These days, Adult Swim spends almost as much time airing original characters as deconstructing (or re-running) old ones. If selling 600,000 DVDs means anything, Aqua Teen Hunger Force is the block’s current breakout hit. In minimalist animation, the show follows the adventures of Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad, dedicated slackers who happen to be talking, anthropomorphic fast food products.

Aqua Teen is the brainchild of Matt Maiellaro, Space Ghost‘s first staff writer, and fellow Cartoon Network veteran Dave Willis. It began as an unproduced Space Ghost script about revenge-minded fast food restaurant mascots, but took on a life of its own. According to Crofford, “Not many people at the network were behind it, but Matt and Dave believed in the show. We let them have full reign and gave them a year to figure out how to make it work. They made it work.”

Matt Maierllaro (left) and Dave Willis (right) are the creators of the undisputed breakout hit Aqua Teen Hunger. Courtesy of Cartoon Network.

Production-wise, he describes the characters as, “basically puppets that we slide across the screen using [Adobe’s] After Effects [software]. We edit on Final Cut Pro, which talks to After Effects very well.

“We concentrate on the writing, because comedy on an adult show is driven by the writing. Our guys are adept at writing for the animation they have, and we’re able to reuse certain cycles.”

The Venture Brothers is Adult Swim’s newest show. A through-the-looking-glass version of Jonny Quest, Venture follows a sourpuss scientist, his close-to-clueless teen sons and their hypermacho bodyguard. The snappily written series is backed up by animation that looks far slicker than one would expect on a late-night budget, which Crofford credits as, “a testament to Noodlesoup Productions,” the New York City animation studio producing the series. “It amazes me what they’ve done with the little budget we’ve given them. [Show creator] Jackson Public grew up working on The Tick, both the animated and the live-action series. He just knows how to make it work, he’s a brilliant artist as well.”

Crofford credits Noodlesoup Productions with making the new show The Venture Brothers look so good on a small budget. © Cartoon Network.

As evidenced by The Venture Brothers, Adult Swim’s success and its subsequent appetite for programming has exceeded Cartoon Network’s ability to produce shows in-house. “We have to keep feeding the beast, and we can only do so much in Atlanta,” says Crofford, noting that a full-time development executive who has joined the staff is “bombarded by submissions.” He adds that the block is beginning to commission work in L.A., then goes on to list a slew of new shows being developed both in Atlanta and from outside studios:

“In August we aired the pilot for Stroker and Hoop, which I like to describe as Starsky and Hutch meet Knight Rider. They’re two struggling P.I.’s who aren’t exactly the sharpest tacks in the box, and they work with an ornery talking car who’d rather be on talk radio than dealing with these guys.” The show, which was developed in-house by Jeff Olsen and Casper Kelly is targeted for a spring 2005 premiere.

Set for a spring 2005 debut is Stroker and Hoop (left), described as Starsky and Hutch meets Knight Rider while Squidbillies is headed for a December production start date. © & TM 2004 Cartoon Network.