Adult Swim Adds Five Shows

Animated Discussions
by Rudy Panucci and Melanie Larch

Last week Adult Swim held their "upfront" meetings with advertisers, and unveiled their plans for the coming year. Since splitting off from Cartoon Network for ratings purposes, Adult Swim has ranked number one in the key 18- to 34-year-old male demographic. At the upfront meeting, executives at the network were mum on rumors that Adult Swim would completely split off from Cartoon Network and either be launched as a new channel, or move from Cartoon Network to Time Warner sister channels Boomerang or TBS. While they bring in a lot of advertising dollars, Adult Swim's "TV MA" programming is keeping Cartoon Network from being offered on the "family tiers" proposed by many cable and satellite systems. Given Adult Swim's ratings base, the only move that would make sense would be for them to move to TBS, so that they wouldn't lose a sizable chunk of their available viewers.

The real meaty news from the meeting was the announcement of five new shows that will start airing on Adult Swim later this year.

Death Clock Metalocalypse follows the adventures of an incredibly stupid Norwegian heavy metal band. It's the creation of Brandon Small (Home Movies) and Tommy Blancha. Blancha is a former writer for Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the WWF. For the WWF, he scripted what may have been the greatest single moment in the history of television, where an 80-year old woman gave birth to rubber hand on live TV. Sounds like a winning formula! Metallica will make a guest appearance. This show debuts in August.

Frisky Dingo (right) is a new superhero adventure series from the creators of Sealab 2021. It follows the epic battle between the evil Killface and the hero, Awesome-X. It premieres in September.

Assy McGee debuts in December. It tells the gripping tale of a renegade police sniper who has no regard for criminals or the justice system. He also looks like a giant butt. This one's from some of the writing crew for Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Saul of the Mole Men is a low-budget puppet show about a government agent who accidentally destroys the civilization of the Mole Men. This experimental show will debut later this year.

Lucy, The Daughter of the Devil (left) actually debuted as a Halloween special last year. It's been picked up as a series and will debut late this year. This CGI creation of Loren Bouchard (Home Movies) is a delightfully irreverent chronicle of the life of the college-aged daughter of Satan.

In addition to the new shows, Adult Swim has announced the start dates for new seasons of several returning series. Robot Chicken began a run of 10 new episodes last week. Ten more will start in September. Tom Goes To The Mayor returns June 4. Venture Brothers returns June 25. 12 Oz. Mouse and Squidbillies return in September.

New Seasons of Boondocks and Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law will be scheduled to start sometime in the fall.

The ultra-popular Aqua Teen Hunger Force (right) will see a short new season begin in September, but fans will also be treated to a feature-length movie which has already been finished. The movie explores the origins of the very strange team of fast-food-item detectives.