Animation Heavyweights Reunite for The Elephant, But There Is a Catch
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Animation icons from the Adventure Time era have reunited for a new Adult Swim special called The Elephant, streaming now on HBO Max, using a blind collaborative process inspired by the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse.
For anyone who shaped their taste in surreal animation around the golden era of modern cartoon networks, a new project featuring Pendleton Ward, Patrick McHale, Rebecca Sugar, and Ian Jones-Quartey is appointment viewing. As reported by Polygon, these legendary creators behind shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe have teamed up for a brand new Adult Swim special titled The Elephant, currently streaming on HBO Max. The 23-minute psychedelic project takes heavy inspiration from the classic surrealist parlor game Exquisite Corpse, where multiple artists contribute to a single piece of work while only seeing the tiny tail end of what the previous person created.
Commissioned by Warner Bros. Animation senior vice president Vishnu Athreya, the rules of production were wonderfully chaotic. The four animators were barred from communicating about their respective segments, monitored closely by assigned gamekeepers to prevent any leaks or coordination. Of course, creative minds being what they are, the group immediately started looking for loopholes. Before diving into their separate acts, they sat down to draw three strange characters and established a dark narrative rule that required every protagonist to die and get reincarnated at the end of each act to bridge the stories together.
That narrative constraint led to some brilliantly inventive problem-solving across the triptych. Patrick McHale ended up drawing the short straw with a clumsy monster design, leading him to kill his character off repeatedly in the opening moments just to establish a safety net for the plot. Meanwhile, Pendleton Ward leaned entirely into the chaos of the format, using jam comic techniques to keep the collaborative experiment unpredictable. It is a fascinating look at how top-tier creators operate when you strip away traditional production meetings and replace them with blind creative trust.
Tags: Animation, Adult Swim, Streaming, Adventure Time, HBO Max
Original article: Polygon