In a particularly tense episode of Adult Swim’s newest animated series, Haha, You Clowns, someone’s ears won’t pop during an airplane flight. Chaos ensues as the teenage boy panics, his father searches desperately for chewing gum in their overhead baggage, and an empathetic flight attendant struggles to maintain order.
That may all sound like a minor kerfuffle, at best, but for a show about three sweet, simple brothers who think their dad is the coolest guy ever, this 11-minute cartoon might as well be Air Force One. In other words, Haha, You Clowns is a very silly show, even by Adult Swim standards.
“This was my opportunity to make something sort of sweet-natured,” series creator Joe Cappa tells Polygon, “but it’s tongue in cheek as well.”
Premiering on Oct. 19, Haha, You Clowns tells the story of Tristan, Preston, Duncan, and their widower dad (all voiced by Cappa). With its earnest protagonists and warmhearted world-building, it’s a slice of storytelling taken to the extreme. In another episode, Preston loses his prized jacket. That’s it. That’s the entire episode. (Don’t worry, he finds it in the end.)
That might not sound like the most engaging television, but there’s something surprisingly comfy about watching this lovable brood live their daily lives. Much more in the camp of Joe Pera Talks to You than Rick and Morty (despite its similarly crude animation), Haha, You Clowns might just be the antidote we need to the cynicism of our era — or, at the very least, a brief reprieve from it.
“This show is just me exploring characters that are wholesome,” Cappa says.
Haha, You Clowns, which started as a series of Adult Swim shorts before graduating to a full season of 10ish-minute-long episodes, represents an opportunity to tell a type of story Cappa thinks is sorely lacking from our culture at the moment.
“Right now, the big trend online is cringe,” Cappa says. “But before cringe, I was always fascinated by people I’d see out in the world who just seem to have this positive attitude about life. I never thought to make fun of these people, but I wanted to know how they thought and why they’re so sweet.”
Cappa experimented with a bunch of different ideas before landing on Haha, You Clowns. His animated short, Ghost Dog (about a rescue dog haunted by the ghosts of its new owner’s dead pets), was even an official selection at Sundance 2021, but something clicked when he came up with the idea for this trio of brothers.
“The idea that they just love their dad so much and think he’s the coolest thing ever was really funny to me,” Cappa says, quickly adding that there’s more to Tristan, Preston, Duncan than their child-like adoration for their father. “A lot of people see them as kind of dumb, but they have an emotional intelligence.”
On a first watch, Haha, You Clowns might even seem like a dumb show. None of the TV tropes we associate with smart comedy are present — there’s no meta-commentary, no clever quips, and no cutting-edge pop culture references.
But for Cappa, that’s the point. He wants his show to be a rebuke of the type of humor that’s defined mainstream culture for the last decade, ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe elbowed traditional comedies out of movie theaters. There’s no chance Haha, You Clowns can take down the Avengers, but perhaps it can chip away at the world order Tony Stark helped solidify.
“There’s this level of irony that we can’t get ourselves out of,” Cappa says. “It’s like we have to know we’re the smartest person in the room when we’re watching stuff. I feel like we’ve been doing this for 10 years, and we just have to laugh at something different now. Comedy has to evolve.”
If that all sounds absurdly ambitious, and perhaps a bit self-important, don’t worry, Cappa isn’t trying to take himself too seriously. How could he, with a TV show in which three brothers debate whether to circumcise their future, unborn children? For the moment, he’s just extremely happy just to be here.
“I’m so happy that Adult Swim still takes risks on things that don’t feel like Rick and Morty,” Cappa says. “They’re still willing to expand the palette. So yeah, I am grateful I’ve been given this opportunity and I just don’t want to blow it now.”
