The Adult Swim series became a phenomenon, only to end just as it was blowing up. This story first ran in the  animation  newsletter “ Sketch to Screen .”  Subscribe here  to receive a new entry every Thursday. Last year, “ Smiling Friends ” felt like Adult Swim ‘s new flagship hit. The animated series, which originally premiered in 2022, was a weird novelty, a sitcom about employees at a company dedicated to spreading happiness stuffed with bizarre experimental animation and dark, meta humor.