Adult Swim\u2018s animated comedy \u201cSmiling Friends\u201d is ending after its third season. Creators and stars Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel revealed the news in a video posted to Adult Swim\u2019s X account.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gonna cut right to the chase,\u201d Hadel said at the top of the message. \u201cThis is not a bit, this is not a joke. Michael and I are here to announce that \u2018Smiling Friends\u2019 will be ending after Season 3 is done.\u201d<\/p>\n
An important announcement from Michael and Zach pic.twitter.com\/wVGLap6yrc \u2014 adult swim (@adultswim) February 26, 2026<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be perfectly honest, after we finished Season 3, Zach and I just both had the same feeling where we felt pretty burnt out after putting years and years into this, but also pretty accomplished,\u201d Cusack added. \u201cWe just came to this feeling where we were like, \u2018I think that could just be it,\u2019 after Season 3.\u201d<\/p>\n
Popular on Variety<\/p>\n
Hadel explained that from the very beginning, he and Cusack wanted to put \u201c110%\u201d into \u201cSmiling Friends\u201d and then \u201cgo out on top.\u201d He said it was better to leave the audience \u201cwanting more\u201d than to have fans think, \u201c\u2018That show is still on the air? Oh god.’\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t want to be doing more seasons half-hearted or burnt out or not feeling it,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s not fair to us, and it\u2019s not fair to the audience to give you guys fucking slop. That sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cusack explained that ending \u201cSmiling Friends\u201d was \u201cour decision,\u201d and that Adult Swim has been \u201cvery supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we told them exactly this, they said, \u2018If you\u2019re not feeling like making a cartoon, we\u2019re not going to stop you. Go have a break. Either come back or don\u2019t,\u201d Cusack continued. \u201cThat\u2019s the other thing, we could come back in the future and make more episodes if we want, if we feel like it. And they\u2019ve been super cool and said they would let us do that. But maybe not. Who knows?\u201d<\/p>\n
The pair went on to announce that two unreleased Season 3 episodes will air April 12 on Adult Swim. Hadel clarified they are \u201cnot finales,\u201d but rather \u201clittle stragglers\u201d that didn\u2019t make it into the initial season rollout.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know this is very disappointing,\u201d Cusack concluded, \u201cIt\u2019s been very hard to even record this recording for it because it\u2019s just a very difficult thing to say for us. We hope you understand and we hope you\u2019ve enjoyed what we\u2019ve done. It\u2019s been amazing. The fans have been so good. It\u2019s been the best. It\u2019s been the ride of a lifetime. But I hope you see where we are coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: RhinoEasy News<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adult Swim\u2018s animated comedy \u201cSmiling Friends\u201d is ending after its third season. Creators and stars Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}