Adult Swim's Most Important Show Officially Goes on the Attack Against AI Animation

"We just wanted to make the basic case that Adult Swim was not about cheap and stupid animation," series co-creator Seth Green tells Polygon. On Sept. 2, at 10 p.m. Eastern Time, Adult Swim was born. The late-night block of programming on Cartoon Network geared towards a (slightly) older audience officially kicked off with Home Movies, The Brak Show, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and two syndicated episodes of Cowboy Bebop. The world changed forever that night, at least for anyone lucky enough to have their brain terraformed by several hours of crude animation, raunchy humor, and sci-fi anime. Robot Chicken wasn't part of that initial launch. The stop-motion sketch show from Seth Green and Matthew Senreich arrived four years later, giving Adult Swim its own twisted version of Saturday Night Live in the form of rapid-fire sketches that riffed on everything from Star Wars to the Libertarian Party. Robot Chicken has come to represent Adult Swim overall — even if it's sometimes overshadowed by viral hits like Rick and Morty and Smiling Friends — so it makes sense that the network turned to Green and Senreich to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Matt has be