The end of an era that was, frankly, way too short. Creators Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel have unexpectedly announced that their breakout hit Adult Swim series Smiling Friends is ending with Season 3, which fans thought had concluded in late November last year.
“This is not a bit, this is not a joke,” Hadel explained in a six-minute audio statement recorded alongside Cusack that was shared across Adult Swim’s social media accounts on February 25. “Michael and I are here to announce Smiling Friends will be ending after Season 3 is done.”
The creators cited burnout as a major factor in their decision. “To be honest, after Season 3, Zach and I both had the same feeling where we felt pretty burnt out after putting years and years into this, but also pretty accomplished,” Cusack explained. “We came to this feeling where we were like, ‘This can just be it.'”
The dynamic duo — who got their starts as animators and voice actors making original content on YouTube — went on to give fans a bit of hope by noting that if someday they feel revitalized on the series or feel they have more they want to do, they may come back. It’s a nice maybe to have out there in the universe, but in the interest of not leading the fans on, Cusack and Hadel doubled down on the fact that the series is truly coming to an end at this point.
That said, they’re not finishing things off without a parting gift, especially considering the third season came and went with fans not suspecting a thing due to the fact that the series was already renewed for Seasons 4 and 5. The series will return to Adult Swim for just two more episodes, one the creators claimed in their statement were not finales but “stragglers” from the third season, on April 12.
Personally, I find this news to be devastating. Many fans have talked about their fears of the show overstaying its welcome and becoming a shell of the greatness that it once exuded, a phenomenon attributed mostly to Rick and Morty when citing this as a reason for wanting the show to go out on top. But Smiling Friends has been consistently excellent since day one, all the way through this third season. That’s a fear with any show; you want a series you think is great to stay great until the end, but far too many people (fans and creators alike) take that as an existential threat, which makes them afraid for a show to spend any length of time stretching its legs for fear it’ll fall into that terrifying subpar version of itself.
Ultimately, this is Smiling Friends going out on top, and if its creators don’t have that spark for it anymore, it’s noble of them to be honest with themselves and the audience. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be sad about it (I am, if you couldn’t tell).
Despite the shock of the announcement, this isn’t the first time Hadel and Cusack have discussed wanting to avoid a fate where the series loses its spark. “We don’t want it to be a show that outstays its welcome and goes on forever,” Cusack told Indiewire in October 2025. “Zach and I have made a promise to each other where we’ll always be honest and say, ‘Look, do we want to keep going with this, or do we want to wrap it up on a high note?'”
Smiling Friends premiered on Adult Swim in January 2022 after the pilot episode was aired during Adult Swim’s April Fools Day programming in 2020 and garnered a lot of attention. All three seasons are available to stream on HBO Max.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
