Well, I'll be damned! Some of you Internet veterans may remember the works of Chris O'Neill ("Oney", nowadays best known as OneyPlays) and Zach Hadel ("Psychicpebbles"), two Newgrounds-based animators and voice actors that mutually got their start making Flash cartoons on Newgrounds (although it seems Zach still animates; Chris has been focusing mostly on his stellar OneyPlays Youtube channel). You're probably familiar with most of their works without even recognizing it - Leo and Satan, Left 4 Speed (can't believe it's been 11 years already, that was the funniest shit back in the day), the more recent "GET OUT OF MY CAR" meme, and Hellbenders in particular, a collaboration series between the two animators that ultimately never went anywhere beyond a few promising videos (one of which guest starred Jason Paige - yeah, the Pokemon Theme dude - pounding out a hilariously, genuinely incredible rendition of 'Silent Night').
Why the elongated intro? Well, here's the interesting thing about Hellbenders - Chris and Zach intended to pitch the series to Adult Swim. Which, if you're familiar with Adult Swim's late-night, absurdist brand of humor and familiar with Chris and Zach's off-kilter, absurdist brand of humor, seems like a match made in heaven. But the unfinished pilot pitch was rejected by the network and the two of them quietly dumped Hellbenders into the bin - Hellbenders is now fondly remembered by a lot of Internet animation buffs as a prime example of "what could have been".
Hellbenders did show a lot of promise - but the thing is, if you were to ask me, Hellbenders would not have been able to sustain itself as a syndicated TV show. The unfinished pilot was leaked online, easily viewable to anyone that can hop onto YouTube, and it's rough. The original Hellbenders videos were four-minute (at best) ventures that ended almost exactly when they needed to; you were able to forgive the barebones story in favor of the great, shotgun-comedy gags and silly ass faces. The pilot, 'Zachnaphobia', taps out at about this five-minute mark, and the story honestly isn't engaging or wacky enough on a superficial level to make room for jokes. It isn't terrible, but it's somewhat trite - you get the distinct feeling that both Chris and Zach can do better (and they have).
This is not to say that Adult Swim hasn't greenlit total garbage before (they are absolutely guilty of this), but even speaking as a fan of both Oney and Psychicpebbles, I'm kinda glad it didn't amount to much, given the state the series was in. It needed sharper writing, sharper direction if it wanted to go toe-to-toe with some of Adult Swim's legitimately great series, like Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
But it's the year 2020, and wouldn't you know it, Zach "Psychicpebbles" Hadel himself now has his own cartoon pilot up on Adult Swim's website. Everything has a way of working out in the end, huh? It was aired about a month ago, and it was met with almost unanimous praise and warmth from the Internet community. The important question remains, though - is Smiling Friends actually good? Is it a marked improvement from the rough-but-promising Hellbenders, or is Smiling Friends a noticeable downgrade?
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| Just now noticed the office was located next to the Asylum - that's a good bit. |
Well, for one thing, the series has a perfectly good hook beyond 'two guys acting dumb' - a classical trope, but one that's been done many, many times before. That's a start. The titular Smiling Friends are an organization of dubious merit whose sole purpose is to put a smile on their clients' faces, no matter what the cost, financial or otherwise, may be. The Smiling Friends are a small group - we don't see more than five or so people at the office, and at least two of them are only used for single-scene gags. The focus lies in the laps of Pim (Michael Cusack), a bright-faced, optimistic little purple dude that winds up being more of a doormat than he intends, Charlie (Zach Hadel himself), the calmer, more straightforward cool guy that reels in his group when they get too silly, and Alan (also Michael Cusack), a deadpan, idiosyncratic worker with obvious bouts of OCD and possible latent autism, who still manages to come off as a pretty straightforward guy compared to their creepy but friendly boss (Marc M.) and Glep (Zach once more), a lazy little pile of green gibberish with a wizard hat that demonstrates no sign of magical prowess whatsoever.
If any of this seems weird to you, you're clearly not familiar with either Zach's works or Adult Swim's. I had the straightest face possible jotting that down, and a part of this is due to the fact that the characters' absurdities and weirdness are never pointed out. Thanks to how casual Smiling Friends really is at its core, this imbues the series with a sense of gentle confidence and levity that helps make room for the characters and the jokes they provide. Luckily for Zach, these characters are pretty instantly likable, especially on the design front - their designs immediately communicate their personalities, with Pim's wide eyes accentuating his innocence and Charlie's beady eyes firmly defining him as the straight man. Their simple shapes and colors are a welcome break from Adult Swim's occasional tendency to rely on ugliness. The only character I wasn't feeling too hot on was Pim, Charlie, and Alan's boss - not only does he lapse into a joke that's a rehash of a gag from one of Zach's videos back in the day, he's too reliant on awkwardness and tension to sell him. He has only one scene, true, but every minute matters when you only have 11 to spare.
Pim and Charlie are sent to brighten the day of Desmond (Mike Stoklasa, from Red Letter Media, an unexpected guest) at the pleas of his high-pitched mother, who tells them Desmond's been feeling a little under the weather. Expecting Desmond to be a child (which leads to a great gag where Pim shouts "I LOVE KIDS" at the top of his lungs), Pim and Charlie are stunned when they see that Desmond's a (possibly) middle-aged, droning, nihilistic shell of a man permanently angling a gun at his head and mulling over his divorced wife, his estranged children, and the death of his dog (who died of a broken heart). Charlie is clearly taken aback by Desmond's over-the-top melodrama, but Pim is determined to brighten his day, no matter what. In the meantime, Alan hangs back at the office in pursuit of a presumed mouse thief that stole some of his cheese and his prized 74th paperclip. However, Alan discovers that the perpetrator is a little Bliblie, a monstrously obnoxious species of little purple dudes that constantly scream, steal, and cause chaos wherever they go. Multiple Bliblies gather and proceed to literally crucify Alan in the office. This sure seems like it has fucking nothing to do with Desmond's case at all, but here's the thing - when Pim, Charlie, and Desmond return after an unsuccessful day, Desmond is forced to shoot an attacking Bliblie; the rush of adrenaline it gives him actually makes him smile. He then goes on to grow his hair back, clean himself up, and start a Bliblie-killing business called Desmond's Bliblie Control, which is exactly where we end off.
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| These little guys sound fucking hilarious; it's like white-noise blabbering at a mile a minute. |
It's fucking stupid, yeah, but it manages to work a hell of a lot better than Hellbenders' pilot did. Having two plots occurring at once was a boon for the pilot's pacing; Smiling Friends benefits a lot from having multiple things going on at the same thing. If you ever feel like one scenario's getting too stale, there's another one right on its heels. The gags are strong in "Desmond's Big Day Out". We get to meet Pim's dysfunctional family, a collective of funny, split-second stereotypes that work far better than they should; there's this amazing joke where Alan confronts a man literally living in the walls of his office (probably the best gag in the entire episode); the fact that the theme park 'Daveland' is just named after a random guy is way funnier than it should be, and Desmond constantly holding his gun against his head is an incredibly funny out-of-context shot. Pim also becomes catatonic and broken around the 9-minute mark and ends the episode like that - there's a genuine streak of ingenuity and creativity that I felt was missing somewhat from the Hellbenders pitch.
The voice actors commit to their roles with gusto - I have to give credit to Michael Cusack and Mike Stoklasa for managing to make both Alan and Desmond (respectively) completely deadpan, but in a way that's completely different and easily identifiable from the other; the former's nasal bluntness is a result of his silly nature, whereas the latter's is due to over-the-top Eeyore levels of depression. The animation isn't fantastic, but it's much livelier than most Adult Swim cartoons - everyone is about as expressive and fluid as they need to be. I particularly like how crisp the characters' outlines are - it sharply defines them against their surroundings and draws our attention to their features without screaming for it.
It isn't perfect. As I said before, there's a couple flat jokes (the boss) that go on longer than they need to, and the pilot still never fully manages to shake the feeling that its natural home is on YouTube, a common issue that permeates a lot of big-screen projects created by Youtubers, like the surprisingly-average and inoffensive Smosh Movie, the ridiculous list of Fred movies, or the fucking monotonous Breadwinners series. Even in its current state, I wonder if Smiling Friends would be able to comfortably sustain itself for multiple episodes and multiple seasons - even with the menagerie of relatively plotless shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies, and Metalocalypse before it, Smiling Friends feels like it lacks that something special to truly carry it for eleven seamless minutes. It's tough to put a bead on what that something special is - perhaps Smiling Friends could benefit from more chaotic energy? It's tough to judge Smiling Friends at the state it's in - it's only a pilot, after all. But humor from a mostly skit-based platform like YouTube doesn't translate particularly well to fifteen-minute episodes that rely on narrative structure, character, and clean pacing.
"Desmond's Big Day Out" is still a hell of a lot better than "Zachnaphobia". It's a much more fleshed-out and fully operational passion project that works shockingly well for what it is. It made me laugh several times, and that's really all it needed to do at the end of the day. I'm hesitant to see where it goes next - it's hard to tell if future episodes (assuming there are any future episodes) will be able to sustain this level of quality, finesse, and passion without becoming repetitive or shrill. While I have faith in Zach's ability to make me laugh (he's a fucking delight on OneyPlays), it's possible that the show's shotgun method of comedy may hurt its pacing in the long run. Time will tell. As it stands, Smiling Friends is funny and surprisingly heartfelt at its core.
7/10.
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