Spoiler Alert: This article provides plot details for episodes 2 and 3 of “Smiling Friends” season 3.
You’ve never heard someone who works in television say something like this. “I can see this show ending up with us loving it and people hating it. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but I’m just saying that’s fine with me. That’s funny to me. It’s better than doing fan service. We’ll do whatever we think is funny.”
That’s what Zach Hadel, one half of the “Smiling Friends” duo, is talking about. Along with Michael Cusack, the former YouTube pioneers have created a show that is not only absolutely hysterical, but also serves as a bold example of an industry drowning in unprecedented anxiety. As big-budget studios continue to default to beating a dead horse, pitching an eight-part limited series to Netflix about exactly how they beat the poor beast, Hardel and Cusack unapologetically dump their candy-colored pandemonium onto the airwaves, declaring that “funny is good enough for us.” Take it or leave it?
“Smiling Friends” just released its third season on Adult Swim, so it’s clearly working. Haydel, who plays the dual roles of star and creator, voices Charlie, a yellow lumpy creature who looks like a brother, while Cusack voices Pym, a polite man who looks like a cross between an elementary school student and a grape. Together they are Smiling Friends, an institution dedicated to solving existential crises, and their mission remains incomplete if they fail to put smiles on the faces of their patrons. The show’s engine runs on frenetic comic book logic and a dizzying cast of one-off characters, including 3D skeletons, Count Groxia, God, and Ronald Regan. Despite its violent absurdity, the world of Smiling Friends is surprisingly similar to our own, exploring everything from suicide to impostor syndrome to greedy parasocial relationships.
Before the Season 3 premiere, Hadel and Cusack sat down with Variety to discuss the ins and outs of developing “Smiling Friends,” which builds thematic truth from absurdist humor and pisses off fans for fun.
How did you go about developing Season 3? what was your goal?
Michael Cusack: As we go into the new season, we want to see it as a continuation. Because the show is episodic in nature. Just like with an album, we try to create a tracklist that all works together. So we don’t have too many episodes within a season that feel similar to each other, and we don’t tick the box for a Mr. Frog episode or a holiday episode. Zach often says it’s instinctual.
Zach Hadel: Season 1 was very focused on Pym and Charlie, and it was a little more plot-heavy with a little bit of improvisation. Season 2 explored the element of improvisation a little more. Season 3 feels like a fusion of the two. Since the pilot, we’ve been working hard to pinpoint that exact ratio. How much do you meander like an improvised plot?
Outside of core influences like “South Park” and “Beavis and Butt-Head,” do you watch or read anything that influences the creative direction of the show?
MC: A lot of the crossover between Zach and my interests is input from modern life. We’re just like you, obsessed with the internet and current trends and happenings, just observing it all. I think that’s unconsciously passed through a filter and reflected in the program. Although the characters are colorful, much of the comedy comes from their realism, and it’s a very down-to-earth world. So I think our inspiration lies not just in comics, but in a sense, in the chaos of life.
ZH: A lot of animators grow up watching cartoons, which inspires them to draw and become animators. That’s great, but if you’ve only watched other comics, I’m not going to pull you out of an interesting (place). “Family Guy” references weird 50’s stuff and 80’s stuff. “The Simpsons” is a drama, action, thriller, and real-world movie. A lot of the things that we find interesting and interesting, and a lot of the things that appear on the show, are from the real world. It’s like some weird Dick Cavett interview from the ’70s. Real things from the world that are completely unrelated to manga and that adult men find interesting are often more refreshing. If you just look at manga and make manga based on manga, you’ll end up spiraling into a big mass of nothing.
It’s interesting that you point out that the show is down to earth. Because the world can be so extreme and yet still feel recognizable. Where are the boundaries of what is allowed?
MC: We’re really good at saying things to each other that we probably wouldn’t be able to put out on the show. That way you can filter out anything that you know is too stupid or perhaps inappropriate. Writer’s rooms can be confusing. It’s like white noise and then you’re like, “Okay, let’s get serious. Let’s actually turn this into an episode.” A good example is in the Gwynbury episode (Season 2, Episode 1) when Alan kicks his assistant, killing him. We joke a lot about things like, “What if this character kills this person?” But if it’s interesting, it might work. Most of the time it’s not funny. That would just be stupid. But we can think, “Okay, okay. It’s going to work here as a shocker.”
ZH: When Alan kicks his assistant, it’s usually when the show takes him to court. Of course, we only do what makes us both happy. I’ve never had anything that forced me to say, “You have to put this in.” However, on rare occasions, I find myself wondering, “Is that (too far)?” I think I drew a rough sketch of that Alan kick, and when I showed it to (Michael), he thought it was interesting, and then he got scared. I thought, “That might ruin his personality.” In fact, you had to convince me that I was wrong. It’s one of people’s favorite jokes. But it was very scary. I thought, “Will people think of Alan as a bastard?” But the way we resolved it was that he didn’t kill her. If you look at the animation, he wasn’t really looking at her. That’s why lawsuits usually occur. The character Alan didn’t see her say “fuck you” and kick him in the head. he got really scared. That’s why it’s okay, and that’s why it’s interesting.
You’ve both said that “Smiling Friends” is just made for laughs, but this season it feels like the show is venturing into stronger thematic territory.
ZH: I feel like we hate serious episodes. Of course I know there’s an episode of Mr. Frog (Season 3, Episode 2), but I don’t consider it a serious episode. I consider it destructive, although I know destructive is an overstatement. The dinner scene between Mr. Frog and his father is very straightforward. It’s done like a proper high-end TV. But the keynote remains comedy. After all, it’s a real man wearing green pants and pouring his heart out. These kinds of moments are played primarily for the sake of the story, but also just to shock. We want people to think, “Oh my god!” That’s its goal. It was just, “Let’s play around with a genre and bring it back to comedy while still being shocking and subversive.” (I don’t think it’s a lack of form). I’m not going to do a series of serious moments.
MC: We’re allergic to messages. We never want to end an episode and be like, “I learned something today, but blah, blah.” What we’re trying to do is a thematic question. In other words, the theme of the first episode is “Should I commit suicide or not?” Obviously, it’s answered in the correct way. We’re lucky that this show was born out of optimism, and we’ve always been an anti-nihilist show. So often thematic questions wander around those kinds of themes and hopefully you get the right answer. The Mole Man episode (Season 3, Episode 3) is like, “Should I get hooked on the fandom or do something positive with my life?”
Please tell us more about the Mole Man episode. I thought it was especially poignant when Moleman brought up the “real conversations” that fans are constantly dissecting.
ZH: We obviously see ourselves as a growing show. We’re not like “The Simpsons,” so we don’t want to do a meta episode where it’s like, “Oh, we’re cool and everyone’s in on it.” It was more about the relationship between fandom and the show more broadly, and it was like, “What is that?” Honestly, real conversations are probably the most meta. Not a lot, but some people I saw said, “Oh, there was too much of that in Season 2.” We actually retreated. Sometimes they were called “Smiling Friends.”
MC: The most important thing is that we are commenting on an isolated fandom. And obviously, we’re also a show, so there’s going to be some crossover. But that’s not a comment about the fans. It’s more of a comment on, “In a fantasy world, what’s the worst fan in the world?” We’re all fans of something. That is, it is commenting on a part of your psyche, so getting too obsessed with something has its downsides: So it’s not a particular show that we’re commenting on, it’s not us. When it comes to realistic dialogue, do you unconsciously become a bit meta? But we really want to avoid that.
How closely do you pay attention to fan feedback?
ZH: (I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t listen to my fans). Michael and I both come from YouTube, so we grew up showing our work live. I wasn’t making a show for Netflix. When I published a comic, I saw a guy say, “That’s gross! You’re a bastard!” It helps build the skin. My approach is to read as much as I can about an episode for 48 hours until I’ve basically seen every take that someone can see. But we never went into the writers’ room and said, “The fans told us this, so we should do it this way.” I’ve seen people say, “Oh, they just kept playing Mr. Frog because he was popular in season 2.” It was the opposite. Mr. Frog was our favorite character. When that episode (Season 1, Episode 2) aired, it aired right after the first episode, and people loved it. It’s been about two years since it was released. There weren’t many, but right after the drop, some people said, “It wasn’t as good as it started.” But now everyone is a fan of Mr. Frog. People thought it was something we brought back for fan service. I don’t think there’s a single character, moment, or joke that was intentionally brought back for fan service. In fact, sometimes we try to piss off our fans in ways that are funny to us.
MC: We’re kind of stubborn in a way, and we’re like, “No, we know what’s good about our show.” But every once in a while I read a comment and if it hits home, it’s usually something I unconsciously agree with. So it’s good to read to get feedback. But often we read something and think “no”. Like Zack said, we like Mr. Frog, and that was proven right. But we try not to read the comments and think, “Okay, everyone wants to see this.” We’re just doing what we think is interesting.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
