The 2016 Adult Swim Upfront Slate

Do you love lists of shows you won’t see for a while, and in some cases probably never see? Are you a fan of pumping yourself up for shows and getting your hopes way up for new series and returning ones? Are you looking for something to be mad about on the internet on the Adult Swim Facebook page?

All this and more has arrived in the annual Adult Swim Upfront press release. It’s the time of year when Adult Swim unleashes a slew of promises of new content to maybe get you hyped for the year, but far more importantly get those sweet advertisers on board and some of that tasty press. There’s a good-looking menu this year.

Adult Swim wants to make sure this year that you know, if you’re not yet aware, that they’re no longer just the period of time between 8 in the evening and 6 in the morning that occupies the channel space that Cartoon Network usually does. They’ve gone multi-platform and they run content 24/7 these days. The Swim website has its own lineup of series that air daily, emanating from Williams Street. You may already know about FishCenter Live, the popular daytime program on AdultSwim.com, which according to the press release now has two million registered users interacting with the show daily, but there’s also Stupid Morning Bullshit, Williams Street Swap Shop, Daytime Fighting League, and Development Meeting as well as the weekly Toonami Pre-Flight. You can check out when everything’s on on the schedule page, and the live stuff gets shown right here. Keep up with your favorites. Try something new. Give it a go if you haven’t before. Adult Swim all day, baby. Nothing’s better than that.

Now, this doesn’t mean the good ol’ TV is forgotten here this year. There’s plenty coming. If you’re interested (which I assume you are, you’ve read this far), here’s the whole slate.

WHAT’S COMING BACK

First, let’s see what old faces will grace your televisions with new content in the new year. The usual acquisitions are still there– American Dad, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Bob’s Burgers, and quite a bit more of the usual suspects aren’t going anywhere. Black Jesus, Check It Out!, The Eric Andre Show, Mike Tyson Mysteries, Mr. Pickles, Neon Joe Werewolf Hunter, Robot Chicken, Rick & Morty, Squidbillies, Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories, The Venture Bros, Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, and the 4 A.M. Infomercials are all set to return. It’s great to see Neon Joe will return, and more Bedtime Stories is always welcome.

WHAT’S NEW: SERIES AND SPECIALS

There will be plenty of new faces this year and a few familiar ones doing new things.

Robot Chicken will continue their ongoing legacy of specials based on other properties with a The Walking Dead special. It’ll be a half-hour long affair that will bring the usual RC crew from Seth Green and Matthew Senreich‘s Stoopid Buddy Studios together with the Walking Dead crew including Robert Kirkman and Scott M. Gimple.

From Funny or Die and creators Nick Corirossi and Charles Ingram comes Montana James, a half-hour live-action special that follows the exploits of explorer Montana James on his hunt for the Holy Grail Cup as he tries to avoid the Order of the Red Arm Band along the way.

Mr. Neighbor’s House is a live-action half-hour special from Brian Huskey, Jason Mantzoukas, Jesse Falcon, and executive producer Rob Corddry. The special is set in childrens’ show Mr. Neighbor’s House, hosted by the titular Mr. Neighbor who tries his best to maintain a pleasant facade despite the rage boiling up underneath. There will be “puppets, animation, stop-motion, spoken word, and mixed media elements” that aim to educate.

Brett Gelman will continue to have dinner with people in Brett Gelman’s Dinner in America, the third half-hour special from Gelman and Jason Woliner. America will focus on the race issues in this country with Loretta Devine (The Carmichael Show), Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson), Joe Morton (Scandal), and Mack Wilds (The Wire) discussing racism in this country. Things go off track, though, once the guests start to respond in a way Brett never expected. Produced by Abso Lutely.

You know Samurai Jack. Everyone knows Samurai Jack. We learned earlier this year that Genndy Tartakovsky‘s story of a samurai fighting to return to the past in which he lived after being sent into the future by the evil Aku would be returning this year. Swim has an entire season of new Jack coming this year. Nobody needs to sell you on this, this is something to be excited about.

Dream Corp, LLC is a workplace comedy in a dream therapy facility with a cast that will change every week. Dr. Roberts (played by Jon Gries) and his team of Dream Corp scientists analyze patients and record their dreams. Created by Daniel Stessen (The Gold Sparrow) and executive produced by John Krasinski, Stephen Merchant, and Allyson Seeger, this one sounds like a bunch of fun.

Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace is something I’d rather the press release explain to you, because it’s perfect:

This quarter-hour live-action comedy series features sketch comedy troupe Million Dollar Extreme. A super pure tragicomedy rosary of pious prayers bringing unity, joy and excellent living to the people of all sizes, sexualities and colors, this series stars misandrous comedioterrorists Sam Hyde, Nick Rochefort, Charls Carroll, and is directed by Andrew Ruse. World Peace will unlock your closeted bigoted imagination, toss your inherent racism into the burning trash and cleanse your intolerant spirit with pure unapologetic American comedy. Open your eyes or you’ll get thumb goggles, for what naive slob expects hemlock medicine to taste of milkshake? For the record, none of us plan on killing ourselves, and if we do it’s CIA or Mossad.

If you don’t know Million Dollar Extreme, that description is a pretty decent taste of what’s to come when this airs. If you’re curious about their work, MDE is on YouTube.

For those who miss China, IL, and I’m sure tons of people do, there’s some new Brad Neely on the way in his new quarter-hour sketch show, Brad Neely’s Harg Nallin’ Sclopio Peepio. One-offs, songs, shorts, and more from Neely. What’s not to love? There’s even some preview stuff on YouTube already:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8VBMFXaEW_8%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Fans of Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington‘s action web series Decker can look forward to Decker: Unclassified, which will follow Agent Jack Decker fighting terrorists alongside code breaker Agent Jonathan Kington. This looks like it’ll be a television series this time around, instead of just a web series.

Way back in 2000, studio Production I.G. had a hand in a series alongside Gainax that starred a kid named Naota, who would one day come across a woman named Haruko riding a Vespa and wielding a guitar. She would hit him on the head, creating a portal through which robots would periodically emerge, created by the local corporation Medical Mechanica. Things would soon get nuts, there would be a huge battle, some amazing animation, some great music, and Haruko would ride off for good. It’s 2016 now, and Adult Swim has asked Production I.G. if they’d like to go on back to that universe, and hey, wouldn’t you know it, we have a brand new season of FLCL on the way. The beloved show returns with Medical Mechanica and Fraternity in intense combat and a teenage girl named Hidomi leading an average life one day meets a new teacher at her school named Haruko. Medical Mechanica begins attacking Hidomi’s average town, and Haruko’s the key. FLCL creator Kazuya Tsurumaki returns to supervise as director Hideto Iwai (Last Dinner) has the reigns.

WHAT’S NEW: PILOTS

Pilots are always fun, because if you get to see them, they’re always a nice little peek at something brand new. Sometimes they get picked up for more. Sometimes they’re never considered and you’re left with nothing more than that one episode. But nonetheless, they’re always interesting, even if there’s a good chance you’ll never see them. Here’s a taste of some prospective shows Swim has in the pipeline.

Art Prison is created by Tom Kauffman and Paul Isakson, and Rick & Morty co-creator Dan Harmon will produce. In the live-action half-hour, the inmates of the Prison for the Performing Arts try their best to be successful to save their lives. Starburns Industries is working on this one!

Lazor Wulf is a quarter-hour and it’s animated! It’s also very simple: a wolf who carries a laser on his back is our star and he, according to the press release “believes that love has no limit, that wearing do-rags gives you power, and that Gawd is a lie”. It was created by Henry Bonsu, who shares writing and producing credit with Daniel Weidenfeld.

Finally, Lars Kenseth presents Chuck Deuce, a half-hour animated story of a surfer dude from Northern California who one day gets crushed by a giant wave. When he returns, he has no idea where he’s been or how he made it back, but he’s stuck with hallucinations about CIA agents and sex dolls. He ignores it and goes back to his daily grind, surfing and being a slacktivist, but the questions about what happened linger. The pilot is produced by Chioke “Stretch” McCoy, Matt Iles, and Jenn Tolman.

It is a lot to digest, so take your time to do so. It’ll be a while before everything makes its way to you, but it sounds good, no? There’s some fantastic television on the way from Adult Swim.

Remember to check it all out when it arrives, and watch Swim content 24/7 on the website. The streaming content is also available in the Android and iOS apps, so you can take that sweet content anywhere, and occupy yourself on a bus or train or in a park. There’s nothing else to do in a park, really, so why not pull up a bench and catch some FishCenter? Adult Swim’s always there for you.