In 2001, something strange happened to Cartoon Network. When the night came, cartoons for children ended and a new crop of animated series aimed at adults took over. The kiddie pool had gone to bed, and it was time for Adult Swim.

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The programming block began with an eclectic mix of absurdist shows, like “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” and “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law,” which continue to be some of the best Adult Swim shows ever. It may throw in a live-action series like “The Eric Andre Show” once in a while, but most importantly, Adult Swim remains one of the few places still making dangerous TV. It’s not afraid to take some big swings, and while that can lead to a bonafide hit that wiggles out of the underground into the mainstream, not every offering turns out to be a success.

It’s hard coming up with a list of the worst Adult Swim shows because so many of its programs are experimental and often comedic. Everyone’s comedic tastes will differ, so something that’s painfully unfunny to one person could be utterly hilarious to another. It may also help to watch some of the shows on this list while under the influence of some kind of substance, but when stone cold sober, these shows leave a lot to be desired. 

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Try not to take anything here too seriously, but from someone who’s watched Adult Swim when he was far too young, these are the worst Adult Swim shows.

What if Lassie the dog was a homicidal maniac? That’s effectively the pitch for Adult Swim’s “Mr. Pickles,” which follows the Goodman family acclimating to an ever-changing world. Six-year-old Tommy (Kaitlyn Robrock) goes on adventures with the titular Mr. Pickles, but the dog has a bad habit of wandering off and mutilating and/or killing whoever he saw fit. Honestly, some of Mr. Pickles’ kills, like tearing out someone’s intestines and sawing off a woman’s legs to use as stilts, were gnarlier than anything Art the Clown has done in the “Terrifier” movies.

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“Mr. Pickles” might be something to watch if you’re in the mood for horror, but any comedy was typically sacrificed for the sack of shock value. It’s hard to want to watch a show when you feel the need to avert your eyes to the latest victim of Mr. Pickles’ carnage. The show had its moments of genuine subversiveness beyond body mutilation, like having the series finale be a surprise pilot for the spinoff series, “Momma Named Me Sheriff.” 

Even amidst all the carnage, perhaps the most bizarre thing about “Mr. Pickles” is that they got Brooke Shields in the voice cast. “Mr. Pickles” certainly had some funny moments, but it’s not really the kind of thing we ever feel like revisiting.

In the mid-2000s, Adult Swim put out a cartoon with an art style reminiscent of classic Jack Kirby comics. On its own, that sounds like it would be enough for the show to have some kind of redeeming quality, but then the rest of “Minoriteam” happens. 

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The series centers on five superheroes, each one based on a racial stereotype, like El Jefe (Nick Puga), a Mexican hero who combats the forces of evil using… a leafblower. The villains they fought were typically based on ideas of white supremacy and roadblocks to minorities advancing in society, like the Corporate Ladder (Todd James). No one ever said this show was subtle.

Undoubtedly, the series has good intentions, but with so many racial stereotypes flying at you at warp speed, it’s hard to make out what exactly the morals are supposed to be in any given episode. It’s effectively making fun of racism but engaging with racism itself, so 20 years after it came out, it’s almost unbearable to watch. That’s not even a result of society getting too “woke,” but if a show wants to dabble in racist concepts, it needs to be just a modicum smarter. You can’t fight racism by being ironically racist, and it’s probably best for Adult Swim to try to make everyone think this show never happened. 

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If you asked someone to come up with a parody of an Adult Swim show, chances are high they’d come up with the basic premise for “Assy McGee.” It’s a parody of cop shows where the titular hardboiled detective is just a pair of butt cheeks and legs that defies his superiors to solve whatever the case of the week is. This usually involves going on nonsequiters that, by the end of the episode, lead to Assy (Larry Murphy) solving the case and earning the respect of the Chief. 

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Much of the humor stems from the fact that many scenes from “Assy McGee” are played totally straight. The dialogue and grittiness of Assy’s character feel ripped out of a 1970s Clint Eastwood movie; it’s just that it’s all coming from a sentient butt. It’s the kind of thing that could’ve worked as a surrealist short film, but trying to make this premise spread out across 20 episodes was already a tall order. It all starts feeling too one-note after a while.

If there’s one good thing to come out of “Assy McGee,” it’s that it proved Larry Murphy and H. Jon Benjamin worked really great together. Murphy voices most of the male characters while Benjamin voices the Mayor, and their chemistry would be more heavily rewarded in the far more successful “Bob’s Burgers.”

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“Lazor Wulf” might be most notable today for featuring the voice talents of a pre-“Abbott Elementary” Quinta Brunson, who’d end up making Emmy history. Sadly, the show doesn’t make particularly good use of her talents nor that of anyone else in the cast, like Vince Staples, J.D. Witherspoon, and Reginald VelJohnson. 

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Based on a 2013 Tumblr webcomic, “Lazor Wulf” takes the titular wolf on a series of adventures with his friends who pretty much just want to hang out all the time. It’s definitely a more lowkey Adult Swim series that’s devoid of the gore and outrageousness that often accompanies other shows. The only problem with this is that it swings too hard into the other direction of being fairly boring. There’s not much to differentiate Lazur Wulf (Staples) to someone like Cannon Wulf (Ettore “Big E” Ewen) other than the fact one has a laser and the other has a cannon. 

Even though each episode only runs 11 minutes (par the course for Adult Swim series), the storylines never feel like they settle into a groove. They move onto one idea to the next, and without a strong sense of character, it’s hard to feel passionate about any of their plans. “Lazor Wulf” probably works best as a hangout show when you have a few buddies over and want something on the TV you don’t really need to pay attention to. For everyone else, it’s mostly a tedious affair. 

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Millennial humor is far more absurd than generations’ past. It feels like a genuine attempt for the generation to make sense and come to terms with a reality that frequently doesn’t make sense itself, so the only way to rage against a Kafka-esque capitalistic system is to make art that itself doesn’t make sense. This is where Adult Swim really shines with shows like “The Eric Andre Show” that deconstructs the concept of a talk show. In contrast, “Mostly 4 Millennials” feels like an “Eric Andre Show” rehash that limits itself with its skewed takes on millennial culture. 

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That rehash quality probably makes sense considering Eric Andre himself produces the show that’s hosted by Derrick Beckles. It even has many of the same schticks as its predecessor, including random non-sequiters like the sudden appearance of Thomas the Vape Engine as well as interviews with celebrities who don’t seem to fully understand what it is they’ve signed up for. Everyone from Snooki of “Jersey Shore” to political commentator Ann Coulter popped up during the show’s eight-episode run, and during that time, the show never managed to escape its predecessor’s trappings.

One thing “Mostly 4 Millennials” did get right is understand how integral Fred Durst (who plays DJ Durst) would end up becoming to the idea of millennial culture. After his stint on the Adult Swim show, he get parts in two 2024 films about what the zeitgeist was like at the turn of the 21st century — “I Saw the TV Glow” and “Y2K.”

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The best “Rick and Morty” episodes offer a perfect mix of absurdism, nihilism, and genuine emotion. “Rick and Morty: The Anime” offers none of that and is mostly just an exercise in seeing whether “Rick and Morty” fans will watch anything with the titular namesakes attached.

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Given how the original show deals with the multiverse, it makes sense for infinite storylines to be on the table. Adult Swim has even put out multiple shorts showing Rick Sanchez (Ian Cardoni) and Morty Smith (Harry Belden) in myriad animation styles while going on cool one-off adventures. “Rick and Morty: The Anime” offers a 10-episode arc that bizarrely chooses to begin with Rick and Morty separated and doing their own things. It takes a while for the plot to get going, but amidst all of the intergalactic battles, there’s none of the show’s signature humor or nihilism. It might’ve made for a decent space show outside of the “Rick and Morty” name, but bringing these characters into a setting that doesn’t mesh well with their sensibilities is a recipe for disaster. 

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That’s nothing to say of the final two episodes, where Morty prepares to say goodbye to Elle (Hitomi Sasaki/Luci Christian), his love interest from the season. And he proceeds to cry for pretty much two episodes straight, which just becomes grating after a while. “Rick and Morty” can definitely have some emotional beats, but this becomes an over-the-top tear-fest to the point you just want to see Elle leave so that Morty will stop crying. 

Adult Swim might be the true successor to the late, great David Lynch’s brand of dream-like movies. Anyone who enjoys untangling the twisting timeline of Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” may find something to enjoy with “Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories.” A lot of Adult Swim shows feel like you’re in the middle of a dream (or perhaps nightmare), where if you fell asleep with the TV on and woke up in the middle of the night, you may be unsure if you’re awake or still dreaming. Sadly, “Tropical Cop Tales” tries to utilize this aesthetic with little reward. 

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The show’s about two cops, Primetime Weeyums (Dominique Witten) and Meechie Franks (Ted Ferguson), who relocate to a tropical island, hoping it’ll be more peaceful, only to find it’s far more bizarre than what they’re used to. For example, their new boss Captain Solomon (Carl Solomon) yells all the time, and seeing random people burst into shouts and screams is par the course for the show as a whole. 

“Tropical Cop Tales” is kind of a fascinating experiment; it’s just not an entertaining watch. The various “Tim & Eric” shows prove you can be both surreal and funny. “Tropical Cop Tales” does the former while ignoring the latter.

One of the most attractive set pieces on Adult Swim is the Toonami block, which typically provides unique anime shows that deviate from the absurd animations that generally define the programming block. Suffice it to say, there was a lot of anticipation when it was announced in 2019 that Adult Swim was working on a miniseries to adapt Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki” horror manga, which focuses on a small town plagued by a supernatural curse defined by the presence of spirals overtaking people’s humanity. When the first episode aired, there were plenty of reasons to be excited, as it was a faithful adaptation that made effectively freaky use out of Ito’s iconic spirals. Then the rest of the series happened…

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Fans were quick to note the abysmal drop in animation quality starting with the second episode. Characters suddenly move stiffly, almost like robots. It plays like some bad flash animation, and the response was so harsh that “Uzumaki” producer Jason DeMarco had to come out and say what exactly went wrong with the adaptation: “I can’t talk about what went down, but we were screwed over, and the options were A) not finish and air nothing and call it a loss, B) Just finish and air ep 1 and leave it incomplete or C) run all four, warts and all. Out of respect for the hard work we chose C.”

Given that it took five years for four episodes to get made, it definitely sounds like something happened behind the scenes that prevented the team from giving it the care and attention the show deserved. Maybe down the road, another team can take a crack at it.

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Many of the worst Adult Swim shows lasted a season or two, but “Squidbillies” persisted for an astonishing 13-season run. It really does come across as one of those shows where people either love it or hate it. The show’s created by Jim Fortier and Dave Willis, the latter of whom helped bring to life “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” with “Squidbillies” attempting to implement the same kind of subversive humor intertwined with genuine charm. But in our opinion, “Squidbillies” just never quite reached the same heights as “ATHF.”

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The series uses talking hillbilly mud squids to poke fun at Southern archetypes, living in rural Appalachia. The inherent problem with this is that it’s easy to get ahead of the show’s jokes that center around racism and general bigotry. You kind of know what the abusive Early Cuyler is going to get up to. 

Eventually, real life mirrored the show itself, as Early’s original voice actor, Stuart Daniel Baker, was let go due to making offensive remarks toward the Black Lives Matter movement and Dolly Parton. He was replaced with Tracy Morgan for the show’s final season, but it does beg the question as to whether shows like “Squidbillies” adequately satirize racism or if they merely promote it. Was someone like Baker aware that the show was making fun of people like him, or did he think the targets of Early’s ire were the punchlines? It’s the inherent problem with shows that have racist characters to make fun of racism.

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Adult Swim has made it a habit to screw with its viewers. This often manifests with its April Fools’ jokes, like the time it aired the 2007 “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” movie but only in a tiny square in the corner of the screen while an episode of “Futurama” played behind it. In 2005, it aired “12 oz. Mouse” where the entire show feels like a middle finger to the audience with its crude animation style and snail-paced stories.

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The MS Paint style animation feels very much in Adult Swim’s wheelhouse, but lazy animation doesn’t mean there needs to be lazy writing with it. Often, conversations drag on far too long with major pauses between each character talking. And the central character, Mouse Fitzgerald (Matt Maiellaro), pretty much functions as an agent of chaos, saying and doing whatever is the most random thing in the moment. Rather than being an absurdist comedy, it feels more like an absurdist… nothing.

Adult Swim shows should be absurd, surreal, and groundbreaking. They should feel like they’re pushing boundaries where they only place they could possibly exist is a short period of time on Cartoon Network rather than any streaming service. Sometimes in the pursuit of something that feels like it’s never been done before, there’s going to be a misfire, but considering all of the amazing shows Adult Swim has given us over the years, it’s okay to overlook the occasional misstep. 

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