Adult Swim (stylized as [adult swim] and [as]) is an American adult-oriented television programming block on Cartoon Network that airs during the evening, prime time, and late-night dayparts. The block features stylistically varied animated and live-action series targeting an adult audience. The block's content includes original programming, which are particularly comedies and action series, syndicated series, and short films with generally minimal or no editing for content. Adult Swim is programmed by Williams Street, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Television Studios that also produces much of the block's original programming.
Launched on September 2, 2001, Adult Swim has frequently aired animated sitcoms, adult animation features, parody, satire, mockumentaries, sketch comedy, and pilots, with many of its programs being aesthetically experimental, transgressive, improvised, and surrealist in nature. Adult Swim has contracted with various studios known for their productions in absurd and shock comedy.[1] In addition to comedy, Adult Swim also broadcasts Japanese anime and American action animation, and since May 2012 this type of programming has generally been aired on its Saturday night Toonami block, which itself is a relaunch of the original block of the same name that ran on Cartoon Network from March 1997 to September 2008. Adult Swim operates a video game division known as Adult Swim Games, which started publishing indie games not based on the block's original programming in 2011.
Adult Swim initially ran in the late night hours.[2] It began to expand into prime time in 2008, and moved its start time to 8:00 p.m. ET/PT in 2014.[3][4] To take advantage of adult viewership of Cartoon Network in the daypart, Adult Swim expanded further to 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays beginning in May 2023.[5] After experiencing success with the changes, Adult Swim further expanded to 5:00 p.m. on August 28, 2023, eclipsing Cartoon Network itself in runtime by airing 13 hours a day. Due to this change in hours, the expanded runtime is filled with a block known as Checkered Past on weekdays, which airs classic Cartoon Network original series from the 1990s and 2000s.[6]
Due to its differing demographics, Adult Swim is usually promoted by The Cartoon Network, Inc. as being a separate network time-sharing with Cartoon Network on its channel allotments, with its viewership being measured separately by Nielsen from the youth-oriented daytime and afternoon programming carried under the Cartoon Network branding.
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