‘Smiling Friends’ Creators on Season 3, Being ‘Averse to Serious Episodes’ and Pissing Off Fans for Fun: ‘We’ll Do Whatever We Find Funny’
SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses plot details from Episode 2 and Episode 3 of “Smiling Friends” Season 3.
You’ve probably never heard someone who works in TV say this: “I really could see the show ending with us loving it and people hating it. I’m not saying that will happen, but I’m just saying that would be fine with me. That’s funny to me. That’s better than doing fan service. We’ll do whatever we find funny.”
That’s Zach Hadel talking, one half of the duo behind “Smiling Friends.” Along with Michael Cusack, the former YouTube trailblazers have created a show that is not only downright hysterical but also serves as a bold example for an industry drowning in unprecedented trepidation. As big-budget studios continuously default to beating a dead horse, and then sell an eight-part limited series to Netflix about how exactly they thrashed the poor animal, Hadel and Cusack unapologetically blast candy-colored pandemonium onto the airwaves and declare: What’s “funny to us” is enough. Take it or leave it.
Clearly, it’s working, because “Smiling Friends” just released its third season on Adult Swim. Working double duty as stars and creators, Hadel voices Charlie, a bro-ish yellow blob creature, and Cusack voices Pim, a well-mannered chap who looks like a cross between a school boy and a grape. Together, they are the Smiling Friends, an agency dedicated to fixing existential crises, a task left incomplete unless they put a smile on their patron’s face. The show’s engine runs on frenetic cartoon logic and a dizzying cast of one-off characters like 3D Squelton, Count Groxia, God and Ronald Regan. Despite its violent absurdity, the world of “Smiling Friends” often resembles our own in startling ways, exploring everything from suicide to imposter syndrome to ravenous parasocial relationships.
Before the premiere of Season 3, Hadel and Cusack sat down with Variety to discuss the ins and outs of “Smiling Friends” development, building thematic truths from aburdist humor and pissing off their fans for fun.
Michael Cusack: When we go into a new season, we want to see it as a continuation, because the show, by nature, is episodic. Just like an album, we try to create a track list that all works together, so not trying to do too many episodes in a season that feel similar to each other, or tick the box of a Mr. Frog episode or holiday episode. Zach often says it’s just instinctual.
Zach Hadel: Season 1 was very Pim and Charlie-focused and a bit more plot pointy with bits of improv. Season 2 explored the improv stuff a little more. I feel like Season 3 is a blend of those two. Since the pilot, we’ve been trying to get that exact ratio right. Like improv to plot, how much do you meander?
MC: A lot of the crossover with Zach’s and my interests is the input of modern-day life. We’re the same as everyone, hooked on the internet and current-day trends and events and just observing all of this. I guess it subconsciously goes through a filter into the show. It’s colorful characters, but a lot of the comedy comes from how realistic it is, and it’s a very grounded world. So I guess our inspiration is just the chaos of life in a way, as well as cartoons.
ZH: A lot of animators grow up watching cartoons, and that inspires them to draw and that inspires them to animate. Which is great, but if the only thing you watch is other cartoons, you’re not gonna pull from an interesting [place]. “Family Guy” will reference weird ’50s stuff and ’80s stuff. “The Simpsons” pulls from dramas and actions and thrillers and real-life references. A lot of the stuff we find funny or interesting, and what goes into the show, is a lot of the real-world stuff. Like a weird Dick Cavett interview from the ’70s. All the real stuff in the world that we find interesting as adult men, that is completely unrelated to cartoons, is usually more fresh. If you’re just watching cartoons and making cartoons based on cartoons, it spirals into a big blob of nothing.
MC: We’re pretty good at cracking each other up with stuff that’s probably not able to go on the show. Then we can filter anything that we know is too stupid or, I guess, inappropriate. The writers’ room can be chaos. It’s like white noise, and then we’re like, “Alright, let’s be serious. Let’s actually turn this into an episode.” A good example is when Allan kicks the assistant in the Gwimbly episode (Season 2, Episode 1) and just kills her. We’ll joke about a lot of stuff like that, like, “What if this character just kills this person?” But sometimes it makes it through if it’s funny. Most of the time, it wouldn’t be funny; it would just be stupid. But we can be like, “All right, you know what? It would kind of work here as a shocking thing.”
ZH: When Allan kicks the assistant, that’s usually when it goes to court on the show. Obviously, we will only do what both of us are happy with. There’s never, ever, ever, even once been a forceful “this has to go in.” But we do have times, very rarely, where it’s like, “Is that [too far]?” That Allan kick, I think I drew a rough of that, and then I showed it to [Michael], and you thought it was funny, and then I got scared. I was like, “That might ruin his character.” You actually had to convince me I was wrong. It’s one of people’s favorite jokes. But I was very scared. I was like, “Are people gonna think Allan’s like, a bastard?” But the way we solved it was that he doesn’t kill her. If you look at the animation, he genuinely didn’t see her. So that’s usually where that gets litigated. The character of Allan did not see her go, “Fuck you,” and kick her head off. He genuinely got spooked. That’s why it’s okay, and that’s why it’s funny.
ZH: I feel like we’re averse to serious episodes. I obviously know that we have the Mr. Frog episode (Season 3, Episode 2), but I don’t view that as our serious episode. I view that as like, I know the word subversive is kind of over said, but I think it’s a subversion. When you have the dinner scene with Mr. Frog and the dad, it’s done very straight. It’s done like a proper, prestige TV kind of thing. But the undertone is still comedy. It’s still a real man painted green in shorts, pouring his heart out. Those sorts of moments are played for, number one, the story, but also, just to be shocking. We want people to go, “Holy shit!” That’s the goal of that. It was just to say, “Hey, let’s play with a genre and be shocking and subversive and still bring it back to comedy.” [I don’t see that as] form breaking. We’re not gonna do serialized, serious moments.
MC: We’re kind of allergic to messages. We never want to be at the end of an episode saying, “I learned something today and blah, blah, blah.” What we try to do is thematic questions. So in the first episode, the thematic question is, “Should I kill myself, or should I not?” Obviously, it’s answered in the right way. We’re lucky enough that the show was born out of optimism, and we always were anti-nihilist shows. So, oftentimes the thematic question is hovering around those kinds of themes, and then hopefully answering the right thing. Like the Mole Man episode (Season 3, Episode 3) is like, “Should I be addicted to fandom or do something positive with my life?”
ZH: We obviously are aware that we’re a growing show. We’re not like “The Simpsons,” so we don’t want to make a meta episode where it’s like, “Yeah, we’re cool and everyone’s in on it.” That was more broadly about the relationship between fandoms and shows, and like, what is that? The realistic dialogue thing, that’s probably the most meta it gets, honestly. Some people, not a lot, but some people I saw said, “Oh, Season 2 had too much of that stuff.” We actually pulled back. There were times when he said, “The Smiling Friends.”
MC: The most important thing is we’re commenting on fandom isolated. And obviously, we’re a show too, so it’s going to have crossover. But it’s not commenting on fans. It’s more commenting on, “In a fantasy world, what could the worst fan in the world be like?” We’re all fans of something. So it’s commenting on a part of your psyche, and if you get too obsessed with something, here are the downsides. So, no specific show we’re commenting on, and not us at all. When we say the realistic dialogue, maybe it’s getting a little bit unconsciously meta there? But we really want to avoid that.
ZH: I’d be a fucking liar [if I said I didn’t listen to fans]. Both Michael and I come from YouTube, so I grew up putting my stuff out there raw. It’s not like I was making a Netflix show. I would put a cartoon out, and I’d see a guy go, “You suck! Fuck you!” That helps you build up a skin. I have a method where I read as much as I possibly can for 48 hours about an episode until I’ve seen basically every take someone can have. But we’ve never, ever, ever gone into a writers room and gone like, “Well, the fans said this, so we should do this.” I saw some people saying, “Oh, in Season 2, they just kept doing Mr. Frog because he was popular.” It was the opposite. Mr. Frog was our favorite character. When that episode (Season 1, Episode 2) aired, it aired right after the first episode, which people loved. It had been out for like two years. Some people, not a lot, but right when it dropped, were like, “That wasn’t as good as the first.” But now everyone’s a fan of Mr. Frog. That was something people thought we brought back because of fan service. I don’t think there’s a single character or moment or joke we’ve purposely brought back for fan service. If anything, sometimes we try to piss the fans off in a fun way that’s funny to us.
MC: We’re kind of stubborn in a way where we’re like, “No, we know what’s good with our show.” But if you read a comment now and again and it cuts deep, it’s usually something that you subconsciously agree with. So it is good to read for feedback. But oftentimes we’ll read something and be like, “No.” Like Zach said, we like Mr. Frog, and then it was proved right. But we really try not to read comments and then be like, “All right, everyone wants to see this.” We just do what we think is funny.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You’ve probably never heard someone who works in TV say this: “I really could see the show ending with us loving it and people hating it. I’m not saying that will happen, but I’m just saying that would be fine with me. That’s funny to me. That’s better than doing fan service. We’ll do whatever we find funny.”
That’s Zach Hadel talking, one half of the duo behind “Smiling Friends.” Along with Michael Cusack, the former YouTube trailblazers have created a show that is not only downright hysterical but also serves as a bold example for an industry drowning in unprecedented trepidation. As big-budget studios continuously default to beating a dead horse, and then sell an eight-part limited series to Netflix about how exactly they thrashed the poor animal, Hadel and Cusack unapologetically blast candy-colored pandemonium onto the airwaves and declare: What’s “funny to us” is enough. Take it or leave it.
Clearly, it’s working, because “Smiling Friends” just released its third season on Adult Swim. Working double duty as stars and creators, Hadel voices Charlie, a bro-ish yellow blob creature, and Cusack voices Pim, a well-mannered chap who looks like a cross between a school boy and a grape. Together, they are the Smiling Friends, an agency dedicated to fixing existential crises, a task left incomplete unless they put a smile on their patron’s face. The show’s engine runs on frenetic cartoon logic and a dizzying cast of one-off characters like 3D Squelton, Count Groxia, God and Ronald Regan. Despite its violent absurdity, the world of “Smiling Friends” often resembles our own in startling ways, exploring everything from suicide to imposter syndrome to ravenous parasocial relationships.
Before the premiere of Season 3, Hadel and Cusack sat down with Variety to discuss the ins and outs of “Smiling Friends” development, building thematic truths from aburdist humor and pissing off their fans for fun.
Michael Cusack: When we go into a new season, we want to see it as a continuation, because the show, by nature, is episodic. Just like an album, we try to create a track list that all works together, so not trying to do too many episodes in a season that feel similar to each other, or tick the box of a Mr. Frog episode or holiday episode. Zach often says it’s just instinctual.
Zach Hadel: Season 1 was very Pim and Charlie-focused and a bit more plot pointy with bits of improv. Season 2 explored the improv stuff a little more. I feel like Season 3 is a blend of those two. Since the pilot, we’ve been trying to get that exact ratio right. Like improv to plot, how much do you meander?
MC: A lot of the crossover with Zach’s and my interests is the input of modern-day life. We’re the same as everyone, hooked on the internet and current-day trends and events and just observing all of this. I guess it subconsciously goes through a filter into the show. It’s colorful characters, but a lot of the comedy comes from how realistic it is, and it’s a very grounded world. So I guess our inspiration is just the chaos of life in a way, as well as cartoons.
ZH: A lot of animators grow up watching cartoons, and that inspires them to draw and that inspires them to animate. Which is great, but if the only thing you watch is other cartoons, you’re not gonna pull from an interesting [place]. “Family Guy” will reference weird ’50s stuff and ’80s stuff. “The Simpsons” pulls from dramas and actions and thrillers and real-life references. A lot of the stuff we find funny or interesting, and what goes into the show, is a lot of the real-world stuff. Like a weird Dick Cavett interview from the ’70s. All the real stuff in the world that we find interesting as adult men, that is completely unrelated to cartoons, is usually more fresh. If you’re just watching cartoons and making cartoons based on cartoons, it spirals into a big blob of nothing.
MC: We’re pretty good at cracking each other up with stuff that’s probably not able to go on the show. Then we can filter anything that we know is too stupid or, I guess, inappropriate. The writers’ room can be chaos. It’s like white noise, and then we’re like, “Alright, let’s be serious. Let’s actually turn this into an episode.” A good example is when Allan kicks the assistant in the Gwimbly episode (Season 2, Episode 1) and just kills her. We’ll joke about a lot of stuff like that, like, “What if this character just kills this person?” But sometimes it makes it through if it’s funny. Most of the time, it wouldn’t be funny; it would just be stupid. But we can be like, “All right, you know what? It would kind of work here as a shocking thing.”
ZH: When Allan kicks the assistant, that’s usually when it goes to court on the show. Obviously, we will only do what both of us are happy with. There’s never, ever, ever, even once been a forceful “this has to go in.” But we do have times, very rarely, where it’s like, “Is that [too far]?” That Allan kick, I think I drew a rough of that, and then I showed it to [Michael], and you thought it was funny, and then I got scared. I was like, “That might ruin his character.” You actually had to convince me I was wrong. It’s one of people’s favorite jokes. But I was very scared. I was like, “Are people gonna think Allan’s like, a bastard?” But the way we solved it was that he doesn’t kill her. If you look at the animation, he genuinely didn’t see her. So that’s usually where that gets litigated. The character of Allan did not see her go, “Fuck you,” and kick her head off. He genuinely got spooked. That’s why it’s okay, and that’s why it’s funny.
ZH: I feel like we’re averse to serious episodes. I obviously know that we have the Mr. Frog episode (Season 3, Episode 2), but I don’t view that as our serious episode. I view that as like, I know the word subversive is kind of over said, but I think it’s a subversion. When you have the dinner scene with Mr. Frog and the dad, it’s done very straight. It’s done like a proper, prestige TV kind of thing. But the undertone is still comedy. It’s still a real man painted green in shorts, pouring his heart out. Those sorts of moments are played for, number one, the story, but also, just to be shocking. We want people to go, “Holy shit!” That’s the goal of that. It was just to say, “Hey, let’s play with a genre and be shocking and subversive and still bring it back to comedy.” [I don’t see that as] form breaking. We’re not gonna do serialized, serious moments.
MC: We’re kind of allergic to messages. We never want to be at the end of an episode saying, “I learned something today and blah, blah, blah.” What we try to do is thematic questions. So in the first episode, the thematic question is, “Should I kill myself, or should I not?” Obviously, it’s answered in the right way. We’re lucky enough that the show was born out of optimism, and we always were anti-nihilist shows. So, oftentimes the thematic question is hovering around those kinds of themes, and then hopefully answering the right thing. Like the Mole Man episode (Season 3, Episode 3) is like, “Should I be addicted to fandom or do something positive with my life?”
ZH: We obviously are aware that we’re a growing show. We’re not like “The Simpsons,” so we don’t want to make a meta episode where it’s like, “Yeah, we’re cool and everyone’s in on it.” That was more broadly about the relationship between fandoms and shows, and like, what is that? The realistic dialogue thing, that’s probably the most meta it gets, honestly. Some people, not a lot, but some people I saw said, “Oh, Season 2 had too much of that stuff.” We actually pulled back. There were times when he said, “The Smiling Friends.”
MC: The most important thing is we’re commenting on fandom isolated. And obviously, we’re a show too, so it’s going to have crossover. But it’s not commenting on fans. It’s more commenting on, “In a fantasy world, what could the worst fan in the world be like?” We’re all fans of something. So it’s commenting on a part of your psyche, and if you get too obsessed with something, here are the downsides. So, no specific show we’re commenting on, and not us at all. When we say the realistic dialogue, maybe it’s getting a little bit unconsciously meta there? But we really want to avoid that.
ZH: I’d be a fucking liar [if I said I didn’t listen to fans]. Both Michael and I come from YouTube, so I grew up putting my stuff out there raw. It’s not like I was making a Netflix show. I would put a cartoon out, and I’d see a guy go, “You suck! Fuck you!” That helps you build up a skin. I have a method where I read as much as I possibly can for 48 hours about an episode until I’ve seen basically every take someone can have. But we’ve never, ever, ever gone into a writers room and gone like, “Well, the fans said this, so we should do this.” I saw some people saying, “Oh, in Season 2, they just kept doing Mr. Frog because he was popular.” It was the opposite. Mr. Frog was our favorite character. When that episode (Season 1, Episode 2) aired, it aired right after the first episode, which people loved. It had been out for like two years. Some people, not a lot, but right when it dropped, were like, “That wasn’t as good as the first.” But now everyone’s a fan of Mr. Frog. That was something people thought we brought back because of fan service. I don’t think there’s a single character or moment or joke we’ve purposely brought back for fan service. If anything, sometimes we try to piss the fans off in a fun way that’s funny to us.
MC: We’re kind of stubborn in a way where we’re like, “No, we know what’s good with our show.” But if you read a comment now and again and it cuts deep, it’s usually something that you subconsciously agree with. So it is good to read for feedback. But oftentimes we’ll read something and be like, “No.” Like Zach said, we like Mr. Frog, and then it was proved right. But we really try not to read comments and then be like, “All right, everyone wants to see this.” We just do what we think is funny.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.