Only One Channel Is Still Making TV That Actually Feels Dangerous

There are a few places where it feels like whatever you're watching is being broadcast directly from an alternate universe — roadside motel televisions, public access channels from towns you've never been to, and Adult Swim after midnight. It's a feeling that anyone who has fallen asleep in the middle of watching "Robot Chicken" only to be startled awake and greeted by the hypnotic surrealism of a show like "Infomercials" knows intimately: where what stares back at you from the TV screen is so bizarre and phantasmagorical that you can't help but answer its call like a sailor drawn to a rock by a siren.

The average viewer likely thinks of Adult Swim as the network behind "Rick and Morty," syndicated reruns of their favorite adult animated series, and culture-shaping oddities like "Space Ghost Coast to Coast," but the real freaks and sickos know that Adult Swim is also the home of some of the last remaining vestiges of truly groundbreaking, original, and downright dangerous expressions of imagination. No other network or programming block could get away with spontaneously releasing something like "Too Many Cooks" or now seasonal horror classics like the "Yule Log" series. The block doesn't release these transfixing works as one-off gimmicks in an attempt to go viral, but because boundary pushing, inimitable explosions of artistry are the heart and soul of Adult Swim.

Look no further than the "SMALLS" collection, or the curated episodes of 4 AM's golden child, "Off The Air." I was recently privileged enough to catch selections of both on the big screen, and allowing my senses to be overloaded by the work made something abundantly clear — Adult Swim is an oasis of risky creativity during a time when corporate suits are demanding a safe, homogenous desert.

Anyone even remotely familiar with my work at /Film knows that I have a deep love for animation not geared toward children, but I seldom have the opportunity to wax poetic about innovative animation that has zero interest in appealing to the masses. The type of animation that people discover after falling down bizarre internet forum holes. The type of stuff that once upon a time would only have been shown to you by the pothead older cousin you see once a year that your parents treat as a cautionary tale but you rightfully recognize as a demigod of taste and culture. Everything that's a part of "SMALLS" feels like watching something you were never meant to see, because it's so aggressively not like anything mainstream animation values as mandatory.

Character designs are sometimes intentionally crude or crooked, music is oftentimes so jarring it could kickstart a car with a dead battery on the side of David Lynch's Lost Highway, and visuals are frequently so strange that you have to second guess whether or not the popcorn you're munching on was laced with psychedelics. And I say this as the deepest and most sincere compliment I can muster. Nothing about these shorts is playing it safe, and watching them scratches an itch in the deepest recesses of the brain, one hidden from easy access thanks to years of dried, caked-on grime left from the overconsumption of stale, nutritionally vacant slop shoveled to us off the conveyor belt of "algorithm-pleasing content."

The showcase I attended featured shorts from years past and previews of upcoming releases, and not once could I predict where any of the stories were heading. It was exhilarating to sit back and completely give myself over to the films, allowing myself to get lost in the wonderlands created through hand-drawn animation, digital art, and even films edited on CapCut, aka the editing software owned by the same company as TikTok. At times disturbingly unsettling and at others laugh-out-loud funny, watching "SMALLS" was the most human I'd felt watching something new in a very long time.

For the last 14 years, producer and editor Dave Hughes has been releasing his psychedelic anthology television series "Off The Air," but unless you're an insomniac, you've likely never seen an episode of the long-running series. Since 2011, "Off The Air" has invaded the airwaves during the 4 a.m. graveyard slot, presented without explanation or narration as a video mixtape of consciousness-expanding clips (both animated and live-action) loosely connected by a shared theme. There are no pauses or commercials, just a datamoshed stream of visual potpourri that may trick your sleepy brain into thinking you've entered a state of lucid dreaming. It's enchanting, sometimes unnerving, but absolutely genius. Many of the clips presented by Adult Swim artists are intertwined with clips found on the Internet.

The episodes shown at the screening were those guest curated by people other than Hughes, including Maddie Brewer's "Cringe" (who also showcased the "SMALLS" short "Chips"), Sarah Schmidt/Sunshine Mall's "Plants" (who created the "SMALLS" short "Gassy's Gas 'n Stuff"), and Vimeo curator Meghan Oretsky's "Journeys." Somewhere between Cleveland's finest pop punk band Heart Attack Man's "Like A Kennedy" infiltrate my ears over the speakers as an animated character massacred anthropomorphic animated produce in a garden and trying not to piss my pants watching a man imitate the bark of a Chihuahua in Joe Cappa's "Boy Band," I think I saw the face of God.

Hughes indicated that he hoped that guest curation could be the future of "Off The Air," and if future installments are anything like the ones shown to the audience at Vidiots in Los Angeles, the series can (and should) continue indefinitely.

With 14 years of "Off The Air" and over 300 shorts crafted through the "SMALLS" program, Adult Swim has provided a proverbial Elysium for visionary animators and a launchpad for potential new specials, pilots, or series. And the range of styles, senses of humor, and approaches to storytelling are a result of being given the freedom to create without micromanaging or significant oversight from the studio. Of course, folks like Dave Hughes help to guide artists on their pathway to make the best possible project, but based on the testimony of everyone who spoke during the Q&As at the Vidiots screening, they were all permitted to trust their unique visions and never had to squash their intentions in favor of making something more "marketable." Adult Swim has always been at the forefront of nurturing spaces for experimental, intellectual, avant-garde animation, and has never been afraid of pushing the boundaries of animation shown on mainstream television.

Once upon a time, their creative swings were generally accepted as weird quirks, but in an entertainment landscape that is becoming increasingly sanitized, uniform, and downright conservative — projects like "SMALLS" and "Off The Air" have become a beacon in the storm. The world is a dark, absurd, and sometimes deeply messed-up place, and it's a necessary part of existence to have art that not only reflects that, but is willing to find ways to laugh about it so we don't all lose our damn minds trying to survive it. There is power in subversion and refusing to feed into the algorithm, and the sovereignty offered to artists at Adult Swim helps foster audiences that reject assimilation, and demand more diverse and complex offerings from the entertainment industry.

And because the artistry is absolutely the point, Adult Swim has a public playlist of the "SMALLS" shorts on YouTube as well as full episodes of "Off The Air," not to mention the livestream available directly on Adult Swim's website. Adult Swim can also be watched on Max or through the Adult Swim app.