Adult Swim is the home of late-night television programming for (im)mature audiences. In the after hours, a strange array of shows keep the viewer awake or lull them into thinking their mind was having an insomniac daydream.The nighttime identityof Cartoon Network runs from 9 P.M. to 6 A.M. for those sleepless night owls at home. Adult Swim isalternative basic cable, syndicating shows with little to no editing, both live-action and animated.
Adult humor in the form of innocent cartoons has beena favorite of fanssince the channel’s inception in September 2001. One show that started this wave of surreal absurdism wasSealab 2021. Before Adult Swim existed, Cartoon Network aired its first three episodes alongsideother classic showsthat got their start on the network, likeAqua Teen Hunger ForceandHarvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. The left-field thinking, disjointed banter, and clever situational word associations makeSealab 2021an Adult Swim diamond in the rough.
In the beginning, creators Adam Reed and Matt Thompson (both of whom went on to work on the spy parodyArcher) were hard-pressed by Cartoon Network when their original pitch for the show was deemed unfunny. Reed and Thompson’s first show with Cartoon Network wasHigh Noon Toonsin the 1990s, where they hosted as cowboy hand puppets. Being intoxicated during the creation of the show, leading to them starting a fire on the set, didn’t help their future pitch either. Similarly, the freewheeling duo would go on to create their own cartoon by destroying (reinventing) another.
Everything aboutSealab 2021was a happy accident. First, Reed and Thompson discovered a tape of a 1970s Hannah-Barbera cartoon calledSealab 2020. They wrote replacement dialogue for its characters to give it an almost illogical and irreverent tone. Ironically, Cartoon Network purchased the show at the same time Adult Swim was created. Poking fun at the way adults took matters seriously, and in children’s cartoons, was the foundation for the series.
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Self-Aware Parody
Like otherAdult Swim shows,Sealab 2021used shock comedy against stock footage of old cartoons to stir up unexpected self-awareness and awkward non-sequiturs.Sealab 2021parodied science fiction and environmentalism from the original Hannah-Barbera cartoon to create this comical contrast. Characters are themselves and not themselves at the same time, keeping the show endlessly fresh and familiar.
Captain Hazel “Hank” Murphy (Harry Goz) is an incompetent leader who regularly takes questionable liberties with and without his crew. The first episode of the series has Murphy battling the FCC and their regulations when he uses the headquarters to host a pirate radio show. Self-referential, tongue-in-cheek nods toart imitating lifelike this makeSealab 2021both a personal and subversive show.
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Nonsense Makes Sense
Another idiosyncrasy of the show is its lack of continuity. Episodes kill off and bring back the same characters as an inexplicable running gag and satire on linear and nonlinear storylines. Crew members are given incredible backstories that remarkably give them credibility in an incredible world. Station engineer Marco Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Erik Estrada) is named after Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar from the Spanish epic poemCantar del Mio Cidand Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez. Despite his namesake, he is merely an affectation of a Spaniard with no Spanish heritage or true knowledge of the language. Marquez also happens to be one of the rare few that gets a word in edgewise with Murphy.
Children aboard the government research lab are orphans, erasing any semblance of a larger, futuristic society. School teacher Debbie “Black Debbie” Allison Love (Angela Gibbs) is a proud black woman who reverses gender politics by being a Heisman trophy winner. Close quarters lead the crew to be at odds with each other, often with dire consequences and crazed self-interest. Dr. Quentin Q. Quinn (Brett Butler) is the cliché poverty-stricken, educated man whose intelligence is taken for granted. He is forced to solve the problems that his crew members cause, leading him to hold his self-proclaimed genius against them. As retaliation, Murphy docks Quinn’s vacation time to prevent Quinn from negating his indentured servitude.
A regressive display of ignorance and selfishness makesSealab 2021uncharacteristically but appropriately progressive due to the self-awareness of its contrarian nature. The show wears many hats and masks more often than Hesh Hepplewhite (MC Chris) wears dresses. It isn’t afraid to dress up or dress down its appearance or point of view to meet its transient and poignant punchlines. In-jokes become social commentary, deadpan becomes stranger than fiction, and duplicity becomes relatable. By overcoming expectations,the series is able to be a comedic chameleon, a lowbrow parody disguised as highbrow comedy as much as it is a highbrow comedy disguised as a lowbrow parody. Thanks to its uncanny talent for celebrating and critiquing pain, pleasure, comedy, and tragedy all at once,Sealab 2021is one of the smartest dumb shows to ever exist.
