Could ”King Star King” be a game-changer for Adult Swim?

Fred Seibert (Cartoon Hangover) usually travels the country saying that because of Youtube, internet is the platform in which the ”Golden Age of Animation” will be set. Unfortunately, Youtube is a really small part of the equation when it comes to cartoons on the internet, as we can definitely attest to the fact that 90% of the cartoons we get emailed never make it to a review or post on Bubbleblabber because for the most part they all suck. Everyday, ”producers” watch an episode of South Park, buy Flash, then think they can create the next big series, but more often than not it never pans out.

The cartoon industry is a lot like the music industry in that yes, online is a valued marketplace for content, but you still have your premier players who invest dollars looking to get a return. Advertisers know this and as such usually focus their dollars on brands like FOX ADHD, Netflix, and Adult Swim when it comes to online content advertising which certainly makes a lot of sense. That said, programming like Rick and Morty certainly shows that it doesn’t matter where you put a animated series (whether it’d be online or on TV), if it’s popular and quality entertainment, people will flock to it. Nowadays, anytime Adult Swim airs a show on their TV network, the episode is usually available the next day on AdultSwim.com. This isn’t something that they started, hell, South Park was doing it before everyone even had broadband internet access. But, the success of Rick and Morty both online and on television certainly shows that you can put premium content on a valued brand like an AdultSwim.com, and get a bunch of people to watch it, but it also shows there is a quality viewer base for the web-site that could proof fruitful for future prospects looking to get their TV shows picked up. Comedy Central does it different right now, what they do is they give a web-animated series a little bit of money, and if the show gets popular they pick it up to TV. Adult Swim is taking a TV show that they already gave TV dollars to, and putting it online.

Is it possible that Adult Swim and FOX are getting ready to test internet strategies to see which works best for their content? For FOX, that could lead to producing television shows exclusive to a service like Hulu. For Adult Swim, that could start in a few weeks on AdultSwim.com…with King Star King. Earlier this week, AdultSwim.com had put out  a poll seeing if their rabid, but loyal viewer-base would prefer to watch brand-new episodes of King Star King either in bulk-viewing or in a weekly setting. My preference is for the latter, but that’s another story for another day. The big deal here is that Adult Swim could be first to market on offering up a TV-quality animated series exclusively online without needing a subscription service. If you had read our recent issue of Bubbleblabber the Magazine, you would notice that at the time, show creator JJ Villard was pitched by Adult Swim to come up with a TV companion series to Superjail! akin to the relationship that Squidbillies and Aqua Teen have (though I’m hearing that both shows will actually air in separate seasons this year). What we are getting instead is Superjail!  premiering its fourth season on June 15th, then on that same day, we are getting the premier of King Star King on AdultSwim.com. 

This is a game-changer. If King Star King can bring in a bunch of viewers exclusive to online, then this will be the first-time a made-for-TV animated series has brought in a qualified viewer base to an online destination…for free. This could spell the start of something beautiful for Adult Swim, but devastating for services like Hulu and Netflix. If Adult Swim is giving me free animated shows, why the fuck would I subscribe to a pay service? At the end of the day, Adult Swim programming is cataloged with a library that few networks can really match on the animated front. And guess what? No subscription fee…nothing. And arguably, Adult Swim has as much of an installed viewer-base as anyone on the internet including Netflix and Hulu, and even more so because it’s a way more targeted (and way more coveted) audience.

So, could King Star King be the TRUE future of online animated television? Time will tell, and the show looks tasty as hell, so we know the quality is certainly be there. But, if I’m Netflix, Hulu, or even a broadcaster, I’m keeping tabs on how this plays out. Check out the pilot episode of King Star King here.