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THE EPIC SAGA CONTINUES AS EMMY® AWARD WINNING SERIES  “GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY’S PRIMAL”  RETURNS TO ADULT SWIM JANUARY 11

BURBANK (November 20, 2025) – From the mind of visionary creator Genndy Tartakovsky (“Dexter’s Laboratory,” “Samurai Jack,” “Star Wars: Clone Wars,” “Sym-Bionic Titan,”), the five-time Emmy Award winning series produced by Cartoon Network Studios that follows a caveman at the dawn of evolution, “Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal,” returns for a third season Sunday, January 11 at 11:30pm ET/PT on Adult Swim, next day on HBO Max. 

Combining artistry and pulse-pounding action, the first two seasons followed Spear as he formed an unlikely bond with an almost extinct dinosaur and later made the ultimate sacrifice after a final standoff turned fatal. The third season of “Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal” opens with a shocking twist that resurrects Spear in a new form—stripped of memory and humanity—and forces him to roam a brutal, untamed world as a shadow of his former self. As Spear battles savage landscapes and deadly foes, faint echoes of his past begin to stir, leading him toward an emotional and explosive reunion that will test the limits of survival. 

Tartakovsky said: “After two seasons, I was ready to move on until an idea surfaced that was pulpier, bad-ass, and undeniable. Everyone agreed and Season Three was born.” 

“I mean, not everyone can kill off their main character and then go ‘on second thought…’ and pull it off!” said Michael Ouweleen, president of Adult Swim. “But Genndy tends to not make things easy for himself, and what we get as a result is a season three that is more bonkers than the decision to kill Spear off in the first place! You thought there was emotion to the main character dying in season two, wait till you see what’s in store for season three.”

“Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal” is created by Tartakovsky with art direction from Scott Wills (“The Ren & Stimpy Show,” “Samurai Jack”) and music composition from Tyler Bates (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Samurai Jack,” “Unicorn: Warriors Eternal”) and Joanne Higginbottom (“Salem,” “Samurai Jack,” “Unicorn: Warriors Eternal”) and sound effects design from Joel Valentine (“Samurai Jack,” “Big City Greens,” “Unicorn: Warriors Eternal”).

OFFICIAL TRAILER RELEASED FOR FORTHCOMING SERIES
HAHA, YOU CLOWNS

New comedy “Haha, You Clowns” debuts Sunday, October 19 at 11:45pm ET/PT on Adult Swim, next day on HBO Max.

Created by Joe Cappa, “Haha, You Clowns” is an unexpected new series from Adult Swim that celebrates wholesome family programming. Join the Campbell boys, three doting teenagers and their tenderhearted dad, as they live, laugh, love their way into your living rooms. They’re big dudes with big feelings who are learning to navigate life in the wake of their mother’s death, sensing her presence in everyday adventures.

The Quinta’s Ghost is an animated horror short that dramatizes the twilight years of Francisco Goya, as he paints his Black Paintings in his house, the Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man). In a novel twist, the story is narrated from the point of view of the Quinta itself, responding to what Goya paints on its walls. The short, done in computer animation, brings the demons and other nightmarish imagery of Goya’s work to life, incorporating state-of-the-art techniques such as VR painting. It’s a hellish depiction of an artist suffering through grief, madness, and issues of identity.

Chile has had some top-notch adult animation, especially in the horror genre, but Petra and the Sun is better filed under morbid humor, and it was an especially effective example of it too. In the Andes, 71-year-old Petra lives a lonely life until hotter-than-usual weather reveals the frozen body of a century-old mountaineer. Petra takes the body home, thaws it, and spends some uncomfortably in-depth quality time with his preserved corpse…the disappearance of which the police are aware of. Despite its premise, this was one of the funniest films they showed, though it’s definitely not for the squeamish. I felt that the ending could’ve been handled better, but overall, this one I really enjoyed. This short also won a Special Jury Mention.

How is River is Born was definitely one of the more mature shorts in the set. A woman has a sensual experience with what appears to be a nature goddess, but ultimately ends up being something less yet significantly more. This one’s pretty simple in terms of story, and is mostly carried by the beautiful animation.

Ovary-Acting is a comedy short about a 34-year-old woman who is pressured by her family and motherly friends to have children. As the stress gets to her, she unexpectedly gives birth her talking ovaries, leading to a musical argument about the pros and cons of motherhood. The animation style, which uses knit puppets with 2D-animated mouths, brings to mind something out of an R-rated version of KaBlam! This was definitely a fun one to watch, and it has a great sense of humor and heart to it.

Still Moving follows a divorced mother having a stressful car ride with her daughter as they head to their new home. The strength of this short is in the animation, which is probably one of the best depictions of anxiety I’ve seen in recent memory. It’s really experimental, though it definitely seems to be the main focus of the short over the story.

A Night at the Rest Area is an anime short in which a group of anthropomorphic animals on a bus stop at a rest area. There’s really not much to say about this one in terms of story. However, what it lacks in plot it makes up for with gentle yet effective comedy about everyday life. There’s a real appreciation of the mundane, where even the jingle playing as the nearby vending machine heats up your meal is given focus. Obviously, the use of animals adds to a lot of the humor, and the sketchy character designs are great. One of my favorite jokes in this involves a convenience store employee who is anything but convenient, and the punchline being obvious doesn’t make it any less funny (or relatable). This one doesn’t have much but in a way it also has a lot.

The Piano is a hand-drawn short in which a young girl discovers her father playing the piano late at night, creating a bond that lasts into adulthood. The animation is amazing, the music is beautiful, and the ending will warm your heart, if not open the tear ducts. It’s another short with a simple idea done extremely well.

As mentioned before, Best Animated Short went to Playing God, which I definitely feel could’ve fit into either of the shorts programs. This also qualifies it for the Oscars, and I guess I’ll find out if it gets nominated (though the short that won Sundance might be tough competition). Hopefully I’ll get to see it at some point, but overall, the 14 shorts I saw (if we’re only counting the competition) were for the most part highly enjoyable and I loved a lot of the styles used.

Tribeca, while certainly a star-studded affair, typically features films that don’t receive as much of the prestige attention awarded to the output of festivals like Sundance or Cannes. I’m come to accept that, but there are occasionally exceptions. There are always animated shorts, but year’s event comes off of a major achievement for the festival, in that the film awarded Best Animated Short last year, In the Shadow of the Cypress, eventually found it’s way to the stage at this year’s Academy Awards after winning for Best Animated Short there as well. (I don’t think that Tribeca was the reason for the short getting Oscar-qualified, but it was one of them.) Clearly motivated by this, Tribeca programmers not only featured the biggest short film selection yet, but an animated shorts program twice as large as previous years. Not one, but two programs of shorts were needed to fill the space of the selections this year, split into family-friendly and adult-oriented sets. Yet as I learned, that apparently still wasn’t enough. This year’s Best Animated Short winner went to Playing God, a short that was in competition but not included in the two shorts programs and put in the Midnight-themed shorts instead. Unfortunately, I was unable to see it, though I did hear good things. (I do believe that Playing God could’ve easily been included in the shorts blocks, but that’s another tangent.) Anyway, here are the short films that I did get to see, starting with the family-friendly offerings:

Linie 12 follows a conductor on a surreal train journey, whose rhythmic precision is interrupted by the arrival of a chaotic musician. I liked the scruffy linework in this a lot and the imagery in this is absolutely beautiful at times.

From Aardman Academy comes Awaiting the Lightning Bolt. Told in stop motion, an inventor tries multiple times to capture lightning, but his comic attempts hide a more heartwarming purpose. This one’s short, sweet, and really funny.

Actor Kate Siegel is mainly known for her work in horror. The short she directed, Lily, is a more family friendly take on the genre, even with the fact that it was written by Stephen King. Told in scratchy, Edward Gorey-esque pencil art, a young boy needs to go to the bathroom but is embarrassed in front of the class by his sadistic teacher. When he finally gets there, he makes a frightening discovery. I absolutely loved the animation for this, and the story is really fun.

Captain Zero: Into the Abyss Part II follows a superhero who, after losing a battle against a villain, finds himself on the receiving end of social media backlash and the taunts of a depression demon (expertly voiced by Keith David), ultimately finding himself in therapy. The anime-styled animation is superb, and I always enjoy genre fiction about mental health. It’s pretty clear this is intended to be a pilot for a series of sorts (in addition to being the second installment, it ends on a cliffhanger), and I hope the filmmaker finds the means of making more. Another thing I liked was his use of worn VHS as a visual aesthetic.

Ostrich takes an avian look at social media body image. A pudgy bird goes through extreme measures to be like the ostrich pop star plastered over the media. I liked the art style for this, which felt like something out of Adult Swim, and while the ending was pretty obvious the punchline was genuinely funny.

Tigre is, according to the festival site, “the animated story of a friend’s grandfather, a refugee from Laos, living in Thailand,” and “a narrative full of uncertainty and curiosity, where a young man who goes deep into the jungle without understanding that not everything is as it seems.” I liked the animation style, which is seemingly modeled after shadow puppetry, but to be honest I genuinely had no idea what was going on in this short. Maybe I needed more context.

Finally, the environmental-themed short Snow Bear follows a lonely polar bear who, unable to find others like him, builds a snowbear to spend time with. Unfortunately, it can’t stay cold forever. The short is directed by Aaron Blaise, a veteran animator who did the character animation for the Beast in Beauty and the Beast and directed Brother Bear among working in other Disney projects, so it’s no surprise that this has the best animation of the entire set. What is surprising is that Aaron apparently animated this himself, while still looking like the professional-grade work he did for the House of Mouse. (I asked him how long it took to make the film after, and he said three years, which is still less than I expected.) This was a beautiful short that will warm your heart.

In my next article, I’ll spotlight the adult animated offerings at the festival.

…whelp, we’re not! This afternoon, AS announced that a second season of the mushroom-laden dramedy by the team who brought you Scavenger’s Reign will be back in the not-too-distant future! Worth noting the season one finale will be released this week, but it’s reassuring that we can expect more from Marshall, Frances, Socrates the Turtle, and the rest.

Check out the info below…

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ADULT SWIM RENEWS ACCLAIMED SERIES “COMMON SIDE EFFECTS” FOR SECOND SEASON

BURBANK (March 28, 2025) – From Joe Bennett (“Scavengers Reign”) and Steve Hely (“Veep”) and Executive Producers Mike Judge and Greg Daniels (“King of the Hill”), the animated comedic thriller that follows what happens after a mysterious healing mushroom is discovered, “Common Side Effects,” will return for a second season on Adult Swim.   “Joe and Steve did their job by crafting a boundary-pushing and genre-defining piece of television that re-frames what ‘adult animation’ is capable of,” said Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen. “And you all did your job by showing up on Adult Swim and Max to support the show and lighting up your socials to spread the word. So, see? We CAN have nice things.” “We are grateful for the enthusiastic response to ‘Common Side Effects’ and are thrilled to continue exploring this world with our amazing team and the fans who have embraced the show,” said co-creators Bennett and Hely. “The opportunity to push the boundaries of animation and storytelling on Adult Swim is like a wonderful mushroom dream. Our goal with the show is to transform planet Earth and restore the human spirit. For now, we will settle for a second season.” The half-hour series follows Marshall and Frances, two former high school lab partners who share a secret: Marshall has discovered the world’s greatest medicine, a mushroom that can heal almost anything. But getting it out into the world won’t be easy – the DEA, big pharma, and international businessmen are all on the chase to stop them.   The finale episode of the debut season of “Common Side Effects” will air this Sunday at 11:30om ET/PT on Adult Swim.    “Common Side Effects” stars Joseph Lee Anderson, Mike Judge, Martha Kelly, Dave King, and Emily Pendergast. The series is produced for Adult Swim by Bandera Entertainment and Green Street Pictures.

I’ve seen a lot of animated documentaries that use the medium to tackle sensitive subject matter in ways that make the material more digestible and profound, but Endless Cookie, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, might be the farthest, and funniest, approach to this. The entire movie renders its subjects in a hyper-surrealist style that mixes flashy colors and crass humor, with many of the participants being portrayed as anthropomorphized objects. The film, a combination of vignettes mixing illustrated recorded accounts and scripted scenes, initially appears like the sort of thing that would get its directors hired by the likes of Adult Swim. Yet it’s right after you get accustomed to it that the film plays its true hand. Beneath its hangout-comedy vibe is a devastating look at the experience facing Canada’s indigenous population.

Seth Scriver has just received a grant from Canada’s prestigious “N.F.G.” to make a documentary about his half-brother Pete (with whom he decides to share directorial credit with). Seth is white but Pete is indigenous, and lives on a reservation so inaccessible that Seth can’t even visit without flying. The idea is that Pete will tell seven stories about life growing up as an indigenous person in the 1970s and 80s, in ways that are both funny and poignant, and Seth will animate over them. All he has to do is deliver the movie in seven months, the kind of goal you get when the money people don’t understand how feature animation works. Also, Seth and Peter get sidetracked. A lot.

Through a mix of stories and satirical sketches, the Scrivers paint a hilarious portrait of late twentieth century Canada. Fans of stoner/hangout comedies and cartoons like Regular Show will find a lot to love about this film’s plot threads, from Pete’s buddies stealing chickens off delivery trucks, to pressing their luck with the local pizza place’s “30 minutes or less” policy (with the restaurant eventually getting back at them in an extremely funny way). This is a film that often doesn’t take itself seriously, and it’s not afraid to veer off course. It’s freewheeling and goes where it feels like. (A small story about an animal trap takes up almost the entire runtime of the film to tell.) This also extends to the warts-and-all nature of what Seth decides to show. A lot of the early moments in the film are dedicated to trying to get clean audio, and a recurring bit involves the N.F.G. representative, portrayed as a slide ruler, repeatedly questioning Seth’s direction for the movie (as a progressively-smaller pile of money burns off to the side).

Of course, it’s not all fun and free pizza, and the movie isn’t only interested in fooling around. This is still a documentary about the indigenous experience in Canada, with recollections of police profiling, land grabs, and the specter of residential schools haunting even the most amusing of stories. Yet the film also finds way to mix its absurdist sense of humor into the proceedings. A fictional show called “Canadian Idle” shows Canadians being so passive upon hearing about indigenous incarceration rates and the factors contributing to them that they are rendered as car seats. The lawyer representing a wrongfully convicted indigenous youth is a literal snake. Police are caricatured as babbling cowards and, in probably one of the most unexpected political sequences I have ever seen in a documentary, a segment mixes the scars of colonization with a famous video game meme and a very cathartic parody of 90s first-person shooters. The tonal shifts sometimes get iffy, but for the most part, it works. There’s also a lot of great stories about Peter’s family and heritage, such his mom making snacks out of dried caribou stomach that, while he looks back on them as a fond memory of his family’s culture, he will admit smelled and tasted awful.

The animation work in this is hysterical, and really adds to the film’s tone. As mentioned, a lot of the film’s subjects are rendered as objects, such as talking socks, soda cans, and vegetables, and I loved seeing where the art style would go next. (Sometimes, actual objects end up talking too.) There’s also a ton of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it in-jokes and nods to Canadian/indigenous history sprinkled throughout for eagle-eyed viewers. Expanding the capabilities of documentary storytelling in extremely entertaining while still thought-provoking ways, it’s both a tribute to Canada’s native peoples and a good history lesson for those not in the know. I’ll be thinking about this movie for a while, and hopefully someone will pick it up so others can see it too.

Hollywood’s biggest night is on Sunday, coming off of an absolute rollercoaster of an award season. We’re only now getting a clear frontrunner with Anora, Emilia Perez has gone from social media pariah to social media pariah that may actually lose now, and multiple nominee surprises have shaken up people’s predictions, including my own. The Substance may end up being the most deranged movie to gain major Oscar attention and/or wins since Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Walter Salles’ incredible drama I’m Still Here beat the odds to gain a Best Picture nomination that, in my opinion, it deserves to win. As always, though, you have likely already heard all this, which is why I like talking about the stuff that you probably haven’t, like the shorts. As is usually the case, there were a lot of good shorts this year, some great, some okay, and at least one where I’m questioning who’s even voting for these. At the very least, I’m highlighting the animated ones.

The animated shorts in particular included an especially disappointing snub with Don Hertzfeldt’s ME, which did make the shortlist but not the nominees, dashing my hopes that the Academy will give him at least one well-deserved Oscar. While I like to say that the animated Oscar shorts are where anything is possible, it was particularly more true this year than last year. Many of the films featured take full advantage of the medium, and even the shorts with the heaviest subject matter convey it in ways that live action simply can’t. Here are the nominees for Best Animated Short film.

Beautiful Men tells the story of three bald brothers who have traveled to Istanbul for a hair transplant. However, a misunderstanding results in only one of them actually getting the opportunity, and it isn’t long before insecurities and conflicts boil to the surface. I typically love watching the Oscar-nominated animated shorts for films like this, and to see them get wider exposure (even if the presence of animated drama for adult audiences still results in the Academy treating it like a disposable medium for kids). This short, however, is severely lacking. The stop-motion animation and puppet designs are great, and there are some amusing moments, but really, there’s not much here. In addition, the ending felt really rushed, as if the filmmakers didn’t know how to conclude the piece. I have heard people predict this short will win (mainly on GoldDerby). Last year, the Academy went for the weakest choice with War is Over!, but at least the politics at the time justified why they would pick it. Here, I really don’t see anything that leads me to believe that this has a chance, and while I support animation like this, I will be disappointed if it wins.

In the Shadow of the Cypress I already covered last year when it played at the Tribeca Film Festival, during which it won the award for Best Animated Short. That win qualified it for this year’s Oscars, where it’s currently nominated. A dialogue-free short from Iran, it’s about a former captain living in a house by the sea, whose PTSD strains his relationship with his daughter. My thoughts on this haven’t changed much since Tribeca. This short does a great job using animation to express difficult themes, and I loved how much surrealism was present. In terms of the five, I’d say that this is definitely one of the better nominees.

Daisuke Nishio has had a notable career in anime, directing a good amount of the Dragon Ball franchise among other things. His short film Magic Candies is an absolute delight and is, in my opinion, a strong frontrunner. The short is about Dong-Dong, a lonely boy who plays with marbles. He goes to buy some new ones, but what he thinks are marbles turn out to be candies. Not just any candies, either. After eating one, the sofa starts talking. Dong-Dong figures out how the candies work and soon gains a new perspective on life. Heartfelt and extremely funny, this was a joy to watch. It’s animated in CGI at a low-frame rate, essentially using 2D anime production techniques in a 3D environment, but what it lacks in fluidity it makes up for with extremely detailed art design. Honestly, I went into this thinking it was stop-motion because the CGI was so good. One of my favorite jokes it this is the use of onscreen text exclamations. While common in anime and manga, the use of it in a 3D setting I found incredibly humorous and inventive. I’d say of the five shorts, this was one of my favorites, and I’d put it as my pick for the winner. Of particular note is the fact that the film qualified for the Oscars for winning the Grand Jury Prize after premiering at the New York International Children’s Film Festival. The festival is one of the best places to watch international and independent animation in New York City, and I hope to cover this year’s festival soon.

I feel like dark takes on children’s’ television is a bit of an overused premise (Pib and Pog is one of my favorite examples), but Wander to Wonder takes it in a direction I genuinely did not expect. In the 1980’s, Wander to Wonder was a beloved kids’ TV staple, in which a friendly live-action host and three friendly stop-motion monsters teach children educational lessons. That is, until the creator and host died an untimely death (we don’t find out how, but whatever happened, nobody has removed his body). Now his three animated co-stars, amusingly revealed to be further stop-motion puppets wearing monster costumes, are alone, running out of food, and making increasingly desperate episodes for an audience that may or may not be there. This is honestly one of the darkest, bleakest animated shorts I’ve seen the Oscars nominate, and as a creative, it really hit me hard. As a mediation on how creations take on lives on their own (or if you just have an overactive imagination and think this) it’s absolutely devastating, even as I’d call some of it darkly comic. I can’t for certain say that this really deserves to win, but it definitely left an impact on me.

Childhood views on romance is the subject of Yuck!, a French short that I know ran quite a bit of the festival circuit. A group of kids view in disgust as they see adults kissing (some claim to have even seen them “doing it”), but it isn’t long before one boy finds himself attracted to a girl, and wanting to kiss himself. I’ve definitely seen this topic explored before, and this was a particularly cute example. I appreciated how the characters’ lips glow when they’re in love. Overall, though, I don’t see this as much of a contender as some of the other ones. It was definitely a fun watch, however.

As for the animated features, this was a particularly strong year. My pick is The Wild Robot, but overall I’d say they’re all worth watching. Even the weakest nominee, Inside Out 2, still had one of the best depictions of mental health issues I’ve seen in animation. There’s been talk that Flow could end up taking home the big prize which, if that were to happen, would be notable in that a low-budget dialogue-free film made in Blender would beat out several other productions with much higher production values. Anyway, we’ll see who ends up winning on Sunday. (Although if they make another crack about these movies being for children the year Memoir of a Snail is nominated, I swear to God…)

According to the Adult Swim press release, Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen tells us “Usually when someone uses a futuristic setting to comment on the present, it’s a brooding downer, but Adele has made a future that is both plausible, relatable, and most importantly, unique and hilarious.” John mentioned previously on what he thought regarding the pilot, saying the show felt “like a cross between Cyberpunk and the Boondocks”.

We here at Adult Swim Central are very excited for this show, and I am especially excited for another show focusing on girl power! 

Oh My God…Yes! A Series of Extremely Relatable Circumstances premieres on Adult Swim March 9 at 12:15 after the new season of YOLO: Rainbow Trinity. Next day streaming on Max.

Full Press Release below:

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ANIMATED COMEDY SET IN FUTURISTIC SOUTH CENTRAL LOS ANGELES, “OH MY GOD…YES! A SERIES OF EXTREMELY RELATABLE CIRCUMSTANCES” DEBUTS MARCH 9 ON ADULT SWIM

BURBANK (February 6, 2025) – Three friends navigate womanhood in an unpredictable, tech-driven world in the new series “Oh My God…Yes! A Series of Extremely Relatable Circumstances,” premiering Sunday, March 9 at 12:15am PT/ET on Adult Swim.   Created by Emmy® nominated writer and executive producer Adele “Supreme” Williams (“My Dad the Bounty Hunter”), the quarter-hour adult animated comedy is executive produced by Dominique Braud (“The Simpsons”) and follows three women, Sunny, Tulip, and Ladi, who live in the not-so-distant future of South Central LA.Oh My God… Yes! | March 9 | adult swim“Usually when someone uses a futuristic setting to comment on the present, it’s a brooding downer,” said Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen. “But Adele has made a future that is both plausible, relatable, and most importantly, unique and hilarious.”   “The series is ripe with unconventional characters and the geography of the world honors that of the South Central I grew up in but with a sci fi twist,” said Williams. “The scenarios our characters wind up in are pretty absurd but within the absurdity is a smart, bold exploration of – and commentary on – the human condition.”   The series will debut on Adult Swim with two back-to-back episodes, followed by one new episode every Sunday. New episodes will also stream Mondays on Max. “Oh My God…Yes! A Series of Relatable Circumstances” is produced for Adult Swim by Six Point Harness.

The Sundance Film Festival is often the place to find the next great work of cinema, and since the pandemic, they’ve been allowing people at home to watch as well. This year, the festival selected thirteen animated shorts and one feature, Endless Cookie (which I’ll hopefully review at a later date). I unfortunately wasn’t able to watch all of them, as one short, Caries, was not available virtually. However, I did watch the rest, and I thought I’d share my picks of my favorite ones, along with an additional short that made great use of animation as well.

Paradise Man (ii) is honestly less an animated film than an inventive animated collage movie, but it was one of my favorite things I saw in the animated short film program regardless. It’s made almost entirely with repurposed images and GIFs of those white, big-headed, blank, faceless figures you find in stock media, but in the hands of Jordan Michael Blake, these nondescript cartoons take on new emotional resonance. Subtitled “Episode 1: Golf”, the short is an extended monologue by the titular Paradise Man, who initially starts out discussing his pursuit of getting a hole in one before a family tragedy causes him to reflect on his own existence and purpose. With the stock-based format and Paradise Man’s narration being supplied by a slowed-down automated voice, it initially comes across like something you’d find in the early morning on Adult Swim before hitting you with genuine and relatable poignancy. (Sundance also pointed out that Blake had previously been commissioned by Adult Swim to make a segment of their incredible anthology series Off the Air.) The short ends with the promise of a second episode, and I’m hoping Blake makes good on it. You’ll never look at stock graphics the same way again.

Arguably one of the best shorts, and the one that won the Grand Jury Prize for Animated Short Films, was As If the Earth Had Swallowed Them Up (Como si la tierra se las hubiera tragado). It tells of a woman who returns to her home of Mexico City, where she looks back on how, as a young girl, she came to terms with what happens to women in Mexico. The short’s endearing art style gives way to some truly harrowing sequences illustrating its serious subject matter, and I thought it was a great example of how animation can both make dark topics more accessible while at the same time enhancing their impact. It definitely deserved the top prize, which qualifies it for next year’s Oscars.

There were a few other shorts of note that I enjoyed. Hurikán, described as a “deep-fried romance from Prague”, follows the literally pigheaded titular character as he offers to resupply a beer stand where he has a crush on the bartender, only to find himself on the beer run from Hell. Gritty, darkly comic, and with great music, it brings to mind something out of the alternative animation of the 1990s when the film is set. Bunnyhood is a punky short from the UK that feels like a zine comic come to life. In it, Bobby learns that her mother may not always be telling the truth when a promised fast food dinner ends up being a trip to the hospital. The whole short is gleefully surreal and anarchic but not to the extent to where you can’t figure things out. Told in a crude but endearingly handcrafted animation style, this was one of my favorite watches of the selections this year. View from the Floor is a 5 minute piece in which Mindie Lind, a singer without legs, discusses her brief brush with fame, where she discovers that it wasn’t so much about her talent as it was about “inspiration porn.” A thought-provoking and funny take on how disability is perceived in the media, it’s a decent piece in its own. However, the short is actually a proof-of-concept for a feature length animated documentary of the same title, and that’s something I really hope gets off the ground because based on this, I’d love to see more.

Also, while not really an animated short, I nevertheless feel compelled to bring up a title from the documentary short film selections that uses animation in a great way. Three Sundances ago, Joe Hunting’s documentary We Met in Virtual Reality not only introduced me to the world of VRChat, but expanded my idea of what documentaries could be. Now, he’s back with The Reality of Hope, a live-action/machinima documentary short that presents a truly moving story of how fantastical virtual communities can inspire very real impact. Hiyu is a prominent member of VRChat’s Furality community, an organization of furry artists and creators, until his real life unexpectedly intrudes in the worst possible way: his kidneys are failing. Photographotter, another member, agrees to donate his kidney and fly from New York to Stockholm to save Hiyu’s life. Whereas We Met in Virtual Reality was filmed entirely within VRChat, The Reality of Hope alternates between real and virtual environments, reminding us that there are actual people behind the cartoon animals we initially see as our subjects. It’s a touching reminder of the power of community, and a great documentary for the gaming crowd. The use of video game assets in documentaries has been a bit of a trend recently that I have been fascinated with, and I hope it continues, especially if we get more films such as this. I also suspect it’ll be streaming in the near future as Documentary+ was listed as one of the companies involved, so hopefully you’ll get to check it out for yourself.

The other animated selections were Flower Show, Inkwo For When the Starving Return, Luz Diabla, Field Recording, Jesus 2, The Eating of an Orange, and A Round of Applause for Death.

As you may or may not be aware, Paramount announced earlier this year that they obtained a licensing deal with Disney to air the show on Comedy Central starting this past September, making it seem as though the show would never see the light of day on Adult Swim again. Even after 20+ years, I don’t claim to be an expert in licensing, but I do know that there’s ins and outs to them… what time they can air in which format in which country, etc. etc. Adult Swim is clever to note in the below press release that they will “feature library episodes” which (don’t quote me) more than likely means episodes they’ve aired prior, to a certain season, which gives the network exclusivity in airing certain episodes at certain times that none of the other networks who have permission to do so will.

At any rate, that’s good news for both FG fans as well as Adult Swim, since both have had a pretty prestigious relationship since the beginning, not to mention the fact that (besides DVD sales), Adult Swim airing FG initially is what prompted Fox to resurrect the series after cancelling it back in 2002.

Family Guy will return to Adult Swim starting Wednesday, January 1st, with a humongoid marathon of every episode AS will air from 7pm to 5am and proceeding the following Thursday and Friday. For more info, check out the press release below. We’ll have more info as we receive it.

FAMILY GUY RETURNS TO ADULT SWIM’S PRIMETIME LINEUP IN 2025 WITH EPISODES AIRING EVERY WEEKDAY AT 10PM ET/PT

BURBANK (December 3, 2024) – The global leader in adult animation, Adult Swim will feature library episodes of Family Guy in its primetime weekday lineup beginning in 2025. Massively popular with Adult Swim fans since the network began airing the Seth MacFarlane created series in 2003, Family Guy episodes will air back-to-back every weekday from 10:00 – 11:30pm ET/PT beginning next year. To mark the return of Family Guy, Adult Swim will also host a three-day marathon of episodes every evening from 7pm to 5am ET/PT beginning Wednesday, January 1. “Adult Swim is a huge part of Family Guy’s early history, and we’re excited for the series to return to our lineup in 2025,” said Michael Ouweleen, president of Adult Swim. “Having Family Guy back on our air is a great complement to the amazing slate of animated originals we also have planned for next year.” About Family Guy Family Guy features the adventures of the Griffin family. Endearingly ignorant Peter and his stay-at-home wife, Lois, reside in Quahog, R.I., and have three kids. Meg, the eldest child, is a social outcast, and teenage Chris is awkward and clueless when it comes to the opposite sex. The youngest, Stewie, is a genius baby who is bent on killing his mother and destroying the world. Brian, the talking dog, keeps Stewie in check while sipping martinis and sorting through his own issues. Family Guy continues to entertain its die-hard fan base with razor-sharp humor, spot-on parodies, spectacular animation and orchestra-backed original music. Since its debut in 1999, the series has reached cult status among fans, and its breakout star, a talking baby, has become one of the greatest TV characters of all time. Family Guy has racked up numerous awards, including an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, only the second animated series in television history to be honored with such a distinction. Most recently, series creator and lead voice actor Seth MacFarlane (voices of “Peter Griffin,” “Stewie Griffin,” “Brian Griffin” and “Glenn Quagmire”) was nominated for the 2021 Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance and won the 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. Cast member Alex Borstein (voice of “Lois Griffin”) won the 2018 Emmy Award in that same category and was just nominated in 2024. MacFarlane also was nominated in 2018. He won the 2017 and 2016 Emmy Award in the category and was nominated from 2013 to 2015. Family Guy will return to FOX in 2025 with all-new episodes and is available to stream on Hulu. The series stars Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mila Kunis, and Arif Zahir. Family Guy is a 20th Television Animation production and is distributed by Disney Entertainment.Seth MacFarlane is creator and executive producer. Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin serve as executive producers and showrunners, while Steve Callaghan, Tom Devanney, Danny Smith, Kara Vallow, Mark Hentemann, Patrick Meighan and Alex Carter are executive producers.