Cartoon Network’s Biggest Creators Unite for Adult Swim’s The Elephant: First Look & Release Date Revealed

Adult Swim has finally revealed the first look and release date for a cool new animation project, The Elephant, a special event that unites some of Cartoon Network’s biggest and most notable creators. Adult Swim usually has a fun surprise for fans around the holiday season like kooky horror films that have come out of nowhere, special shorts and more. This year is no different as they have recruited some of the biggest names in animation for a cool special that unites them all under a single umbrella. Known as The Elephant, Adult Swim has revealed the first bit of what to expect from this new special.

First announced earlier this year during the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, The Elephant is a new animation special crafted by Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe and its new sequel, Steven Universe: Lars of the Stars), Ian Jones-Quartey (O.K. KO! Let’s Be Heroes), Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time) and Patrick McHale (Over the Garden Wall). Premiering with Adult Swim as an ad-free experience Friday, December 19 at 11:00 ET/PT on Adult Swim, check out the first look at The Elephant below.

What Is The Elephant?

Premiering with Adult Swim on Friday, December 19th at 11:00PM ET without any ads, the new special will also be available for streaming with HBO Max the next day. The Elephant is a cool animation experiment where these notable creators have crafted three distinct parts of a single story, but did not communicate with one another about what they depicted during their segment. The creators themselves are touted to not really have an idea of what the entire story is about with Sugar and Jones-Quartey working together on one segment, and Ward and McHale working on their own segments.

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Adventure Time alums Jack Pendarvis and Kent Osborne are helping to guide each of the separate productions as “game masters,” but ultimately it’s going to be a surprise to see how all of their collaborated efforts ultimately unfold into a single story. It’s something that certainly feels special especially within the current state of animation, and it’s undoubtedly cool that Adult Swim is doing such a big experiment in such a unique way. But thankfully it won’t be too much longer before we get to see how it all came together.

Why Does The Elephant Exist?

“Every year around this time, we try to give the Adult Swim audience a gift they didn’t know they needed, and this year, it’s ‘Adult Swim’s The Elephant,’” said Michael Ouweleen, president of Adult Swim, about the new collaborative special. “But really, the gift was working with this brilliant team and creating an excuse for their longtime friendship and creative partnership to continue and evolve. We can’t wait for you to see the results of this crazy experiment.” We’re also going to get a look behind the scenes of how it was all made too.

Adult Swim will also be releasing a special behind the scenes documentary, “Behind the Elephant” on December 20th with an encore airing of the special (and also streaming with HBO Max). With such an undertaking where even those making the project don’t exactly know entirely how it’s all coming together, it’s definitely going to be an intriguing release that animation fans are going to want to keep an eye out for.

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