As Comic-Con winds down, here are a couple of newsworthy notes that may not get as much press as the MCU but are just as worthy of attention. Like SMILING FRIENDS! This is seriously the best and funniest Adult Swim original in years. And there will be new content VERY SOON!
We speak of “Smiling Friends Go To Brazil,” a special set to appear on HBO Max August 7. Presumably this will appear on Adult Swim as well, but the press release would only confirm its streaming appearance. And here’s what happens in it:
The Smiling Friends finally get to relax in a beautiful Brazilian beach town; Pim works on his novel; Charlie binges a load of torrent shows on his portable hard drive; Alan and Glep enjoy some long-awaited chill-out time at the beach.
Obviously this is just the setup and there will be more than this, but we wouldn’t want any spoilers, would we? There’s no indication if this is the traditional 11 minutes or a full 22-minute special. No images of it were made available either.
To be honest here, one of the bits of Comic-Con news this reporter has been craving most is a trailer reveal for Tiny Toons Looniversity, the revival of the 1990s syndicated / Fox Kids series coming to HBO Max at some point. It was announced a long time ago and if there was any time for real footage to surface, it would be now. And there was a rumor we would, indeed, get that trailer at SDCC.
Well, we’re in the final day and….sigh…it didn’t show up. We did get SOMETHING, but it’s not enough for a full article, forcing me to cram it into the Smiling Friends post. There are now two previously unrevealed pieces of art out there:
New art!!! #sdcc pic.twitter.com/hJXERpoVeE
— This Means Podcast (@ofcthismeanspod) July 22, 2022
Speaking as someone who grew up with the original and watched every rerun until I had all the episodes memorized (except for Toons From The Crypt, which Fox banned), I can’t tell you how happy this image makes me. They look exactly the same as they did before, and EVERYONE is there…well, except for Elmyra, because as we know and have been told, Elmyra will not be included in the show….
…..wait a minute…. (squints and looks in the back)
WHO’S THIS THEN???
Have we been lied to? Perhaps misled….our main source of the rumor was Cree Summer, who said she had not been asked to be part of the show. But so far, the cast announcements have been all new actors (Babs was just revealed to be played by someone named Ashleigh Hairston)…so maybe Elmyra has been there the whole time, just played by someone else.
Tiny Toons Looniversity still has no release window, but is supposed to appear on HBO Max and Cartoon Network eventually.