Adult Swim

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Adult Swim, usually rendered [adult swim] on bumps, is the name for the adult-oriented television programming block on Cartoon Network featuring absurdist and often ribald comedy in contrast to the more tame daytime Cartoon Network. It premiered on September 2, 2001. On March 28, 2005, Nielsen Media Research began treating the block as a separate channel from Cartoon Network for ratings purposes. [link] Adult Swim is part of Turner Broadcasting System, headquartered in Atlanta.

Originally a Sunday-only block (that also re-ran on Thursdays), Adult Swim now airs Monday-Thursdays at 10:30 p.m., Sundays at 10:00 p.m., and Saturdays at 11:00 p.m. (all times Eastern/Pacific), with an encore airing at 2 a.m. and then ending with older shows (depending if there is any time left, as on Sundays the programing encore ends at 6:00 a.m., leaving no time for old shows). Adult Swim programming may also be viewed online via Adult Swim Fix on [adultswim.com].

The block, programmed by Williams Street Studios, the same group that created Toonami and Miguzi, plays American animated series and shorts geared towards adults, and a wide variety of Japanese anime series and OVAs. Promotions for Adult Swim have been targeted towards the college age group (18-24), which constitutes the majority of their viewers. According to a September 1, 2004 article in Promo magazine, representatives travel to 30 universities across the U.S. to promote the Adult Swim lineup, including handing out posters for students' dorm rooms.

Originally, all of the bumps shown in between shows featured footage of senior citizens swimming in public pools with a lifeguard shouting through a megaphone. The current bumps feature black "cards" with white text on them, which discuss everything from news about the programming, to personal staff opinions on unrelated subjects. On Thursdays, Adult Swim airs cards which they pull from the Adult Swim message board and respond with their characteristic banter.

Coming Soon

Returning series:

• InuYasha - Returns in September.
• Robot Chicken - Returns September 17 with 10 episodes.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Returns October 16 with 10 episodes.
• 12 oz. Mouse - Returns September 24 with 20 episodes.
• Squidbillies - Returns September 17 with 14 episodes.
• - Returns September 4 with 7 episodes.
• The Boondocks - Returns in March 2007 with 20 episodes. [link]
• American Dad - Although Adult Swim has not officially announced the return of this series, Fox Network, who co-holds rights to the show, has announced that they have renewed this series for another season; it can be safely presumed that this show will return to Adult Swim as well on a later date.

New series:

• Death Clock Metalocalypse - Twenty episodes premiere August 6, from the makers of Home Movies.
• Frisky Dingo - Thirteen episodes premiere October 15, from the makers of Sealab 2021.
• Assy McGee - Premieres in December.
• Saul of the Mole People - Twenty episodes premiere in 2006.
• - Ten episodes premiere in 2006.
• That Crook'd 'Sip - The pilot episode airs in the fall.
• Bleach - Premieres September 9, 2006.
• Trinity Blood - Premieres September 9, 2006. [AS Announces Second Half 2006]. Animation Insider. Retrieved July 14 2006.

Movies:

• Aqua Teen Hunger Force - According to Adult Swim programming manager Kim Manning, a motion picture based on the series will come to select art house theaters in the fall of 2006 [link].
• - Premieres August 12, 2006.
• - Premieres December 23, 2006.

Current Schedule

All times are US Eastern (UTC -5). The programming block's encore begins at 2:00 a.m. Premiere episodes in bold.

Sunday

New episodes of some shows premiere on Sunday.

As of July 2nd, 2006:

• 10:00 p.m. - Futurama
• 10:30 p.m. - The Venture Bros.
• 11:00 p.m. - Family Guy
• 11:30 p.m. - Robot Chicken
• 11:45 p.m. - Aqua Teen Hunger Force
• 12:00 a.m. - Minoriteam
• 12:15 a.m. - Moral Orel
• 12:30 a.m. - Tom Goes To The Mayor
• 12:45 a.m. - Squidbillies
• 1:00 a.m. - The Boondocks
• 1:30 a.m. - The Oblongs

Monday-Thursday

As of July 10th, 2006:

• 10:30 p.m. - Futurama
• 11:00 p.m. - Pee-wee's Playhouse
• 11:30 p.m. - Family Guy
• 12:00 a.m. - Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Mondays), Robot Chicken (Tuesdays), The Boondocks (Wednesdays) Minoriteam (Thursdays)
• 12:15 a.m. - Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Mondays), Robot Chicken (Tuesdays) The Boondocks (Wednesdays, spilling over from the 12:00 a.m. time slot), Tom Goes To The Mayor (Thursdays)
• 12:30 a.m. - Fullmetal Alchemist (Mondays), InuYasha (Tuesdays), (Wednesdays) The Venture Bros. (Thursdays)
• 1:00 a.m. - S-cry-ed
• 1:30 a.m. - Paranoia Agent
• 5:30 a.m. - Gigantor

Adult Swim Fix

AdultSwim.com launched Friday Night Fix on Friday, September 16th, 2005, as a way for Adult Swim fans to view programming on the one day of the week that the programming block does not currently air (the airtime currently being occupied by a rebroadcast of Cartoon Network's Fridays programming block), and was originally available only on Fridays during the hours that Adult Swim normally aired on weeknights. On March 27th, 2006, Adult Swim changed Friday Night Fix into the Adult Swim Fix. Adult Swim Fix runs every hour of every day, with content ranging from older and current shows to premiere episodes of new shows from both the Comedy and Action blocks, updated every Friday at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. With the exception of anime premieres, which are removed 12 hours later (at 6 a.m. Saturday EST), every show is available until the next Friday update. Adult Swim Fix is presented in a streaming browser applet requiring Windows Media Player and is available only for the continental United States.

Most recently, Samurai Champloo, , Eureka Seven, and Paranoia Agent began airing on Adult Swim Fix, making them ASF's first four anime titles.

Saturday

Launched on February 23rd, 2002, the Saturday Action Block originally ran 3 hours, from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. This schedule varies week-to-week, but is dominated by anime programs, and on rare occasions Saturday's usual schedule will be partially or fully pre-empted to allow Adult Swim to air movies or OVAs (the first being ). In recent months, the Saturday schedule was changed to include comedy shows in an attempt to boost ratings; however, it is still made up of mostly anime, although Futurama was recently added to the 11:00 p.m. time slot (once again). New episodes of anime shows will often air on Saturday before rerunning during the weekday lineup. On June 4th, Adult Swim announced that on August 5th they will have an FLCL marathon showing all six episodes. Bumps as of June 10th state that Bleach will air during September.

As of July 9th, 2006:

• 11:00 p.m. - Futurama
• 11:30 p.m. - Fullmetal Alchemist
• 12:00 a.m. - Eureka Seven
• 12:30 a.m. -
• 1:00 a.m. - Samurai Champloo
• 1:30 a.m. - InuYasha
• 5:00 a.m. - Super Milk Chan
• 5:30 a.m. - Cartoon Planet

Shows: Past, present, and future

Main article: List of programs broadcast by Adult Swim

Video on Demand

In mid-2004, Adult Swim launched a video on demand channel on various cable TV providers. The comedy section features several episodes from various Adult Swim original series, while the action section only anime series and movies licensed by Bandai Entertainment, some of which have never been broadcast on Adult Swim or CN. The anime series s-CRY-ed initially premiered on demand before debuting on the regular block in May 2005.

Podcast

Adult Swim announced on March 21 2006, a video podcast that they are offering on Apple's iTunes. The podcasts start off by featuring Behind the Scenes segments of shows, and they are working their way to new and exclusive content, like a look at Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha's new show "Dethklok". iTunes is required [link].

Forum

Adult Swim has an active message board at its official Web site. Some quotes from the forum are used on the channel in weekly bumps aired Thursdays, including the now infamous "cus anime is teh s uck." Williams Street Studios staff also frequents the board to answer viewer questions and address comments about Adult Swim programming. There are ten folders and two archive folders on the forum, which are as follows:

• Williams Street Culture - Pertains to all things Williams Street--the b&w bumps, music used in the b&w bumps, show talent, staff members, Adult Swim merchandise, owls, etc.

• AdultSwim.com - Talk about clips, games, message boards and anything current on the site.

• Action Discussion - Topics concerning the shows in the Action block.

• Action Show Suggestions - Topics concerning Action shows you would like to see on Adult Swim in the future.

• Other Anime - This is the place for threads concerning any anime outside of Adult Swim.

• Comedy Discussion - Topics concerning the shows in the Comedy block.

• Comedy Show Suggestions - Topics concerning Comedy shows you would like to see on Adult Swim in the future.

• Babbling - General discussion about life, music and video games.

• Incoherent Babbling - A forum for complete nonsense. It is described as "Babbling minus intelligence".

• Rants - Tirades from angry people.

• The Swim Archive - An archive of worthy threads from the Adult Swim Message Boards.

• The Hockey Chicken Archive - An archive of threads from the Free Hockey Chicken stunt, which occurred July 19-30, 2004.

Adult Swim Worldwide

United Kingdom

• The UK network Bravo airs an Adult Swim block nightly, generally from midnight each night. It should be noted that UK's Bravo channel is owned by Flextech, unlike other parts of the world where Adult Swim is seen as a block on Time Warner-owned Cartoon Network. Shows that are a part of the UK's Adult Swim block are Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021, The Brak Show, Space Ghost Coast to Coast & The Venture Bros.
• A small selection of the Adult Swim action shows including Fullmetal Alchemist air on Rapture TV on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Australia

• In Australia, Adult Swim airs Monday to Saturday at 10:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday feature an hour of anime, including (Mon 10:30 p.m.), Gundam Seed (Tues-Thurs 10:30 p.m.), and Fullmetal Alchemist (Mon-Thurs 11:00 p.m.), which is then repeated an hour later. Fridays run from 10:30 p.m. and feature Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021, and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, which are then repeated an hour later. Saturdays run from 10:30 p.m. and feature The Venture Bros., Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Brak Show, Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Sealab 2021, which are then repeated from Midnight. The Boondocks, another popular Adult Swim show, currently airs on The Comedy Channel, Fridays at 9:00 p.m., not on Adult Swim or Cartoon Network.

Latin America

• In Latin America (Chile, specifically) Adult Swim’s debut sparked minor controversy, as CNT (National TV Council) deemed the contents of the block inappropriate for a children’s channel, despite the fact that Adult Swim airs from 1 a.m. forward. Local cable companies embraced the policy, which moved the block to another channel frequency (in a supposed "agreement" with Cartoon Network), while satellite TV companies kept the original broadcasts, as they offer parental control features. This situation was supposed to affect only the premiere of the block (July 10th, 2005), but has been subsequently enforced by cable companies so far. However, Adult Swim continues to air as scheduled in Latin America on its English and Spanish broadcast feeds. Fridays to Sundays from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.

Canada

• While they do not use the Adult Swim branding, Canada's Teletoon has a teen/adult oriented block called The Detour that airs very similar programming. Adult Swim programs that are aired during The Detour include Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Brak Show, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, The Venture Bros. and The Boondocks.

Trivia

• Despite lukewarm success in Japan, the series The Big O was given a second season due entirely to its popularity in the United States and Cartoon Network funding.

• The success of Adult Swim has inspired other cable networks, such as USA, Comedy Central, Spike TV, G4, and TBS to begin late-night programming blocks of their own.

• After Fox cancelled Family Guy, Adult Swim began airing reruns of the show beginning in the Spring of 2003. Unlike its days on Fox, Family Guy has had consistent time slots since, at either 11 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. Eastern time, with Futurama at the other slot (Fox moved Family Guy around to as many as 28 different time slots before officially canceling the show in 2002). That, along with the show being released on DVD at the same time, brought unexpected popularity to the series and eventually ended up convincing Fox to bring back the showNetherby, Jennifer. "DVD keeps Family alive". Video Business. March 29, 2004[Article on Family Guy’s revival], which began re-airing in May 2005. Under a special agreement with Fox, Adult Swim airs the new episodes at least two weeks after they debut on Fox, but Fox must have advertising for Adult Swim during the show's airing on its network. Included in the same deal was Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane's new series, American Dad!

• Futurama has also found new life in syndication on Adult Swim, enjoying high ratings as a benefit of also receiving a steady time slot. When it aired on Fox, Futurama was put in the virtually dead-air time of 7:00 p.m. The primary drawbacks of this were that not many people were watching TV that early at night; and Futurama contains more "adult" humor (as in "not suitable for younger children") than its parent show, The Simpsons, so Futurama would have benefited more from a late evening timeslot after 8 o'clock, like it has on Adult Swim now. However, the biggest drawback was that many televised sports (especially football) run overtime into this programming block, so Futurama was constantly being pre-empted by sports. It was thus hard for it to develop a large viewership, because it was often difficult to determine whether or not it was even being shown. A testament to just how much Futurama got mistreated is that only four seasons of Futurama were actually produced, but so many episodes were pre-empted so often that even when the show was canceled, there was still an entire season's worth of backlogged episodes that were subsequently aired, resulting in five "airing seasons." The high ratings has also helped the show to get four direct-to-DVD movies greenlit and possibly new episodes[Mentioned in an interview with Matt Groening]. Despite strong ratings on Adult Swim, the show will move to Comedy Central once AS's rights to the show expire in 2008.

• The start of each hour of Adult Swim programming is easily identified by the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" logo (which resembles the warning seen on explicit CDs) followed by a warning that the shows contains material that may not be appropriate for viewers under the age of 17. The age "limit" was 14 until June 2006. Originally, there was no warning, but as the programming became more popular, a message was put up to alert parents. It stated that the appropriate age for viewers was 18 and older. It then went on to say that the viewer could expect intense violence, sexual situations, coarse language, and suggestive dialogue. When Adult Swim changed to its current format, the description was dropped to shorten the message. Soon after, the warning logo was added and the age was changed to 14. Many saw this as more appropriate since nothing had been shown on the network higher than a TV-14 rating. Now Adult Swim has indeed changed the warning to the age of 17 because of the airing of shows rated TV-MA. In addition, on Adult Swim's first night on September 2nd, 2001, the "TV-14" bug was left on the screen for the entire duration of the block, excluding commercials and promos.

• As of March 19th, 2006, Adult Swim has deemed two single episodes of two shows to contain levels of violence and graphic content necessitating their own disclaimer, above and beyond the disclaimer used for the block. The episodes were episode 10 of , Jungle Cruise and episode 51 of Fullmetal Alchemist, Laws and Promises.This episode of Fullmetal Alchemist was originally untitled when broadcast in Japan; However, Funimation, the distributor of the English dub in the United States, gave it the name "Laws and Promises" for the U.S. broadcast.

• In keeping with the pool theme, Adult Swim's original introduction showed several older men and women in a public swimming pool eating, exercising, and doing other pool-related activities. When the Saturday night block started in 2002, it originally featured clips from the various anime programs displayed on the block, and featured a computer-generated voice heard when the current show would break for a commercial.

• The original theme music for Adult Swim was D-Code by Dust Devil. The music appeared in the dance video game In The Groove 2.

• Adult Swim is notorious for their April Fools pranks. In 2004, they ran the first episode of Witch Hunter Robin with crudely drawn graffiti (moustaches, goatees, and glasses) on the characters' faces (they later re-ran the episode the following night unaltered). This was also done during the second run of Futurama and Family Guy, since those episodes still aired on March 31st during the first run. In 2005, the ranks of the Message Board users were switched, switching the names & colors for the highest ranks (at the time, SwimLegend, which is white), with the lowest rank (SwimNewbie, which is forest green), and so on. The rank SwimFan, which was the absolute middle rank at the time, changed shades of orange and became "SnapIntoASwimJim". The moderators on the boards also changed their mod names for the day. In 2006, Adult Swim ran their Saturday schedule out of order. This included Chuck Norris' Karate Kommandos being run at 11 p.m. in place of Inuyasha, ' at 11:30, which was edited with fart sound effects in unexpected moments, and Fullmetal Alchemist at its normal time of midnight which also was intercut with fart sounds. The 12:30 encore presentation of 2nd GiG ran unaltered. At 1:00 a.m., in place of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Adult Swim ran Boo Boo Runs Wild, a special that was run every Sunday throughout January and February. Cowboy Bebops run at 1:30 was replaced with the Ruby-Spears cartoon Mr. T''. All the intro bumps ran normally as if the schedule was unchanged. Not only did this confuse their viewers who were acustomed to their Saturday schedules and which intro bumps go for which show, but also any viewer who had a digital cable box/DVR that included a guide since they where not updated with the new schedule.

• On April 16th, 2006, Adult Swim aired an angry fan letter about the showing of Saved By The Bell. The fan letter stated that if they continue to air the program, they should change their name to "Crappy 1980's Live Action Television Show Network." Adult Swim complied and changed their logo to match the name with the [adult swim] formatting. All shows from that point on during the night aired with a [crappy 1980's live action tv show network] logo in place of the regular [adult swim] one. Many complaints from fans use similar messages. From that moment on, nearly every showing of Saved By The Bell during the week aired with the changed station identification logo, while the other programming kept the regular one. Adult Swim went on to produce a rumor that Saved by the Bell was going back into production; unlike the airing, this was an actual hoax [link].

• When airing bumps outlining the upcoming weekend's lineup, episode and series premiers are set apart from repeat episodes using Pantone colors.

Notes

External links

• [AdultSwim.com] - Official website
• [Adult Swim on Bravo] - Official website of the UK Adult Swim

 

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