“Smiling Friends” took the internet by storm with its pilot episode in 2020. The adult animated show immediately set itself apart from others with its improvisational style of dialogue and rejection of overwhelmingly nihilistic and mean-spirited comedy delivered by other similar shows like “Rick and Morty” and “Family Guy.” The show concluded its third season Nov. 30 which continued to evolve the comedy that made the show popular to begin with.
“Smiling Friends” follows the work of four employees — Charlie, Pim, Allan and Glep — and their boss — appropriately named, Mr. Boss — at the titular charity organization, Smiling Friends Inc.. Their job is simple — make people smile. Season three places the main cast in some of the most creative situations featured in the show thus far, ranging from an improbable airing of grievances between Allan and Mr. Boss, to a deep roster of wacky side characters, each of whom need to be cheered up.
The creators, Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, were ingrained in internet culture before meeting each other and starting “Smiling Friends.” The show is not afraid to poke fun at pop culture and the expectations that come from being an adult animated show, bucking trends by creating comedy that feels like the kind you would make with your friends. Where other shows in the space often beat their characters down, setting them up as the butt of jokes, “Smiling Friends” episodes most often feature a happy ending for their characters. The cast feels like a real group of people that genuinely enjoy each other’s company, and this is exemplified in many of the more grounded interactions that permeate the third season.
Many of the episodes in season three follow a similar structure that the show has loosely followed for two seasons. Half of the cast responds to a call from a distressed individual while the other half gets wrapped up in a B-plot that eventually collides with the A-plot, and both are resolved simultaneously. For many shows, a formula as simple as this would serve as a crutch, but for “Smiling Friends,” its simplicity has served as an opportunity for subversion, a pattern its third season continues.
For some episodes, season three takes their usual methodology to new extremes, placing the characters in absurd scenarios that contrast their generally realistic behavior. The first episode of the season sees Pim and Charlie helping Silly Samuel, a character stuck with a colorful body made of mismatched parts who is struggling to be taken seriously. The visual of Silly Samuel is ridiculous, only made more so by the out-of-place CGI style he is animated in, and yet the main characters treat Silly Samuel the same as they would a less fantastical client.
However, “Smiling Friends” avoids falling into the trap of repetition by regularly deviating from this blueprint and using different plot structures to service its comedy. In fact, only half of season three’s episodes feature the characters performing their usual jobs of making people smile. A great example of this deviation is the final episode of the season, “The Glep Ep,” which deviates completely from the typical episodic structure by providing an unnecessary yet hilarious backstory for the show’s strangest main character. Within the episode’s short runtime, Glep is shown to inadvertently have caused the fall of the Roman Empire, started the Bubonic Plague and been invited to a party with the founding fathers of the United States of America.
Another great use of storytelling for the sake of comedy is in episode five, “Pim and Charlie Save Mother Nature.” The episode has the team taking a vacation to Mr. Boss’s cabin. While Charlie and Pim go off on an adventure into the woods, Mr. Boss and Allan have a series of less than amicable interactions, including Mr. Boss’s wifi password being revealed as “i_hate_allan68.” Then, as the episode nears its conclusion, Mr. Boss and Allan have an intimate interaction over one of Mr. Boss’s cookies. This portion of the episode takes up less than half the runtime, yet that makes it all the funnier as the rapid shift from apparent hatred to tender loving care creates a comedic contrast.
The 11 minute runtime of each episode meshes well with this style of comedy, moving between gags at a rapid pace. None of the episodes drag on too long, and even ones less dense with comedy such as episode four, “Curse of the Green Halloween Witch,” hardly overstay their welcome. Despite this format, episodes manage to form coherent stories around which to build jokes.
In addition to its creative writing, the show takes its mixed-media style of animation to new heights in the third season, with nearly every episode featuring a side character that deviates from the art style used for the core cast. In episode six, “Squim Returns,” for instance, the titular character Squim is animated in a fluid hand-drawn style reminiscent of the work of Don Bluth. The show takes this mixed media even further, featuring a musical number about the Earth in episode five, during which the Earth, trees and rocks are all animated in claymation.
The show also periodically utilizes a technique known as rotoscoping, where live-action footage is traced over to create naturally smooth motion. Specific characters often move in and out of this style, seemingly at random. This leads to funny interactions such as Mr. Boss dapping up Pim in episode five over Pim’s love of Monkeyball, or the Shmaloogles being rotoscoped over buff men during their training montage in episode seven.
This season’s increased budget also allowed for some incredible animated sequences. In addition to the aforementioned musical number from episode five, episode six features a trippy, psychedelic sequence resulting from Charlie eating what he later calls “parasite kebab,” and episode four which features many horrifically smooth and gorily animated clips. Most episodes in season three feature at least one scene that could compare to these. Using more advanced camera work, smoother animation and more creative integration of mixed media, Hadel and Cusack elevate the show’s comedy and give each episode a unique visual identity.
Through its third season, “Smiling Friends” has proven that the show’s signature style and approach to comedy is not getting stale any time soon. It has only grown more absurd and creative as more episodes have been released, with Hadel and Cusack leveraging the support both from fans and from Adult Swim to the show’s benefit, rather than coasting off of the success of their first two seasons. Adult Swim has already renewed the show for seasons four and five, and it remains to be seen how “Smiling Friends” will follow up yet another virally successful season. Episodes air on Adult Swim first and are added to HBO Max the following day.
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