Sad: Smiling Friends, the best adult animation on TV, is ending after 3 seasons

For anyone who’s never seen Adult Swim’s flagship show Smiling Friends before, I implore you to go get caught up now, because the show is officially coming to an end this April.

Creators Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel announced the news in a six-minute video posted to Adult Swim’s Twitter account.

Smiling Friends is coming to an end

An important announcement from Michael and Zach pic.twitter.com/wVGLap6yrc

— adult swim (@adultswim) February 26, 2026

>> Shop Philly Sports Apparel Here

This show isn’t for everyone. I’ve tried showing it to numerous people with mixed results. Some have become loyal fans, like myself, while others were thoroughly confused about what I found so good about it. That’s the magic of it. It’s so fucking weird and right up my alley. It’s one of the only shows that scratches the itch Smiling Friends does, so obviously, I’m disappointed it’s ending.

But I respect Hadel and Cusack’s decision. In short, they don’t want the show to overstay its welcome, and they both feel like they’ve done everything they wanted to do with it.

That’s cool by me. In a world full of Stranger Things, it’s refreshing when showrunners like these guys understand the shelf life of a show. The cancellation certainly won’t stop me from going back and watching it again and again.

>> More Trending News: Hackers used Anthropic’s Claude AI to steal 150GB of Mexican government data

On a positive note, there will be two more final episodes of Smiling Friends dropping in April. They’re technically part of Season 3, and per the showrunners, these aren’t finales in the traditional sense. They’re just extra episodes the team completed that, thankfully, we’ll still get to enjoy.

I’m sure 10 years from now this show will be in the pantheon of all-time great adult animations. Three seasons of pure gold, no filler, just weird shit for the sake of weird shit. It’ll be sorely missed.