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Adult Swim

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Adult Swim
HeadquartersAtlanta, Georgia
Ownership
OwnerTurner Broadcasting System (Time Warner)

Adult Swim, sometimes rendered [adult swim] based on its logo, is the name for an adult-oriented television programming network. It shares channel space with Cartoon Network in the United States, featuring absurdist and often ribald comedy, in contrast to the tamer daytime Cartoon Network. It also shows Japanese anime, generally with minimal editing for content.

Origins

The very first glimmer of what would become Adult Swim can be seen in the early 1990s, in a program titled Space Ghost Coast to Coast, a spin-off-remake of the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The people responsible for that, and many shows even today, which also have many similarites, were Williams Street. The show would originally air at 11 p.m. Eastern Time each night for almost 10 years, at which point Adult Swim was introduced. Also, around 1995, Cartoon Network had began airing a pre-teen/teen programme block, titled Toonami, which would last in its initial timeslots for almost 6 years. Because of its convienience of timing, which placed it to begin just before the majority of schoolchildren were released to go home, this block was a massive success and influenced the lives of many of the children who watched, and many of them became increasingly eager to get home each day to watch the various shows on Toonami. It also helped introduce anime into the American popular culture scene, in the form of Dragonball Z (which was actually ending at the time in Japan), Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, and later on many others. By the time the year 2000 arrived, network executives, and Williams Street more importantly, realized that this demographic might shrink as old recognizable shows ended, new shows were aired with lower appeal, and children were maturing and finding other occupations. They initiated to remove Space Ghost from its primary 11 p.m. timeslot and instead introduce programs oriented to this maturing demographic along with Space Ghost, but still with some programs which connected to that demographics childhood in order to keep an increasing interest, and maintain it almost-completely with the wider-range reach of the programs.

Background

Adult Swim, then a "spinoff" of Cartoon Network, premiered on September 2, 2001 with Home Movies being its first program aired. The first anime was Cowboy Bebop. On March 28, 2005, Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting, who runs the channel, split Adult Swim from Cartoon Network so that Nielsen Media Research could treat it as a separate channel for ratings purposes.[1]

Originally a Sunday-only block that also re-ran on Thursdays, Adult Swim now airs:

  • Weekdays at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, with an encore at 2:30 a.m.
  • Saturdays at 11:00 p.m., with an encore at 2:30 a.m. Shows on Saturdays are often action oriented.
  • Sundays at 10:00 p.m., with an encore at 2:00 a.m. Shows on Sundays are often comedy oriented.

Some Adult Swim programming is available on demand by the Internet on Adult Swim Video, a free, ad-supported streaming video service.

The network, 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, OVAs, and movies. Promotions for Adult Swim have been targeted towards the college age group, 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.

Ad campaign bomb scare

Main article: 2007 Boston Mooninite scare

Turner Broadcasting issued an apology for an ad campaign that caused a series of bomb scares throughout Boston on January 31, 2007. A statement emailed to the Boston Globe from Turner Broadcasting said: “The ‘packages’ in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim’s animated television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They had been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Parent company Turner Broadcasting is in contact with local and federal law enforcement on the exact locations of the billboards. ‘We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger.’ The statement was shown several times during the programming block and posted on their website.”

On January 31, Boston and Massachusetts State Police were dispatched to various places in Boston after reports of suspicious packages were called in. No other law enforcement personnel in any other city was called with regard to the advertisements in the other cities.

On February 1, 2007, Boston authorities arrested two men involved with the scare. Peter Berdovsky, 27, a freelance video artist from Arlington, Massachusetts, and Sean Stevens, 28, were facing charges of placing a hoax device in a way that results in panic, as well as one count of disorderly conduct, according to CNN.

On February 5, Turner Broadcasting and marketer Interference Inc. announced that they will pay two million dollars in amends, one million to the city of Boston, and one million in goodwill funds.[2] Four days later, on February 9, the CEO of Cartoon Network, Jim Samples, resigned.[3]

Partnership with Midway Games

Adult Swim partnered with Midway Games in 2005 to begin development on video games based on five of their series. These include Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, The Brak Show, Harvey Birdman, and Sealab 2021. The game based on Aqua Teen Hunger Force has been announced and has been confirmed for the PlayStation 2 console. The game has been titled Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-Am. There has also been a video game based on Harvey Birdman announced by Midway, confirmed for the Playstation 2 and PlayStation Portable (PSP) console. As of 2007, Harvey Birdman will now be developed by Capcom. Information can be found at GameSpot: http://au.gamespot.com/news/6118585.html?tag=result;title;1

Stylistic history

File:Swim-old.JPG
The original Adult Swim logo

Originally, all of the bumpers shown in between shows featured footage of senior citizens swimming in public pools eating, exercising, and doing other pool-related activities, with a lifeguard shouting the words “all kids out of the pool” through a megaphone. The logo at that time was the words “ADULT SWIM” in all capital letters which were shown after a freeze frame of the footage. The shows were announced by a computer generated voice on Saturdays. When the Saturday night block started in 2002, it originally featured clips from the various anime programs displayed on the block. The original theme music for Adult Swim, titled "D-Code", was a remix of Mambo Gallego done by the Melbourne musician Dust Devil, originally played by the famous Latin jazz musician Tito Puente, Sr.

On January 12, 2003, the senior citizens were replaced by animated safety manuals featuring Adult Swim characters, the logo had been changed with the words “adult swim” in red and a black circle with a yellow penumbra.

The current bump cards debuted on May 25, 2003 and feature black intertitle “cards” with white text on them, which discuss everything from news about the programming, to personal staff opinions on unrelated subjects. Fans get involved too as they have been asked to design their own cards and to submit questions for answering. In addition, the bumpers for the action shows include tilt-shift miniature and other abstract photos of Japan.

Adult Swim Video

Main article: Adult Swim Video
File:Asf2.jpg
The Adult Swim Fix logo

AdultSwim.com launched a web-based video distribution service: Friday Night Fix on Friday, September 16, 2005, as a way for Adult Swim fans to view programming on the one day of the week that the programming block did not air at the time and was originally available only on Fridays during the hours that Adult Swim normally aired on weeknights. On March 27, 2006, Adult Swim changed Friday Night Fix into the Adult Swim Fix, and on March 11, 2007, it was changed again, to Adult Swim Video. Adult Swim Video runs every hour of every day, with content ranging from older and current shows to premiere episodes of new shows from the Comedy block, updated every Friday at approximately 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Every show is available until the next Friday update.

April Fools

Adult Swim is notorious for its April Fools pranks (this only applies in the United States).

  • In 2004, every show that aired during the actual April 1 was shown with crudely drawn graffiti (mustaches, goatees, and glasses) on the characters’ faces and other objects.
  • In 2005, the unfinished pilot of Squidbillies and a mustache-filled episode of Perfect Hair Forever were shown unannounced.
  • In 2006, the lineup was changed, unannounced, to include retro shows such as Chuck Norris’ Karate Kommandos and Mister T, as well as the Spumco animated short Boo Boo Runs Wild. Regular shows such as Fullmetal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG were inter-cut with fart sounds. However, since Ghost in the Shell was a premiere episode, it was shown in its proper 12:30 timeslot uncut. The edited episode ran at 11:30.
  • In 2007:
    • At midnight (Eastern time) on April 1, Adult Swim replaced its regular Saturday night anime block with episodes of Perfect Hair Forever, preempting the scheduled premiere episodes of Bleach, Blood+, and Eureka Seven. Unlike previous April Fool’s pranks where the fart sounds and mustache drawing had occurred with new episodes, Perfect Hair Forever was also aired for the entirety of the repeat block, also replacing the shows missed during the first airing. The first episode to air was the premiere of the show’s second season with episode 7; they then broadcast the first season in reverse order and in the style of old VHS fansubs, including VHS static and Engrish white subtitles, reminiscent of Hong Kong produced subtitles. The subtitles frequently had little to do with the actual dialogue; episode 3 in particular had subtitles that corresponded to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode “Revenge of the Mooninites.” Several scenes throughout the show were also uncensored. At each commercial break they also showed a “fan service moment” which featured fanservice scenes from various other shows, most notably FLCL.
    • In the weeks prior to April Fool’s Day, the long-term programming schedule featured on Adultswim.com was altered to show the film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters slated to premiere on April 1, twelve days before the film's announced theatrical release date of April 13, 2007; on-air promos for the film's televised premiere followed, including its own TV content rating (of TV-MA-LV). As viewers discovered that various sources for television listings failed to mention the movie on that date, it was assumed that the promised premiere of the Aqua Teen film was the first volley in 2007’s April Fools events. The advertising was both a prank and truth: though the movie was shown as promised, the bulk of it was shown in an almost imperceptible picture-in-picture box (roughly less than 1% of the total image in area) without sound (Adult Swim had instead decided to broadcast the audio on the Spanish language setting), in the bottom-left corner of the screen, while Adult Swim’s standard lineup aired full-screen and with normal audio. Monsters and Aqua Teen characters occasionally appeared on screen to point out where to watch it. Only the first few minutes of the movie were shown in full-screen quality, though most of that footage had already been released as preview material.

List of Adult Swim programs

Main article: List of programs broadcast by Adult Swim

Music

Adult Swim has been known to have a partnership with independent music label Stones Throw Records. Many of Adult Swim’s bumpers and packaging have used music from artists such as Madlib, Oh No, and J Dilla. In 2006, both Stones Throw and Adult Swim created a co-production album entitled Chrome Children.

The network was also part of an earlier studio LP with DANGERDOOM, a musical collaboration between music producer Danger Mouse and rapper MF DOOM, entitled The Mouse and the Mask.

In February 2007, Adult Swim and Definitive Jux joined up to release a free, online EP entitled Definitive Swim.

In May of the same year, Adult Swim featured a similarly-styled release called Warm & Scratchy, focusing this time on indie rock bands from varying labels and sub-genres.

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 shows anime series and movies licensed by Bandai Entertainment,Geneon, and VIZ Media, 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.

Select series, including Aqua Teen Hunger Force and The Venture Brothers, are also available for purchase on iTunes. Furthermore, as of November 22, 2006 some Adult Swim shows can be bought and accessed from the Xbox Live Video Marketplace.

The video on demand section as well offers many videos, and is updated almost daily.

TV content ratings

The start of each hour of Adult Swim programming was easily identified by the “Parental Advisory: Mature Content” logo (which resembles the warning seen on explicit CDs) followed by a warning that the shows contain 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 (similar to the one still used in Australia and New Zealand.) 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. For a while, the spots ran such that the first spot, the "Inappropriate for under 14" warning, runs for the first hour or two - until midnight (and for an equal period starting at 2)- and the "Inappropriate for under 17" warning is run for all shows whose first airtime is after midnight (and then again at 3:30-4:00). In addition, on Adult Swim’s first night on September 2, 2001, the “TV-14” bug was left on the screen for the entire duration of the block, excluding commercials and promos. On May 7, 2007, Adult Swim shortened the warning to "Adult Swim may contain mature material some viewers might not find suitable" and dropped the “Parental Advisory” screen.

To date, Adult Swim has deemed episodes of three shows to contain levels of violence and graphic content necessitating their own disclaimer, above and beyond the disclaimer used for the block which states, “Just in case that last disclaimer wasn’t enough, this episode contains extreme violence. We would rather run this than cut the violence from the episode because we are American Cowboys.” This disclaimer appears before episode 10 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, “Jungle Cruise”, and episode 51 of Fullmetal Alchemist, “Laws and Promises”.[4]

Starting with the October 21, 2006 broadcast of episode 26 (“Morning Glory”) of Eureka Seven, the “American Cowboys” disclaimer appears before the 1:00 a.m. show; after Eureka Seven finished, the disclaimer carried over to Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG, which did not previously carry the disclaimer.

A disclaimer also shows before every episode of Blood+; unlike the “American Cowboys” white-on-black, this disclaimer has a yellow-and-red bomb visual to accompany the text.

Podcast

Adult Swim offered a video podcast on Apple’s iTunes from March 21, 2006, to September 19 2006. The podcasts featured behind the scenes segments of shows, as well as exclusive content (such as an interview with Saved by the Bell’s Dennis Haskins and a look at Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha’s Metalocalypse). During its run, the podcast reached number two in iTunes’ ranking of most downloaded podcasts. [1]

Website and Forum

Adult Swim maintains Adultswim.com with news about new shows, clips, and games.

Adult Swim has an active message board at its official Web site. Williams Street Studios staff frequents the board to answer viewer questions and address comments about Adult Swim programming. Additionally, posts made by fans may also be aired during the block.

Adult Swim UK also has a forum via adultswim.co.uk, where viewers can post feedback and opinions on upcoming and new shows.

Adult Swim worldwide

Australia and New Zealand

  • In Australia and New Zealand, Adult Swim airs Monday to Saturday from 10:30 p.m.
  • Monday to Thursday (10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.) features an hour of anime, which is then repeated in the second hour. Starting in July 2007, this two-hour time block will be rebranded as part of an agreement with Madman Entertainment.
  • Friday and Saturday (10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.) features 90 minutes of comedy, which is then repeated from midnight.
  • Before an improvement in the local Cartoon Network feed on June 1, 2006, Adult Swim, just like other programs on Cartoon Network, was pushed back (in New Zealand only) two hours from the time advertised due to time zone differences, which meant that Adult Swim started at 12:30 a.m.
  • Adult Swim Australia also airs notices from their noticeboard on Comedy nights. They have a tendency to only air certain notices during certain shows.
  • The Adventures of Super Oil and High-Octane can be seen intermittently during breaks. They have access to five episodes (namely “Bowlinger vs Bowlinger”, “Tube Panic”, “Climber’s High”, “My True Blue Car”, and “Bottle Trouble) which they repeat each week, sometimes playing an episode more than once on a certain night. On occasion, they have been aired on an Anime night.

United Kingdom

Main article: Adult Swim (UK)

Latin America

In Latin America, Adult Swim airs every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in Spanish and Portuguese (for Brazilian viewers). However, unlike Adult Swim USA, anime is not a part of the lineup, being broadcasted on the Toonami block in a Monday-Thursday basis. Nevertheless, there remains much fan pressure to bring anime to Adult Swim in the region (pressure that is mocked constantly in Adult Swim’s bumpers).

  • 20th Century Fox-produced shows, such as Futurama, Family Guy, and American Dad!, are not seen on Adult Swim, but instead aired on FOX Latin America and FX Latin America in a similarly themed block called No Molestar! (Do Not Disturb! in English, Não Perturbe! in Portuguese), which is seen weeknightly on FOX, and Fridays on FX.
  • In Chile, VTR, Chile’s largest cable system, decided to censor Adult Swim from transmission, and doesn’t show it at all, instead replacing it with a relatively short recording of “children’s” cartoon episodes which repeats over and over. For some time, users could pay an extra fee to be able to watch the transmission along with VTR’s "premium" channels. This situation was not well-received by users, who even started a petition (at http://www.queremosadultswim.tk/). In April 2007, the segment was finally aired uncensored and has been airing with no censor since...
  • In 2007, the block lost its first two hours in the countries where it started at 11 pm. Its encore, which ran from 3 am to 5 am, was also removed.

Canada

  • Similarly, YTV airs some anime originally broadcast on Adult Swim in its Bionix block.
  • Amp'd Mobile Canada has an Adult Swim channel which features clips from their shows. [4]

The Philippines

  • The Philippines is the only country in Asia that airs Adult Swim.

South Africa

Spain

  • Adult Swim block airs on TNT Spain.

Russia

The Robot Chicken and Sealab 2021 were aired in the past, and have been succeeded by Stroker and Hoop and Tom Goes to the Mayor shows for now (summer 2007).[7]

Notes

  1. ^ Adult Swim/CN Split Cements Strategy. ICv2. March 3, 2005.
  2. ^ Turner, contractor to pay $2M in Boston bomb scare. CNN.com. Retrieved April 29, 2007.
  3. ^ Ryan, Andrew. Cartoon Network head resigns after Boston bomb scares. boston.com News. Retrieved April 29, 2007.
  4. ^ Episode 51 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.
  5. ^ Adult Swim Show Profiles. Bravo (UK). Retrieved July 19 2006.
  6. ^ http://www.profmedia.ru/actives/2x2/
  7. ^ http://www.2x2tv.ru/programm/

Official Sites

Unofficial Sites

  • Adult Swim HQ—An unofficial Adult Swim site for news and information
  • ASF—Adult Swim promo and intro archive
  • BumpWorthy.com—Adult Swim’s commercial bumps, including some from the pre-“card” era.
  • Adultswimdvd.com.au—Australian Adult Swim DVD site by Madman Entertainment
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