Posted in: Adult Swim, TV | Tagged: annecy, smiling friends

Smiling Friends Session, Season 3 Preview Set for Annecy Festival

Michael Cusack & Zach Hadel's Smiling Friends will be the focus of a session during the Annecy International Animation Festival on June 11th.

Our past few updates on Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel's Smiling Friends have been focused on what the creative team has been kind enought to share regardining behind-the-scenes looks at how the past two season came to life. But for this go-around, we've got an update that's looking to the future… June 2025, to be precise… Wednesday, June 11, 2025 to be very precise. That's when Adult Swim's hit series will be the subject of a "Making of" panel during the 2025 Annecy International Animation Festival – a panel that will include a Season 3 look. Here's the official overview: "Join series co-creators Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel for a behind-the-scenes look at the hit Adult Swim series featuring an exclusive peek at the upcoming third season." Just to be clear? That doesn't guarantee that anything will be released to the public that day, but even some insight on what's to come from Cusack and Hadel would be pretty great.

Here's a screencap of the infor from the online 2025 Annecy International Animation Festival schedule with all of the intel on when the session will be taking place – followed what Cusack and Hadel had to share at last year's festival:

Smiling Friends Creators Want Series to Have "Always Sunny" Vibes

During Adult Swim's presentation at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Festival, Hadel and Cusack addressed whether viewers should expect the series to take on darker and/or more serious themes during future seasons – similar to what we've seen from other animated series that have those "special" episodes.

"A lot of comedy shows, like you say, tend to get serious," Hadel shared in response to a question from an attendee. "I don't think Charlie and Pim could cry, and anybody would care. It would just be annoying. So it would probably end before it gets to that point." Hadel continued, "This show is hopefully kind of an escape. We always think about when we worked minimum-wage jobs; we would get home and just want to watch YouTube cartoons and South Park and [It's] Always Sunny [in Philadelphia]. There's something nice about being a little comedy thing, and that's it."

And there it is! Are we surprised? No – but being a diehard fan of FXX's Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson & Danny DeVito-starring It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I know that we don't always tend to go public a lot with our love for the greatest sitcom to ever grace a television screen. So when one of us does, it's nice to see – and when it's two talented folks like Cusack and Hadel, even more so.

"Something like 'South Park,' when I saw that episode when Stan gets depressed, I loved that because Trey [Parker] and Matt [Stone] are so great at that when they get serious. I just think we like keeping a continuous tone with 'Smiling Friends,' where you can tune in in any season. You don't really know where you are," Cusack added. And for those of you wondering when the season-long serialized storylines are going to kick in, Hadel makes it clear that fans shouldn't be holding their collective breath for them anytime soon. "I don't think we'll ever do serialization. It's supposed to just be popcorn. It's McDonald's of TV,' Hadel explained.

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