Why Adult Swim Canceled Metalocalypse, According To The Show's Creator

Brendan Small and Tommy Blacha's animated series "Metalocalypse" follows the adventures of the death metal band Dethklok, the most extreme band on Earth. While performing their growly, Cookie-Monster rock songs, they focus on desolation, decay, and death. Off-stage, too, they are frequent witnesses to all manner of gore and horror; in one episode, they unwittingly hire a costumer who uses human skin to make their leather costumes. Despite the blood and misery of their everyday lives, however, the members of Dethklok were still callow, dumb, spoiled rock stars, complaining about their trailers, picking over the size of their giant paychecks, and whining about having to work on time. They all believed in the bleak, murderous ethos of death metal, but they were also brats and a-holes just as much as mainstream celebrities.

The gore was, of course, played for laughs. It was so extreme, one couldn't help but giggle at how shocking it was. On "Metalocalypse," Dethklok fans were regularly killed and mutilated by vicious accidents, often leaving the tops of their heads severed, their lolling tongues left exposed. It was slapstick of the highest order. "Metalocalypse," despite its extreme levels of gore, lasted for 61 episodes over its four seasons. The show ran sporadically from 2006 to 2012 (it took 2011 off), and eventually returned for a 47-minute special, "Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem – A Klok Opera," in 2013, as a means to finally wrap up the series. "Doomstar," however, ended on a cliffhanger. Small had said in the past that he always wanted "Metalocalypse" to consist of four seasons and a movie, but revealed in a 2013 interview with Midia Mikes that the series would continue. 

But that continuation was not to be. Adult Swim canceled "Metalocalypse" before it could address the cliffhanger, leaving fans dangling in perpetuity. In 2016, when talking to Loudersound, Small posited that the cancellation was ultimately born of bad blood between him and Adult Swim over a Kickstarter campaign that Small launched to get a conclusion made.

In the Loudersound article, it was stated that Small had approached Adult Swim in 2015 about making a conclusive "Metalocalypse" movie — to be called "Metalocalypse: The Army of the Doomstar — The Final Chapter" — but that the network turned him down outright. Small still wanted to make the movie, though, and launched a Kickstarter under the banner of "Metalocalypse Now," an attempt to secure at least partial funding for his project. 

The Kickstarter was successful enough to get Small a whopping $2 million for "Army." With that money in hand, Small went back to Adult Swim, saying that they would be off the hook for that much more of the movie's budget. Adult Swim, it seems, didn't take kindly to Small going behind their back to raise funding for a project that technically still belonged to them, and stonewalled the animator as a result. As Small said: 

"There was no debate, there wasn't even a return phone call. It was a hard 'no.' It was about as hard as you can possibly get, which is kinda strange. [...] What I think really happened was [the campiagn] drove Adult Swim insane — and I think Adult Swim, for some reason, took it personally. [...] The truth was that people were saying, 'Hey, what the hell? Where's our show?' And [Adult Swim] said, 'No.' I think somebody is thin-skinned and somebody got their feelings hurt."

And that was that. Someone, somewhere, took something personally, and there was no "Metalocalypse" conclusion on the immediate horizon.

Small was a little baffled, but ultimately had to become diplomatic about the situation. Although he would clearly have loved to make "Army of the Doomstar," Small understood the way showbiz worked. He also figured that he would rather have been rejected than witness Adult Swim try to reboot "Metalocalypse" without him, something he saw as inevitable, or at least possible. Small said: 

"Look, show business is show business — I can't really complain about it. What I need to do, what's important for me to live my creative life, is to stand back and look and go, 'Hey, I had a pretty good run at this show.' [...] Someone was probably going to do this show before me and they were going to screw it up in some way, so I'm glad I got there first and I'm glad I did it the way I thought it needed to be done, so I'm lucky."

Small, it should be noted, was vital to "Metalocalypse," as he not only co-created the series, but played Dethklok's lead singer, Nathan Explosion, its guitarist Skwizgar Skwigelf, and its drummer, Pickles. Blacha played the young secondary guitarist, Toki Wartooth, and bassist, William Murderface. For "Doomstar," Small took over playing Murderface, and Toki was voiced by Mike Keneally, an accomplished and prolific guitarist/musician in his own right. 

One of the directors of "Metalocalypse," the late Jon Schnepp, would eventually direct the documentary "The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened?"

Although everything seemed bleak in 2016, "Army of the Doomstar" did eventually make its way to the airwaves ... in 2023. Cartoon Network finally agreed to put it out that year, and the series finally had its long-deserved funeral. Blacha even returned. Waiting to die is metal AF. The movie was dedicated to Schnepp's memory. 

So there really were no hard feelings. It just took seven years longer than expected.