Adult Swim’s animated comedy “Smiling Friends” is coming to an end with its third season. Creators and stars Michael Cusack and Zack Hadel revealed the news in a video posted to Adult Swim’s X account.
“Let’s get down to business,” Hardel said at the beginning of his message. “This is not a joke, and this is not a joke. Michael and I are here to announce that we will be ending ‘Smiling Friends’ after Season 3.”
“Honestly, after finishing Season 3, Zack and I both had the same feeling of feeling pretty burnt out after all these years working on this, but also feeling pretty accomplished,” Cusack added. “After Season 3, I felt like, ‘Maybe this is the end.'”
Haydel explained that from the beginning, he and Cusack gave “110%” to “Smiling Friends” and wanted to “come out on top.” He said it’s better to make viewers want to know more than to make fans think, “‘Oh my god, is that show still on?'”
“I don’t want to go through another season feeling half-hearted or burnt out or not feeling up to it,” he added. “It’s not fair to us and it’s not fair to the viewers to be so bad to you. It’s the worst.”
Cusack explained that ending “Smiling Friends” was “our decision” and that Adult Swim was “very supportive.”
“When we told them exactly this, they said, ‘If you don’t want to draw comics, we’re not going to stop you. Take a break. You can come back or quit,'” Cusack continued. “That’s a different matter. If we wanted to, we could come back in the future and do more episodes. And they were very cool and said they’d let us do it. But probably not. Who knows?”
The duo also announced that two previously unreleased Season 3 episodes will air on Adult Swim on April 12th. Hadel clarified that they are not the “finale,” but rather “little stragglers” who were not able to participate in the development of the first season.
“We know this is very disappointing,” Cusack concluded, “because it’s very difficult for us to say this, so it was very difficult for us to even make this record. We hope you understand and we hope you enjoy what we did. It was amazing. The fans were so gracious. It was awesome. It was a once in a lifetime experience. But look where we’re coming from.”
