Trivia / [adult swim]

• Creator Backlash: With 2 decades on TV, Adult Swim has naturally produced a show or two they aren't particularly proud of.
  • The two biggest standouts being, of course on the controversial side, Minoriteam and World Peace. To quote the block itself on Minoriteam:
  One time we greenlit 20 episodes based solely on a pitchboard, showing character designs for a superhero group whose power were their racial stereotype. It was the first time we skipped a pilot and went straight to series. Oops.
  • On the less controversial but still not remembered fondly side, they had this to say about notorious flop Mongo Wrestling Alliance.
  We love Tommy Blacha. He was fantastic on Metalocalypse, but this might be the second worst series we ever made.
  • One piece of fanmail in 2010 asked about shows they'd lost the rights to. When asked if there were any they were glad to be rid of, their response was a silhouette of Alexander from Reign: The Conqueror.
  • They don't seem too fond of Soul Quest Overdrive either, since they aired 4 of the 6 episodes in a single night, never aired them again, and left the last 2 episodes unaired.
• Executive Meddling: In Latin America, VTR, a Chilean cable TV operator decided to censor Adult Swim, due to its position that Cartoon Network must be a children's TV channel and no adult content should be shown whatsoever. After a huge backlash, the company and Turner Broadcasting System agreed to broadcast Adult Swim in a different TV channel but only in digital and in some parts of Chile until early 2007, where the block returned to Cartoon Network until its first shutdown.
• Friday Night Death Slot: Notably, Adult Swim didn't air on Friday nights for a long time under this assumption - it gradually expanded from two nights (Sunday broadcasts and repeats on Thursdays) to six (Saturdays through Thursdays) over three years^note dropping Thursdays for Saturdays in February 2002, losing Saturdays for Mondays through Thursdays in January 2003, then getting Saturdays back in April 2004 but then took another three to get the whole week. During this time, they instead hosted a special section on their site, called "Friday Night Fix", which offered full episodes of their shows during what would be block airtime on any other day, 11pm to 1am. It was in 2007 when Cartoon Network finally gave up their last night, realizing that Adult Swim's primary audience of nerds and stoners are doing the same things on Friday nights (staying home and watching TV) as they are every other night of the week. They've seen decent success with it since - on two separate occasions (December 2014 to September 2016, and January 2019 to February 2020) they even shifted the premiere day for their live-action shows from Thursdays to Fridays, as a test to see whether their ratings improved when their normal programming aired four continuous days in a row rather than being broken up partway through by Thursdays.
• Marathon Running:
  • To celebrate Halloween in 2004, Adult Swim ran an Aqua Teen Hunger Force marathon hosted by Phantasm actor Angus Scrimm.
  • On November 2, 2004, Adult Swim aired the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode "Guitar Control" over and over until until 2 a.m.
  • In July of 2004, Adult Swim ran a week-long Family Guy marathon hosted by Seth MacFarlane.
  • From December 26th to 30th, 2007, Adult Swim ran all-night marathons of Futurama to give the show a proper sendoff before they lost the rights to Comedy Central.
  • On July 6, 2007, Adult Swim celebrated its first Friday night broadcast with an all-night Family Guy marathon.
  • Adult Swim kicked off 2009 by airing a Moral Orel marathon on New Years Eve.
  • For April Fool's Day 2014, Adult Swim aired an unannounced Space Ghost Coast to Coast marathon creator-chosen episodes, including the full version of "Fire Ant", which has rarely been aired on TV. The marathon featured bumps showing out-takes and commentary from the writers and staff.
  • For April Fool's Day 2015, Adult Swim aired a six hour marathon of Aqua Teen Hunger Force with coins superimposed over the screen, reminiscent of the "Coin Hunt" game from the online streaming show FishCenter.
  • In 2017, Adult Swim celebrated the retirement of Pete Smith, a long time studio producer, with a marathon of The Brak Show (which Smith co-created), and Bob's Burgers (which his daughter works as a writer for), interspersed with promos and bumpers made by Smith.
  • Adult Swim aired a holiday marathon of Cowboy Bebop in December of 2017, and again on New Years Day of 2022.
• In Memoriam: Whenever anyone of note passes away, Adult Swim honors them with a simple silent bumper of their name, birth year and year of passing.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Before settling on the name "[adult swim]", some names that were suggested for the channel were "Ibiso" (Spanish for "stop"), "Parental Warning" and "Parental Block".
  • According to the defunct offical Adult Swim message board from back in April 2006, Elfen Lied and Gantz were both considered for the block. Since they would have to been heavily edited down due to Standards and Practices, to the point of being "unintelligible" to watch properly, it was decided that neither would be picked up.
    • From the same above post, Samurai 7 was originally slated to air much earlier, but at the time [adult swim] was outbidded by IFC for the broadcasting rights.
  • It's unconfirmed, but according to the Gamefaqs Message Boards from back in March 2012, Higurashi: When They Cry was originally scheduled to air on the block (presumably around 2008). Plans fell through because the company dubbing it at the time, Geneon Entertainment, shut down before it was completed. Funimation would later complete the dub and release the remaining episodes on DVD, but poor sales presumably canceled plans to air the anime in America.