Smiling Friends, Frowning Replicants Lead Adult Swim’s Weekend Offerings
This weekend Adult Swim launches Smiling Friends, its latest animated original. The title of the show is also the name of a small organization devoted to bringing happiness to the world, and the series is centered on their two best employees: Pim, a perky pink little man with mismatched eyes and inextinguishable enthusiasm, and Charlie, a large yellow Picasso-faced person who is always skeptical of Pim’s plans.
Other characters include Boss, the weird-looking wrinkly billionaire who funds the whole enterprise, and Glep, who Adult Swim will only say is “mysterious.” This weekend Smiling Friends will kick off with two debut episodes, the first of which is called “Mr. Frog”:
After beloved frog celebrity Mr. Frog gets into hot frog water, Pim and Charlie are tasked with helping the frog get things back on frog track. Meanwhile, Glep has a crazy side adventure that has the critics going wild.
This will be followed by a second episode, “Shrimp’s Odyssey”:
When a truly pathetic shrimp calls the Smiling Friends hotline after being dumped by his true love, Shrimpina, Pim and Charlie have very different ideas about how to handle the situation.
Catch both adventures when Smiling Friends premieres Sunday, January 9 at midnight. AS also has one other original this week, the latest episode of the CG Toonami series “Blade Runner: Black Lotus.” We won’t pretend this series hasn’t gotten a frosty reception from Toonami fans, mainly due to its cheap-looking visuals (the fact that last week’s episode was a clip show didn’t help either). But it has its charm where you can find it. The ninth episode, “The Wall,” airs this Saturday.
This new series takes place in Los Angeles 2032 and centers around a young woman who wakes up with no memories and possessing deadly skills. The only clues to her mystery are a locked data device and a tattoo of a black lotus. Putting together the pieces, she must hunt down the people responsible for her brutal and bloody past to find the truth of her lost identity. [In the new episode] Elle goes after the final target to complete her mission of revenge, the man responsible for the Doll Hunt.
Got all that? Both Smiling Friends and Blade Runner: Black Lotus will continue to air new episodes this month on Adult Swim.