10 Adult Animated Series You Didn’t Know Were Spinoffs

6 min readSep 2, 2020

Nowadays there are tons of great original animated television series for adults. However, even the creators of the most original shows often took inspiration from films and television from years past.

Sometimes out of a successful show a direct spinoff can offer even more entertainment and success for audiences. While some shows borrow heavily from their original show’s material, others have developed a completely different style and are unrecognizable from the shows that inspired them. Here are ten animated series that some fans may not realize are spinoffs.

10. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

ATHF has become a staple of Adult Swim and remains its third longest-running show. Master Shake, Meatwad, and Frylock encounter bizarre situations and various foes from South New Jersey to Seattle Washington.

The show has gained a cult following over the years, but what some viewers may not know is that the series actually originated as a spinoff of Space Ghost Coast To Coast. Master Shake, Meatwad, and Frylock made their first-ever appearance in a Space Ghost Coast To Coast episode titled “Baffler Meal”. Their mission was to thwart hunger in teenagers, which is where the name “Teen Hunger Force” comes from

9. Space Ghost Coast To Coast

A lot of audiences grew up on Hanna-Barbera characters as kids, but some characters originated as far back as the 1960s. Space Ghost is one of these characters who starred in a series of the same name on CBS in 1966. Fast forward to 1994, and a strange new series called Space Ghost Coast To Coast aired on Cartoon Network as one of its first fully produced original series, rebranded as a surreal talk show more geared towards adults.

Space Ghost Coast To Coast was moved to Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming in 2001 and has inspired countless other shows and spinoffs since then, including The Eric Andre Show, Perfect Hair Forever, and several shows on this list.

8. The Brak Show

The Brack Show is another spinoff show from Space Ghost Coast To Coast. The title character is Brak, a space cat who was once a key villain on Space Ghost during the ’60s, now with an even more friendly and childlike personality than on Space Ghost Coast To Coast.

Brak and his manipulative giant mantis friend Zorak encounter a host of interesting alien characters around the school and in Brak’s neighborhood. This early sitcom parody aired on Adult Swim from 2000 to 2003.

7. Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law

Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law, is another show that got its origins from a 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series Birdman and the Galaxy Trio.

This show centers on The Sebben & Sebben Law Firm, where Birdman works as a lawyer along with many other superhero characters from the Hanna Barbera universe and has a unique variety of surrealist, pop culture and parody comedy and humor. This animated sitcom premiered on Adult Swim back in 2001 and lasted until 2007.

6. Æon Flux

This extremely unique adult animated series is the only entry on this list that isn’t a comedy. The German Expressionist experimental drama actually came from a series of shorts on MTV’s Liquid Television before being spin-off into its own stand-alone series in 1995.

The series follows a secret agent from the fictional city of Monica named Æon Flux, who was previously unnamed and killed off in the Liquid Television shorts, and her mission to infiltrate Bregna, a border wall city led by another character named Trevor Goodchild. Æon Flux’s avant-garde style and futuristic universe make it a stand out both then and now.

5. TV Funhouse

Some audiences might remember this title as a popular Saturday Night Live segment, while others know it as its own series from Comedy Central. The latter was indeed an SNL spinoff that aired from 2000 to 2001, parodying the style of children’s shows such as Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

Each episode would have a different theme and would often feature recurring skits and would often be filled with extremely crude and vulgar humor. Unfortunately, the series only lasted a year because of its tendency to go over budget.

4. Jeff & Some Aliens

Jeff & Some Aliens originally appeared as a recurring sketch from Comedy Central’s TripTank, an adult animation sketch comedy series. Jeff & Some Aliens follows Jeff the human, who is apparently extremely average, and three aliens who study him as a test subject to better understand humans.

The aliens also use their advanced tech to help Jeff with his day-to-day problems. Unfortunately, it lasted just one season before being canceled.

3. Our Cartoon President

Our Cartoon President is a political satire series that found its origins from a segment of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Our Cartoon President premiered on Showtime in 2018 and is currently in its third season as of January 2020.

Both a workplace comedy and a political satire, Our Cartoon President features a host of voice actors who will often voice at least three different characters, from the president’s family, colleagues, news commentators, and other political figures in and around Washington DC. The President is voiced by Jeff Bergman, who’s known for his voice work in Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera characters.

2. Daria

Daria is a dark comedy teen-drama sitcom that aired on MTV from 1997 to 2002. It follows the story of intelligent and misanthropic teenager Daria Morgendorffer along with her friend Jane Lane as they navigate their lives as high schoolers in the new Millenium. In June 2020, Comedy Central announced that it had picked up a Daria spin-off series titled Jodie, named for a recurring character on Daria.

What fans of the show might not realize is that Daria is actually a spin-off from Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-head. Daria appeared as a recurring character in the show who was often taunted by Beavis and Butt-head. Judge released the rights of the character but had no further involvement in Daria’s creation.

1. Momma Named Me Sheriff

This dark sitcom comedy from Adult Swim details the life and misadventures of Sheriff, who serves as the sheriff of Old Town along with deputy Stanley Goodman. The dim-witted rollerskating character of Sheriff first debuted in another Adult Swim series, Mr. Pickles, which centered around a demonic border collie and his family.

Momma Named Me Sheriff premiered right after the Mr. Pickles finale in 2019 and is currently airing on Adult Swim.

NEXT: 10 TV Shows You Didn’t Know Had Spinoffs

Originally published at https://screenrant.com on September 2, 2020.