WORST ADULT SWIM ORIGINAL PROGRAM

fat guy stuck in internet

this is the type of poll i can get behind

Too hard to pick a worst.

shortlist, based on what i have seen:

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! 2007–present
Squidbillies 2005–present
Superjail! 2007–present
Xavier: Renegade Angel 2007–present
12 oz. Mouse 2005–2006
Assy McGee 2006–2008
Minoriteam 2005–2006
Stroker and Hoop 2004–2005
Tom Goes to the Mayor

whiney i thought you would get first post honors in this tbh

I am an adult swim superfan from before it officially began. Yet I still have a special loathing for Tim and Eric Awesome Show! I'll wait to vote, to see if others can convince me one of the others was worse.

my gf talked me into liking tim & eric

never thought it would happen

I think I am gonna vote aqua teen not cause I really *hate* the show, but because I hate that it got so big when it's basically pretty mediocre and joke-less as far as adult swim goes

I will beat up anyone who votes frisky dingo

It's easy for me to pick the best, but I'm not sure what the worst is. Maybe Aqua Teen for the reasons iatee said.

frisky dingo is DOPE, but man does it unsettle people that arent ready for it. ive gotten a lot of weird looks during the puppet scene

stop hating on Aqua Teen just because it got popular - there are plenty of much worse shows on this list deserving of your bile

i mean pretty much everything i've seen on this list is shit besides Home Movies and Boondocks, so i assume there's some real clunkers once i stopped giving this channel a chance

the worst i've seen is squidbillies, but there's prolly worse

squidbillies is great wtf are you even

i remember the one episode i saw had a character talk about her "front butt" which is like such a horribly formed "joke" that it sticks with me today as an example of how never to do comedy

wish i could vote twice for both tim and eric shows.

Squidbillies is def the worst of what I've seen. SBing anyone who votes for Metalocalypse btw.

Or Venture Brothers.

There have been a lot of really crappy adult swim shows, it is hard to pick just one.

Robot Chicken

wish i could use my vote to retract one Tim and Eric vote because it's a good show, fuck you guys

pfft.

Squidbillies is flat-out terrible until you realize that the only point of the show is to invent even more ludicrous ways to torture someone, at which point the pointlessness of it kind of becomes funny in an "I can't believe someone got paid to do this" way. It is not very good, though.

Superjail is pretty much the exact same thing only with people instead of squid.

My wife actually can't make it through an episode of Assy McGee without having an incapacitating laughing fit at the premise, plus Assy as a character is kind of amazing.

There have been a few decent episodes of Stroker and Hoop but as a whole we would be a better nation had it never existed.

Xavier had a ton of promise but forgot to actually be funny to people who aren't stoned.

Tom Goes To The Mayor is fucking fantastic at times, which makes the full-on failure of Tim and Eric even worse.

Minoriteam is a massive shit sandwich.

I think I've seen two episodes of 12 oz. Mouse, which paled in comparison to Perfect Hair Forever so pairing the two didn't do Mouse any favors.

Honestly though, I have to vote for Delocated because IT IS AMAZINGLY TERRIBLE, LIKE WORSE THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE NOT MATTER HOW MUCH YOU HATE ANY OF THESE OTHER SHOWS

I don't think I've even seen that one. These days I just record Venture Brothers and Metalocalypse, I usually don't watch the adult swim line up.

I watch WAAAAAAAAY too much of this shit

http://www.adultswim.com/shows/delocated/indexpage.html#video

the horror, the horror

(although of course now I'm second-guessing because Minoriteam is pretty wretched AND unfunnily racist AND ugly)

I don't even have to watch the clips of Delocated -- just looking at that page has convinced me.

jesus christ "Minoriteam"

i'm really pumped that the whole mid-00s Carlos Mencia "AYOOOOO MEXICANS ARE LAZYYYYYYY" screeching of racial stereotypes as the horribly formed "joke" has kind of died down as a thing save maybe Family Guy's JEW JEW JEW JEW JEW stuff which is still around

I haven't seen too many of these, but I actually got depressed about life and civilization after watching Squidbillies.

Squidbillies is basically a drawing of a premise

of what i've seen it has to be assy mcghee. but there's probably four others on here i've either never heard of or certainly don't remember.

Robot Chicken may not be the worst, but it's the most bizarrely rated.

It's the Scrubs of Adult Swim.

re squidbillies - usually pretty hard to watch, but every once in a while they hit upon some phraseology or inflection that is absolutely pitch perfect (and often hilarious) that I can't help but give them their due.

Robot Chicken may not be the worst, but it's the most bizarrely rated.

It's the Scrubs of Adult Swim.

So... it's a funny show that attracts vocal haters?

I mean it's a lame, disjointed show that attracts ridiculous DVD sales.

If that weren't a factor, I'd probably vote for 12 Oz. Mouse. Apparently I'm never high enough when I watch that.

There are probably worse shows, but I might have to vote for Robot Chicken, if only because I can't stand that lazy thing that it and Family Guy do of constantly riffing on LCD pop cultural stuff without doing anything interesting or particularly funny with it. At least the other Adult Swim stuff has the balls to be dementedly mediocre.

I haven't seen too many of these, but I actually got depressed about life and civilization after watching Squidbillies just about anything i've seen from adult swim

Aren't pretty much all of these variants of the same show. The same dry sub-humour in different "quirky" clothes.

WHAT A BUNCH OF SHIT

Aren't pretty much all of these variants of the same show. The same dry sub-humour in different "quirky" clothes.

Yeah, The Boondocks is pretty indistinguishable from Tim and Eric: Awesome Show! Great Job! and Moral Orel.

They're all animated, aren't they? See, they're the same.

nah, i meant theres like a billion miles between "Venture Brothers" and "Superjail". i think sometimes people get into the sorta mcsweeneys "ALL OF THIS IS CRAP BAH" mentality when looking at adult swim.

some of it is def crap tho, dont get me wrong, but its not all stoner laffs

xxxpostssttss

Can someone point out any shows that aren't stoner laffs besides Boondocks and Home Movies?

Venture Brothers is fucking garbage. Half these goddamn shows are just Space Ghost style juxtaposition humor

it's a superhero cartoon... BUT HE HAS A TALK SHOW WHERE PEOPLE HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS

it's a superhero cartoon... BUT HE'S A LAWYER AND PEOPLE HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS

it's mystery solving adventure kids cartoon ... BUT EVERYONE'S WEIRD AND PEOPLE HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS

it's a DC-style sealab cartoon... BUT PEOPLE HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS

like give it a fucking rest with that being "funny"

congratulations on not understanding Venture Brothers

btw the other shows here that aren't "stoner laffs" besides Boondocks and Home Movies:

Metalocalypse
The Venture Bros.
Moral Orel
Saul of the Mole Men
Stroker and Hoop (note: not being "stoner laffs" does not automatically make you funny)

its a group of "friends"... BUT THEY GET INTO SITUATIONS AND HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS
its a bunch of people in a bar... BUT THEY GET INTO SITUATIONS AND HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS
its a bunch of people that work in an airport... BUT THEY GET INTO SITUATIONS AND HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS
its a flashback to when dad met your mother... BUT THEY GET INTO SITUATIONS AND HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS

it is a messageboard...BUT THEY GET INTO SITUATIONS AND HAVE AWKWARD CONVOS

I think you can describe not only every comedy and every drama, but every single experience in life in these terms.

Dan, Ive def seen Metalocalypse and The Venture Bros. and can def say they are "not my thing"

See, as much as I love Tim & Eric, I will not fault people for voting it as the worst and will not be at all taken aback if it "wins" this particular poll. It's like a compilation of twenty-year-old in-jokes that I have with my brother that make sense to no one else and things I've dreamt that make me crack up and some bad talent show performance I saw in jr. high, etc. Like a home movie or some crappy Flash animation I made that cracks me up for very obscure and hard to explain reasons and that I can't understand anyone else even wanting to watch.

All of the above probably being a pretty spot-on explanation of Tim & Eric's relationship to the content of their show.

xpost HI DERE

Yeah, but i think my problem with these shows is that "Cheers" and "Frasier" have JOKES, and these shows treat the juxtaposition of cartoon characters and wacky awkwardness AS THE JOKE ITSELF

Adult Swim cartoons are like if forksclovestofu screen names had a show

xxpost

P.S. As noted in the other AS poll thread, I am not a stoner. So I can't explain why I laugh.

Yeah, but i think my problem with these shows is that "Cheers" and "Frasier" have JOKES, and these shows treat the juxtaposition of cartoon characters and wacky awkwardness AS THE JOKE ITSELF

There is literally no difference between the two scenarios you are describing. Furthermore, even if I was willing to grant that there is a difference between the two, if you think the humor in these shows lies solely on wacky juxtapositions, you are not getting half of the actual jokes in them.

both cheers and frasier have ingrained obvious formulas of their own

guys this is like having an argument about abortion with your family.

good luck!

i like tim and eric.

yeah, that's the problem, dan, that i don't GET HALF THE JOKES in a show about talking redneck squids aimed at 14-year-old backyard wrestlers, come the fuck on

"Why is she Black Debbie?"

HAHAHA AN AWKAWRD OFFICE-STYLE CONVO ABOUT RACE BUT THEY'RE WORKING IN A SEALAB IN A 60S CARTOOON HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

frisky dingo is DOPE, but man does it unsettle people that arent ready for it. ive gotten a lot of weird looks during the puppet scene

― .81818181818181818181818181 changed everything (jjjusten), Wednesday, December 16, 2009 2:28 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I didn't really like Frisky Dingo, not so much because I was "not ready" for it as that it does the exact same thing as Sealab and Sealab already made me sick of that thing, and as Whiney said, too many fucking shows about superheroes and supervillains having awkward conversations.

yeah, that's the problem, dan, that i don't GET HALF THE JOKES in a show about talking redneck squids aimed at 14-year-old backyard wrestlers, come the fuck on

Why the hell do you think I'm talking about Squidbillies?

the reason I love Venture Bros. in spite of it being kind of a typical Adult Swim "superheroes having awkward convos" thing is that it's just amazingly tightly written, both in terms of the dialogue and the plot, and really is on a whole other level from all the other shows you could compare it to. also the animation's pretty decent, not just paper cutouts moving over a background.

i really tried to give Venture Bros. a chance on the real

did you start at the beginning and give up before it got really good, or drop in on it in the middle of the series and find the ridiculous tangled impossible to follow plots off-putting?

I don't think any lineup has been simultaneously more inspiring in terms of "Jesus, I could make a better show than this" and more depressing in terms of "Why aren't people making better shows than this, and if they are, why aren't they letting them on the air?" than Adult Swim.

Tim & Eric is actually pretty inspiring -- didn't they start off as a web thing?

keepin it real positive

the worst thing is that now this stuff is spreading to other networks -- i like H. Jon Benjamin generally but this show "Archer" that's gonna be on FX looks terrible

that one on comedy central for awhile that was based off the real world was bottom of the barrel

"Drawn Together"? that felt very much within Comedy Central's aesthetic and not particularly Adult Swim.

god that show was so awful

The only thing about Drawn Together that made me laugh was how downright hateful it was; after a certain point (aka 3 minutes into the first episode) it's just like "wait, where is the actual comedy, this is just being mean for no reason".

ATHF should get some extra points for this: http://www.adultswim.com/music/athfchristmas/

that reminds me, i want to see that pilot with Neko Case that didn't even make it to the air

ayo if someone wants to explain venture brothers to me pls. go for it. i have seen a couple episodes and have had not a single fucking clue what's going on.

and if the answer is 'you need to watch the entire season in order' i'm sb-ing you.

the answer is "you need to have seen at least one episode of Jonny Quest"

well at least i don't have to sb you

So basically I think what I like about lots of adult swim stuff is that it's just riffing on a particular specific aesthetic (which is why, e.g., darkplace, and look around you fit in so well too). So it's not the comedy as such, so much, but the craft, and the sort of perverse respect it pays to the source material -- tim and eric has this sometimes, xavier, assy, metalocalypse, venture, robot chicken on occasion (e.g. the chicken law & order which was awesome), morel orel of course has this in spades. So then you can sure get lazy jokes undermining the premise, or you can get awkward covos, which are a lazy but effective way to create some sort of denormalizing or distancing effect from the tropes, i suppose, but there's a quality of "labor of love" to this stuff as well, the usual love/hate satire thing, and I eat that up. Superjail is just entirely different and next level though. Horrible amazing at once, maybe on a sort of krazy kat tip.

The Tick is a good substitute for the Venture Bros -- it has most of the same writers and it is much more earnest and it's a parody of the entire superhero genre instead of the narrow 60s adventure cartoons.

well at least i don't have to sb you

thankig u

its ok for stuff to follow a formula yall

you might have to sb me, because the only way to get venture brothers is to watch it from the start - not sure why that is bad really tho

jjj -- NOOOOOOOO!! that would put you at 49!

Okay, after seeing/reading some of the stuff in the other poll thread, I'm kinda glad that I haven't voted here yet, because I might have to shift it over to ATHF. Sure, it's made me laugh a couple of times, but so did some douche I worked with for several years, but he was mostly just an off-putting pain in the ass who irritated everyone around him.

I don't what it is about this thread that makes everybody so suggest ban-ish, and yet.

nah it's just as i get older and busier i essentially have no patience for shows where a single episode stands on its own--it seems like most of my peers devour seasons of television in like a week or less and that will never, ever appeal to me.

i meant where a single episode does NOT stand on its own

voted for Saul of the Molemen btw based on the one stupid episode I saw

Venture Bros stands on its own from the episodes I saw. It's perfectly fine to dismiss it on that basis. If you're not into it, forcing yourself to watch more won't endear you to it.

nah it's just as i get older and busier i essentially have no patience for shows where a single episode stands on its own

This might just be a symptom of the times, too. I didn't really realize until we did the best of the '90s and '00s polls how pervasive long-form narrative had become in the last decade. Especially compared to the '90s, where it really was relatively absent. There were a lot more shows in the '90s poll that you could just dip into here and there and enjoy at your leisure.

totally otm

Venture Bros benefits from continuity and long story arcs but I don't think understanding them is a requirement to enjoy it -- after seeing all the episodes in order you realize that the nonsensical twists and red herrings are all part of the joke (they even did a "part 2" episode once for a 3-parter where the other two episodes didn't actually exist). sometimes they're purposefully disorienting at first to reward repeat viewings, sometimes they're just having fun with the storytelling, but most of the jokes are pretty self-contained where you don't have to know much backstory besides basic character traits to get them.

yeah i agree - i think the show is a lot more enjoyable if you get the character arcs (and some jokes will see totally random if you havent seen earlier episodes) but theres lots of funny stuff in there outside of that.

that being said, the newest season builds on the past ones WAY more than any of the previous ones - would not recommend starting with random eps from season 4.

^^^ agreed, although I think the funniest single-show gag in the series is the CGC value counter in the upper-right corner in the first episode of this season

i assume they have kind of figured out along the way that a lot of fans of the show were actually getting interested in the characters and have adjusted the aims of the show accordingly - the primary role of the henchmen is largely due to this i think.

its really one of the only shows on adult swim that seems to have creators that are really attentive to the audience - part of why it seems so different from the ATHF/sealab stuff, which at times is openly aggressive and disdainful towards the people that like it, which i can understand being kind of offputting.

although the looping episode of sealab with the bear was one of the all time greats imo

I feel like repping hard for Moral Orel now because I think it's being kind of overlooked:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Moral_Orel_episodes

some serious next-level shit happened here

^^^^ just abt to say

the set of episodes that ended the 2nd season is probably some of the bleakest shit ive ever seen on tv - i dont really think the show was all that funny but it took the sometimes grating habit of adult swim shows to play against their audience's expectations and used it from some p emotionally affective moments rather just being weird for weirdness sake

(lolling btw because I am totally blurring the best and worst threads together)

Yeah, but i think my problem with these shows is that "Cheers" and "Frasier" have JOKES, and these shows treat the juxtaposition of cartoon characters and wacky awkwardness AS THE JOKE ITSELF

how can u spend so much time on the internet and still be so stupid?

"but it took the sometimes grating habit of adult swim shows to play against their audience's expectations"
The only expectation those shows engendered was that they would rub it in your face how cheaply and effortlessly they were made and yet here you are still watching, but Moral Orel never stooped to that did they?

guys this is like having an argument about abortion with your family.

<3 you goole

naw poorly phrased meant playing against traditional narrative expectations all the "weird" meandering plots and overlong pauses and lack of coherence. like i was comparing something like having your character babble nonsense over a static-y ambient sdtrk for 12 minutes while a pablo neruda poem scrolls at the bottom of the scrn vs the anticlimatic drawn out silence at the end of nature (part 2)

Anyone who votes for Delocated and go fuck themselves.

"go fuck themselves" isn't an option

I will also accept "stay wherever you are and fuck yourself there".

Oh,I see now that I made a strange error in my initial post!

But seriously, Delocated is so good.

So we've uncovered the Delocated fan; who's gonna rep for Minoriteam?

that's the show that belongs on Comedy Central

the wikipedia page is full of unusual details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoriteam

'meant playing against traditional narrative expectations all the "weird" meandering plots and overlong pauses and lack of coherence.'
Yeah, that's what I mean! I don't mind it so much when I feel like it's a good natured goof, but a lot of the time, they're just rubbing your face in it, just being plain lazy but with the attitude that if you don't appreciate their laziness, then you've somehow missed the point (that being lazy is "cool"). It'd be hard for Moral Orel to pull those often -- it would just break the stop motion animators' hearts!

Delocated is excellent -- it's like House with a ski mask!

I think I'd go for ATHF because it did nothing for me. I really found it irritating - and I love Harvey Birdman/Spaceghost etc.

Also Tim & Eric is great, but I dont apologise for having a completely retarded sense of humour.

12 oz mouse ssn 1 was great

"12 oz mouse ssn 1 was great"
explain, please!

How do you pitch a show that can be described as "House with a ski mask" and not get fit in the face with a brick, is what I would like to know.

They probably have friends in the industry.

"House with a ski mask" must be some other show I haven't seen.

whiney:comedy::dr.morbius:film

no, i think morbius understands how film works

hahahahaha

man kinda unbelievable how much of this crap there is

Saw bits of Robot Chicken in a bar last night and suddenly realized that it's essentially a stop-motion adaptation of latter day Mad magazine.

i don't get the point of 12 oz super mouse. and i will rep for both tim & eric and xavier.

though i like xavier, i still heart this dan post:

"Xavier: Renegade Angel" is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on television, and I've seen "Manimal".

― get money fuck witches (HI DERE), Thursday, June 25, 2009 3:41 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark

then there are moments when i think that this ad is the best thing that's been on adult swim in years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ukuKP0nlQ

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

someone might want to change this to a more accurate title, like "Adult Swim original program you have heard of / seen enough of to think sucks"

I did not vote in this, but I hope it is the same single person who voted for superjail as best and worst because that is how I feel about superjail.

It's weird to think that the Collegiate Stoner demographic is now catered to so thoroughly by popular culture. The world has come so far from the days where people had to wait for the geometric overhead shots in Busby Berkeley musicals.

This is true. I do not know what they must look at to make them go 'that is f*cked up they must have been high when they made this' when there is a swathe of culture designed to produce the weirdness effect.

stuff that didnt get a vote that deserved at least one:

Stroker and Hoop 2004–2005
Xavier: Renegade Angel 2007–present
Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil 2005–2007
Fat Guy Stuck in Internet 2007–2008

the Collegiate Stoner demographic i

is that who all this garbage is aimed at?

no but its the easiest way to stereotype and dismiss the whole lineup

(not saying that some of it doesnt fit that mold, but it certainly isnt all that way)

I kind of have to applaud Xavier: Renegade Angel which is in its own way the Moral Orel of the new age crowd, but their approach is pretty self-defeating.

I'm not trying to dismiss it -- I've watched a few of these (and actively love Home Movies) -- but the style, humor, format, and general ethos of almost all of them fit pretty squarely into my conception of "collegiate stoner" type stuff. This is not a demographic I'm criticizing. I, umm, watched a lot of Cartoon Network in college.

Outside of collegiate stoners, what kind of adults would watch cartoons, though?

xpost - I mean you're talking to a guy who remembers being psyched when Pavement were on Space Ghost back in the day, don't doubt my cred

since when is 'collegiate stoner' automatically an insulting demographic to be a part of

It's kind of inevitable that I'd get that particular vibe from Adult Swim, given that even the aesthetics and music used on their bumpers have always been a dead match for collegiate-stoner-animator-geek types of exactly my vintage. I guess part of what I mean is that as time's passed what used to be a very "collegiate stoner" segment of pop culture has become a broader sensibility in general -- not that this stuff is watched solely by stoners.

To be honest I have total faith that today's serious Collegiate Stoners are just watching "How It's Made" and "Yo Gabba Gabba" on DVR

It is all about Baby Einstein.

If Adult Swim ran nothing but old Speed Racer and Brothers Quay cartoons, it would still be collegiate stoners watching.

Squidbillies wuz robbed.

Wow you guys hate Robot Chicken that much? Damn. I can't see as anything worse than harmless fluff, and it does get me to laugh at least once per episode. Really there are so many more deserving entries on the list, but I guess RC's probably one people actually saw as opposed to 12 Oz. Mouse or Saul of the Molemen.

If Adult Swim ran nothing but old Speed Racer and Brothers Quay cartoons,. they would have programmed Abbott's Dream Channel.

"Tonight on ADC: A wooden doll with feathers and antlers glued to it moves very slowly around the interior of a rotting, hollowed-out book – but do we reveal the secret identity of Racer X, Speed Racer's long lost brother?"

WHO VOTED FOR MORAL OREL

yeah I actually like catching Moral Orel

i like "flipping" on the tv "set" and "catching" my favorite "program"

oh hey btw i would pay for whatever cable tier included fine ADC programming per that description

If Adult Swim ran nothing but old Speed Racer and Brothers Quay cartoons,. they would have programmed Abbott's Dream Channel.

would rather watch those than half-assed "parodies" of them. the aesthetic of so many of these shows is just to parody/ape stuff that was on TV when I was a kid, only with even more nonsense and occasional "political incorrectness". there are no actual jokes most of the time, its just "lol Rankin Bass animation" or "lol Hanna Barbera" etc. very tiresome.

What are the world's halfassed Bros. Quay parodies?

Wait, I made one once, where I zoomed in and out, slowly, on all my parents mounted deer heads interspersed with footage of myself pretending to cry, in a pioneer dress, under running water.

I wish people would stop saying that jokes they don't think are funny aren't jokes.

"What are the world's halfassed Bros. Quay parodies?"

Have you seen those Tool videos?

I wish people would stop saying that jokes they don't think are funny aren't jokes.

eh, jokes have punchlines. most of these shows are all premise/setup and no delivery.

maybe you just dont get jokes

do the shows have lolz

Wait if we're gonna argue about humor on the internet I'm gonna need a drink.