Adult Swim's The Elephant Review

Join Swimpedia as we review a screener of the brand new special Adult Swim's The Elephant and experience a one of a kind creation that could only come from this network!

[MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD]

When The Elephant was first announced at SDCC this year, it felt like they had plucked the concept directly from what animation fans on social media had been clamoring for for years; the same drive to see CN legends working on an AS project that had surrounded all of Genndy Tartakovsky’s work on the network in recent years, the same fervor that has led to repeated social media discussion about what CN show “should’ve been on AS” that seems to go around every couple months. So for an idea so incredibly anticipated, it feels pretty surreal seeing it go from announcement straight to premiere within less than half a year.

The concept of the special itself is simple: four Cartoon Network animation legends collaborating on a half hour piece for the network; Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time), Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), Ian Jones-Quartey (OK K.O.!), and Patrick McHale (Over the Garden Wall) each contributing to a piece of it (with Ian and Rebecca working as a duo). The catch being that much like a game of Exquisite Corpse, the artists were sectioned off from one another and unaware what the others created whilst they worked on their segment.

The results of this experiment are fascinating, as between the three distinct segments, each one varies wildly in tone and style, with each creator using a handpicked selection of creative talent, and smaller indie studios to craft their piece, with Titmouse overseeing animation operations (in the complementary BTS documentary, Kelly Crews states that she knew instantly they would understand the assignment, and considering the network’s storied history with the studio, it makes perfect sense, and pays off in dividends; there’s no part of the 23 minutes that ever looks uninteresting visually).

Besides the visual spectacle of the piece, the real achievement of it for us was how the story evolves from segment to segment in a paradoxically synchronistic way. Each piece feels much more like one third of a triptych than separate paintings, which feels almost impossible given the degree of quarantining between the creative staff.

Pendleton’s segment feels the most tonally reminiscent of past Adult Swim projects (Pendleton himself had a pilot air on the network last year), with fast-paced chases and zany action sequences that would feel at home in a Christy Karacas show, mixed with a level of absurdity similar to an in-house Williams Street show like Perfect Hair Forever, with incredibly rich visuals that deserve their own rewatch just to fully appreciate.

Rebecca and Ian’s segment feels the most like its own individual short, introducing us to a whole new world whilst telling the story of a character learning a self-contained lesson all within roughly 7 minutes (the parallels between this character’s wants and Rebecca and Ian’s own aims, to use this project as a way to stray from what they think the audience would expect of them given their past work, is a text that is apparent in the work itself even before it is later confirmed in the accompanying documentary). This part of the triptych is also when dialogue starts to become a more core part of the piece, with the notable use of only a couple VAs to voice every character giving the project a more indie feel. The great range of the few performers used, such as Maria Bamford, give each character they play over the special their own unique taste though, which definitely helps it from being as noticeable as it could be.

The third and final segment, by Patrick McHale, is the standout of the piece for us, taking an incredibly risky play to completely swerve from the fast-paced and playful segments before, to instead pump the breaks fully and create a soft meditative piece that perfectly intertwines with what came previously, whilst also adding its own coat of paint to the picture. That decision gave the overall piece much more cohesion than it probably would have otherwise had, at the expense of a small degree of tonal whiplash. It should be stated again how much of a massive achievement that is considering it’s all done with no knowledge of what came before.

Along with the special itself, Adult Swim is airing an accompanying half hour documentary program about the production of the short, with interviews from the creatives involved and explaining the process in detail. It’s a fun companion to the main piece, but feels a little surface level in places, the main drawback being that the entirety of it takes place after production has finished on all three segments, with discussion being about the process after it has already happened, explaining their decisions. While considerably less feasible to produce than what we got, we could easily watch a feature-length version that follows each team from the inception of the idea through the entire production process. Seeing the evolution of the ideas and seeing them each gather their respective creative teams would be a fascinating look behind the curtain into the project itself and what goes into creating such a marvel of animation like this.

In a press release for the special, Michael Ouweleen mentioned that: “Every year around this time, we try to give the Adult Swim audience a gift they didn’t know they needed, and this year, it’s ‘Adult Swim's The Elephant.’” Obviously in reference to the recent tradition of Adult Swim airing highly produced event one-offs like the two Yule Log movies towards the end of the year. If this really is a new tradition for the network, and we’ll see another project of this caliber this time next year, then we eagerly await our next present.

Adult Swim's The Elephant premieres on Adult Swim tonight at 11:00 PM, with the Behind the Scenes special airing at 4:00 AM, and both next day on HBO Max!