Adult Swim's Off The Air Celebrates 15 Years Of Breaking Our Brains With Two New Episodes

I've said it before, and I'll say it again – there are a few places where it feels like whatever you're watching is being broadcast directly from an alternate universe: roadside motel televisions, public access channels from towns you've never been to, and Adult Swim after midnight. While the early evening hours of the Adult Swim programming block on Cartoon Network are dominated by syndicated favorites like "Family Guy," "Bob's Burgers," and the smash breakout original "Rick & Morty," it's the wee hours of the night where Adult Swim possesses the power to bewitch viewers into a hypnotic void beyond any of our wildest imaginations.

Adult Swim continues to be one of the few places where genuinely bold, unconventional, and algorithm-proof creative ideas are allowed to thrive. As studios, streamers, and networks tighten their grasp and prioritize playing it safe, Adult Swim has never lost sight of what makes it special. Embracing radical experimentation and nurturing singular creative vision are baked into Adult Swim's identity, because pushing limits isn't some sort of "go viral" strategy; it's the foundation of everything they do.

One of the best showcases is "Off the Air," the surreal video potpourri anthology that's been expanding the minds of anyone brave enough to tune in at 4 a.m. for the last 15 years. The brainchild of the legendary Dave Hughes, "Off the Air" is celebrating a decade and a half of making audiences question their grasp on reality with two new episodes, "Growth" and "VR." Guest curated by Vernon Chatman ("Shivering Truth," "Xavier: Renegade Angel," "Wonder Showzen," "South Park") and Mike Diva ("Saturday Night Live" digital shorts, YouTube) and Dimitri Simakis ("Everything Is Terrible," "Meow Wolf"), the latest batch of "Off the Air" shorts are as brainblowing as ever, and we are lucky to witness it.

Because "Off the Air" broadcasts during the graveyard slot on the network, there's a different flavor of freedom around what Adult Swim is willing to inject into our eyeballs. Since 2011, "Off the Air" has curated some of the most abstruse animation, short videos, and sketches floating around the internet into a neat, 10ish-minute package. The series developed a cult following early on, mostly composed of insomniacs (like yours truly) or people who fell asleep with the TV on and woke up in the middle of the night fully transported into another dimension.

Each episode is themed around a word that doubles as the episode's title, and is edited with seamless transitions between each clip. The result is an erratic, psychedelic assault on the senses in the best way possible, especially when the segments shift from live-action into animation. In Vernon Chatman's "Growth," the short dating profile video "Lovewatch" by Harrison Atkins (and produced by "I Saw the TV Glow" director Jane Schoenbrun) runs into a clip from the iconic French sci-fi animated film, "Fantastic Planet," with the look of the blue-faced Draags slowly taking over the human face of actress Kati Skelton.

"VR" opens with a short titled "Hummingbird Simulator" from Mike Diva, which marries crude, low-poly gaming graphics of a VR game where people simulate being a hummingbird with music reminiscent of "Treasure Trove Cove" from "Banjo-Kazooie," cutting with live-action, black and white, visuals of the player in the real world — hooked up to a full-body, psychosexual VR gaming system that looks like the love child of "Event Horizon" and "eXistenZ." None of the madness shown in "Off the Air" seems like it should go together, but somehow, it always does, because the curators are freak geniuses with exquisite taste.

Dave Hughes has been a key figure behind Adult Swim's experimental short-form content for years (especially the Adult Swim SMALLS program), but "Off the Air" is truly in a league of its own. Experimental animation, such as "Liquid Television," was seen as a product of a bygone era when "Off the Air" was launched in 2011, with vibrant, boundary-pushing, and truly original short-form artistry dominating online through communities like Newgrounds, YouTube, and Vimeo. But if you weren't already entrenched in those worlds or actively sought this sort of thing out, finding the best underground art on the internet wasn't easy (don't get me started on the Vimeo search function). Given the short length of the clips being used to build each episode of "Off the Air," it allows for stuff that would likely never escape the containment of "niche internet" to be broadcast on TV. 

And considering how many things shown on "Off the Air" are curated rather than created (although plenty of new work is created for each episode), these are shorts from artists who aren't concerned with appeasing the commercialized status quo or forced to work within parameters to appease advertisers or critics. It's pure, uncut, outsider creativity, and the fact that "Off the Air" has been on the air for 15 years is most certainly worth celebrating. In the face of AI slop and the corporate obsession with data points and appeasing the algorithm, "Off the Air" is a righteous middle finger to complacency and conformity.

"Growth" and "VR" are now available via Adult Swim's YouTube channel, but if you want to experience the new episodes in their most unadulterated forms, they will be replaying on Friday, January 2, 2026, at 4:30 a.m. ET/PT.