning in to the network in larger-than-expected numbers. Thus was born Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, a talk show whose host is an old Hanna-Barbera superhero, sitting behind a desk, bantering with an alien bandleader and asking such bewildered, real-life celebrity guests as Donny Osmond what superpowers they have...
Space Ghost became a cult hit, and in 2001, Cartoon Network created the Adult Swim block of cartoons around it. The original shows (it also includes acquired Japanese anime toons) follow the same principle: lunacy on a low budget. On Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a trio of superpowered fast-food products pursue get-rich-quick schemes (luring pilgrims to a "sacred oil stain" in the neighbor's driveway) and avoid crime fighting (except, for instance, when they catch pot-smoking aliens tapping into their TV cable). According to co-creator Matt Maiellaro, budget constraints posed a problem in animating Meatwad...
...Indeed, Cartoon Network's comedies may be richer for being poorer. Too many network comedies with vast staffs of writers hit the same note of competent lameness. With a few writers at most, Adult Swim's comedies have something that millions of dollars can't buy According to Jim: an original voice. Home Movies--a sweet, off-kilter comedy about neurotic eight-year-old film buffs, their dysfunctional families and their alcoholic soccer coach--relies heavily on improvisation to create true-to-life dialogue; executive producer Loren Bouchard recalls how voice actress Melissa Bardin Galsky came up with...
...there is a theme to these shows--with their world-weary kids and less-than-super heroes--it's casting a jadedly funny, grownup eye on the memories and characters of childhood. On Harvey Birdman: Attorney-at-Law, a superhero turned lawyer defends cartoon characters--for instance, he represents Scooby-Doo's Shaggy for drug possession. The Adult Swim sensibility caters perfectly to the Gen X--Gen Y brand of nostalgia: affectionate derision for the junk of one's youth. It's like a restaurant that fashions three-star meals out of Doritos and Ring Dings...
...With his signature black turtleneck, neat goatee and long hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, the 40-year-old Kon takes pains to set himself apart from the stereotypical otaku animator who's too immersed in his cartoon world to ever change out of slippers and pajamas. But Kon's distance from the anim? mainstream is more than sartorial; he is one of the rare animators whose creative point of reference isn't other animation or manga. Instead, he takes his inspiration from reality: "My ideas for movies come from the world that I live in. When I walk...