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[RoyaleDuke]

BIZARRO!

Shut up mailbox head, It's Cupcake time!

Someone said make a thread about Sealab since I already made a thread about both Harvey Birdman and Perfect Hair Forever since I've been depression binge watching.

Good times, I've been feeling really nostalgic ever since they started re-airing Cowboy Bebop and freaking Outlaw Star! I thought about the early days of Adult Swim, and the strange shows they would make that felt like bad fever dreams filled with dark or anti-comedy.

What is, or was Sealab?

Sealab 2020 was an old, failed 13 episode Hanna-Barbara property about themed around environmental scientists in the early 1970s. It got a second life when Hanna Barbara continued their strange partnership with Adult Swim making Adult shows with old properties, it wasn't until Harvey Birdman they got to use really big stuff like Scooby Doo.

That's what we're talking about, it's sequel. Yeah, Sequel there is an entire epsiode where they talk about the old show.

The show went for deep gags like that all the time, this was meta-humor before it really existed on the internet. Harvey Birdman has more layers, but one could almost say that 2021 is more interesting, even if it wasn't as good as Space Ghost Coast To Coast, but few things ever are.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force has always been a mixed bag for me.

This show though? This show was like a more subtle acid fueled fever dream, not to the same incredible pitch of Harvey or Space Ghost, but it was magic similar to many of the early era of Adult Swim animation at Williams Street Productions.

This show continued using, re-using assets and entire clips of old shows with re-dubbing as well as new animation, the kind of thing that would be somewhat standard in the other shows that Adult Swim would do. All these shows have a rough, dreamy quality, that reminds me of early animation. Home Movies is a key example.

Starting the Pilot and I don't even know what to think.

Here is a qoute from Wiki about the show:

Adam Reed and Matt Thompson, the creators and writers of Sealab 2021, came up with the idea for the show in 1995 while they were production assistants for Cartoon Network. They stumbled on a tape of the show Sealab 2020, and wrote new dialogue. Cartoon Network passed on the show because they did not believe it was funny. Five years after quitting Cartoon Network, the two went back to the original tape, this time making the characters do what they wanted. Cartoon Network bought the show, coincidentally around the same time that Adult Swim was created. The original "pitch pilot" is available on the Season 1 DVD as a special feature.

Very few of the episodes of the series share any continuity or ongoing plot. For instance, the entire installation is destroyed at the end of many episodes, and crew members are often killed in horrible ways, only to return in the following episode. There are occasional running gags, such as the "Grizzlebee's" restaurant chain, the character of Sharko, and Prescott, the half-man, half-tentacle monster "from the network." While the show claims to be set in 2021, it contains many references to the pop culture of the 1980s–2000s, and makes use of other cartoons from the 1970s besides that on which it is based, such as 1973's Butch Cassidy for the on-screen appearances of the Sealab writers, and various one-off appearances of other characters.

Sounds fucking bizarre right.

The original pilot was never aired. You can watch it on the Season 1 DVD though!

Yeah, it only gets weirder.

So the first episode is described as:

Murphy starts a pirate radio station, which attracts the attention of the FCC.

Yeah, that is pretty much what happens. Not even joking but it gets weird and bizarre.

Characters die horribly, come back a few episodes later totally fine, sometimes in the same episode. Which is amazing because sometimes even the characters remark on it.

If you're wondering how this got made, it almost didn't because some of the original creators didn't really like the adult context and nature of the show.

 

[Rymuth]

Stopped watching after Captain Murphy went off to the spice wars (RIP Harry Goz) - did not like Tornado Shanks...at all.

My favorite episode is probably the one where they go to rescue a downed sub and the stranded crewmen are debating cannibalism.

This show is pretty much a microcosm of Adam Reed's work. He likes toturing his characters (you can see it later in Archer and Frisky Dingo) though it is far more tolerable here than the excessively mean Frisky Dingo.

Sorry for going off-track. I love Sealab 2021

 

[//ARCANUM]

In high school, my lisence plate said SEA LAB. So yeah, I was a big fan.

“You mean there’s a ..... black stormy?”

Spoiler

“.......no.”

Edit - also, I remember the early days of adult swim fondly. My buddies and I talked about it like this secret time on TV that few people knew about. We would record episodes on VHS and share them with each other.

 

[Reani]

i love this show, its so batshit absurd its a blast to watch

 

[Jeremy]

Amazing ass show. Will probably never forget the episode where Cpt. Murphy is crushed by the soda machine and makes a pal with a scorpion, and I have no idea why.

Why were so many shows using old assets to make “adult comedy” all at what seemed like once? I’m probably wrong on that and am just mashing it all together since I saw most of it excluding Space Ghost only on adult swim for the first time. I figured it might be cheaper but it felt like it all lead the way for mature, late night animated shows.

 

[CrimzonSamurai]

Oh man I love SeaLab.

The Tornado Shanks season (I always forget if its the third or fourth) even has its moments. After about the third episode of that season I think the writers realized it was just never going to work without Murphy (and also Marco) and just went balls-out absurd in the latter episodes, which are actually almost as enjoyable as the earlier seasons, albeit as basically a different show.

 

[fleck0]

Ahhhhh Mingus Dew. Show is a true classic.

 

[daveo42]

This and the Birdman thread remind me of just how awesome Adult Swim was when it first started airing. It also reminds me of how much fun I had in college.

Pod Six is jerks.

 

[Seraphis Cain]

Oh man I love SeaLab.

The Tornado Shanks season (I always forget if its the third or fourth) even has its moments. After about the third episode of that season I think the writers realized it was just never going to work without Murphy (and also Marco) and just went balls-out absurd in the latter episodes, which are actually almost as enjoyable as the earlier seasons, albeit as basically a different show.

Yeah, I absolutely love the Moby Dick episode, despite not really liking the Shanks stuff as a whole. Absolutely bizarre and hilarious.

 

[eyeball_kid]

I liked most all of the Adult Swim shows back then, but none of them made me laugh like Sealab. Completely absurd concepts, but the writing and voice acting was so good that they pulled it off most of the time.

Amazing ass show. Will probably never forget the episode where Cpt. Murphy is crushed by the soda machine and makes a pal with a scorpion, and I have no idea why.

One of my favorite episodes for sure. Stimutacs is another classic.

 

[CommandThrower]

One of my favorite episodes for sure. Stimutacs is another classic.

"It's like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in my brain!!"

"I have the energy of a bear who has the energy of two bears!"

 

[Wingfan19]

The Uh Oh scene never gets old

https://youtu.be/5lz1IGYhWNo

 

[vikki]

Sealab 2021 was the best. Probably my all time favorite from adult swim, barely edging out the other shows of that era of adult swim. Sad that it was short lived, but that first season with captain Murphy, it's like every episode is a classic.

OP talking about a fever dream, Quinn getting electrocuted was the first episode I saw. That episode is a major trip in comparison to the other episodes, but still great.


"Do you want the mustache on or off?"

"Off please"

"Too Bad"


RIP Captain Murphy

 

[Drain You]

The episode where they keep going back in time or some shit is great.

I also send this everytime its someones birthday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GuCC7LitI

 

[Escape Goat]

well, why don’t you call her regular Debbie and the other White Debbie?

That’s stupid. I know she’s white.

 

[Kalnoky]

You're not the boss of Tigerbot Hesh!

 

[Crossing Eden]

"Check their pockets for doubloons!"

"We're not messing around with those skeletons."

".......................................You're an ass"

 

[Metal-Geo]

Booya! Smoked that bitch!

 

[Seraphis Cain]

Hesh just want metal teeth! Hesh'll bite anything! He'll bite that, he'll bite this...

No Hesh don't bite the main power circuit!

AHHH! IT HURTS BAD!

 

[Drain You]

Hesh just want metal teeth! Hesh'll bite anything! He'll bite that, he'll bite this...

No Hesh don't bite the main power circuit!

AHHH! IT HURTS BAD!

I must be drunk cause I just tried to "like" your post. Fucking internet.

 

[Mathieran]

The Uh Oh scene never gets old

https://youtu.be/5lz1IGYhWNo

Holy shit there's full episodes on YouTube? Awesome!

 

[Escape Goat]

"Check their pockets for doubloons!"

"We're not messing around with those skeletons."

".......................................You're an ass"

No pirates, they're paranoid! They've probably got the gold hidden in their butts! Bust open a few skeletons.