Smiling Friends is an American animated series from the minds of Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack. Their claim to fame beforehand had been mostly relegated to small Internet animated projects, as well as Zach’s regular appearances on the YouTube channel Oneyplays. The show’s pilot episode “Desmond’s Big Day Out” premiered in 2020, and since then there have been three total seasons.
Recently, Hadel and Cusack have officially announced that despite the show having been renewed for two additional seasons, they have decided that Smiling Friends will be ending after Season 3 concludes. Hearing this news brought massive disappointment to many, including me. But what is it that made the show so special and why did this announcement affect so many people so deeply?
Simply put, Smiling Friends centers around a charity of the same name whose job it is to go out and make people smile. Working for this charity is a cynical yellow man with a long nose and an extremely nasally voice named Charlie (Hadel’s character), an energetic and optimistic pink person named Pim (Cusack’s character), a skinny red man named Allan, a small green creature named Glep whose speech consists of ramblings, and Mr. Boss, the leader of the company who is hardworking and driven but also childish at times.
Other characters are equally as memorable, such as TV star/U.S. president/Emperor of Earth Mr. Frog, evil alternate versions of Charlie and Pim, and satirical portrayals of real people like Warren Buffet, Ronald Reagan, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Jared Fogle.
Many live action cameos are also included, such as Doug Walker and James Rolfe. Some celebrities only appear through voice cameos, including Zach’s friends from Oneyplays (Chris O’Neill, Joshua Tomar, Lyle Rath) and even Gilbert Gottfried voicing God in the season one finale, making it his last role before he passed away three months later.
The show fits into the category of adult animation, similar to shows like The Simpsons. Family Guy, South Park, and Rick and Morty, with both creators citing some of these as points of inspiration for them. It is able to stand out among these because of how it differs in its animation style. Smiling Friends has a bright, colorful, and often rapid animation style, often leading to chaotic conflicts. This combined with the frequent use of alternative animation styles like claymation and rotoscoping creates something very memorable that can hold the viewer’s attention well.
The humor from Smiling Friends is best described through direct quotes of the show. For instance:
-Season 1, episode 7: Frowning Friends
(Gnarly) But did you know that all of Earth’s helium is running out and will be completely depleted within 15 to 20 years?
(Pim) Is that true?
(Grim) We only tell the truth, even when it hurts!
(Gnarly) Any time you feel like changing your life for the better, give us a call and we’ll put a frown on that face.
(Fast forward a bit, Grim and Gnarly have taken off in a helicopter)
(Pim) Charlie, I don’t- I don’t think these guys want friendly competition with us at all.
(Charlie) Dude, I just looked at the helium thing he was talking about. That’s true. That’s, like, 100%. It’s all gonna be gone.
-Season 3, episode 5: Pim and Charlie Save Mother Nature
(Charlie) Yeah. and I didn’t find the Brown Blur, so, you know, maybe I wasn’t as good of a cryptid hunter as I thought I was.
(Mr Boss) What cryptid?
(Charlie) The painting of the cryptid that you showed me, the Brown Blur thing.
(Mr Boss) Oh! Oh, the painting. Dude, I was joking. That’s a picture of the inside of my ***hole. It’s from a colonoscopy. I thought you knew that.
-Season 2, episode 1: Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition with DX 4K (Anniversary Director’s Cut)
(Allan) Are there any other characters from your stupid game?
(Gwimbly) Hmm, well there is my trusty sidekick Mr. Millipede! I wonder what he’s up to!
(Cuts to Mr. Millipede’s gravestone, date of death labeled May 23rd, 2021)
(Gwimbly) It’s just wrong, man. Mr. Millipede was like a damn brother to me. And I’m gonna say what nobody else is willing to say: America has a f***ing fentanyl crisis.
The humor of Smiling Friends is unlike anything I have ever witnessed. It’s chaotic, it always takes you by surprise, and it’s either very real and relatable or completely absurd and nonsensical. It continues to surprise me even to this day, and this is one of the big reasons why so many people, including myself, cherish this show.
As previously mentioned, although the show has received great success and was renewed for both a fourth and fifth season, creators Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack decided that it will be ending after Season three’s conclusion. The reason for this, however, is bittersweet. The show has not been cancelled, but rather it is ending because of the creators’ feelings of burnout. Admirably, Hadel and Cusack have stated that they don’t want to put out any episodes that are “less than 110%”.
They also clarified in that same announcement that two additional Smiling Friends episodes will be releasing on April 12th. These are not “finales”, but rather two episodes that didn’t make their release dates for season three. It’s great that some episodes will be released even after the ending of the show was announced. It gives something for the viewer to look forward to in a moment where they don’t want to imagine the future of the show, and that feels good.
Hadel and Cusack have also mentioned that they may come back to the show if they feel like it, but they don’t want to label this as a hiatus because they do not want to give false hope to the show’s fanbase. Ultimately, although there is a future hope for Smiling Friends, hopes shouldn’t be placed too high.
But does Smiling Friends even need a future? The show has received nothing but success, has created a whole culture of fans, and is one of the most unique things to come out of modern animation. It’s for these reasons that I am less hurt about the ending of Smiling Friends. I would love to see more of the creative drippings from Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack. However, I would much rather see the show that has brought me as much joy as it has to go out on top rather than anywhere else.
Smiling Friends is perfectly able of recognizing what makes it successful and it uses this to build on itself to create more episodes that will appeal to the fans. It is this same self-awareness that allows the show to end when it wants, and although I am disappointed that there may be no future for the show, I am perfectly happy with the present.
