The Surreal Horror of After Hours TV

Diving into Adult Swim's Informercial Nightmares

It’s 4 a.m.

You fell asleep watching reruns of King of the Hill on Adult Swim. Somewhere in-between the episodes of Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen Hunger Force is when the strange yet familiar sounds of an infomercial begin to infest your ear, crawling its way into your dreams. You awake, but instead of an ad about the newest kitchen gadget, you’re greeted with a standard commercial about an allergy medication.

You reach for your remote. It’s time to retire to bed and call it a night.

But then something happens… the infomercial goes rogue. There is something grabbing at you to stay—no, not just stay—but learn about the side effects of this nasal spray.

After all… isn’t it in your best interest?

Unedited Footage of a Bear

Unedited Footage of a Bear is an episode from Adult Swim’s Infomercial series. It opens with tranquil footage of a bear before cutting abruptly to an all-too-familiar allergy medication ad—the kind that promises serenity in exchange for side effects you’d rather ignore.

There’s an option to skip it, yet we are forced to keep watching. A false sense of autonomy that foreshadows what’s to come.

Which… this ad is clearly designed for YouTube, yet is counting up the seconds as it gives the audience an uneasy feeling of knowing that this is wrong, considering it’s airing on television.

Donna, the ad’s protagonist, becomes addicted to Clairadryl. Her car is flooded with bottles, and she huffs it up like oxygen. Then she meets herself… or, rather, the “medicated” version of herself.

The “other” Donna is clearly unwell: screaming, violent, manic, and detached from reality. She scribbles over her children’s photos, planning for their deaths, as she blames them for taking away the life she never got. What was meant to cure her instead drags her into her own darkness, forcing her to confront the demons crawling underneath.

Meanwhile, the real Donna—broken, bleeding, crawling back toward her home—can only watch as her commercial self takes over.

All the while, police cars swarm her home.

What exactly did Donna do?

Perhaps the forewarning could clue us in: when Donna was driving home, she saw police at a neighbor’s house. They were arresting a deranged man with neon green sneakers. On the ground in a body bag was also a man with neon green sneakers.

In a psychotic episode, the man killed himself. Though, we see police carry out other bags of evidence, which one can assume means his body count is much higher.

So where do we go from here?

Well, it’s obvious that this isn’t a short film about allergy medication. It instead plays into antidepressants, or rather, antidepressant supporters. You know, the ones you see on TV in ads just like this one, listing severe side effects in a monotone voice in hopes that you won’t pay attention to them because of just how boring it all is.

These medications don’t need to actually help you, they just need to make you think that they can.

Donna is suffering from depression. She’s a single mother who lost her husband (as evident from the supporting website that accompanied the film and her speaking about dating), and feels worn down from having to deal with running the household all by herself.

Clairadryl solves all her problems… kinda. Well, it makes her feel high, gives her a little pep, and suddenly the world is full of color again. Yet, her addiction is buried in violent tendencies, torturing her children and thus causing an abusive environment.

Clairadryl hasn’t done anything—in fact it has done the opposite of what it’s supposed to do—and Donna’s addiction has only taken over every aspect of her life.

Perhaps the most frightening part, at least in my eyes, is when Donna is screaming her own name over the phone. She’s trying to make herself stop, but the addiction is far too powerful for her to overcome.

At the end of the film, Donna is seen on the steps of her house, bloodied and bruised, pleading to the police that she doesn’t have a gun.

By the way, guess who directed this? None other than Alan Resnick, the same man in charge of Alan Tutorial. Yeah, suddenly a lot of the imagery, especially with the chairs, makes sense.

If you’re interested in a way more detailed overview, I’d recommend Night Mind’s video on it. He gives great comparisons of Alan Tutorial vs. Unedited Footage of a Bear as well:

This House Has People in It

If I had a quarter for everytime Alan Resnick made an Adult Swim short that went viral…

Yeah, this is his too.

This House Has People in It is a little different from Unedited Footage of a Bear; instead of relying on the ad format, it instead takes on surveillance footage of a family home.

Firstly, I want to say that I am only talking about the film itself here and not the separate ARG website. The website is a beast on its own that includes the most insane Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction that I will not be be elaborating on. Anyway, just wanted to get that out of the way.

This House Has People in It starts with a shot of a mother and father in the kitchen. The father holds their baby, and they speak about a future vacation they’ve been saving up for. On the floor is their teenage daughter, unmoving, yet present for it all.

The parents argue about their daughter—she doesn’t seem “communicative” enough, she’s too withdrawn for their comfort. It isn’t until the father realizes that she’s stuck on the ground that they actually seem to show real sympathy, panicking about what happened to her as they try to get her off the floor.

In the meantime, their son’s birthday party is meant to happen the same day. Through yelling and tears, they tell him it has to be called off, considering the circumstances.

As all of this goes on, the grandmother watches an arts and crafts show on the tv, seemingly uncaring about what’s going on and in her own little world.

As the parents focus on their oldest daughter, their other two children are neglected. The son is left to pick up the trash of his never-to-be birthday party, and the baby—who was left in the grandma’s care—crawls away into the backyard.

The end of the short ends with the daughter falling through the floor and the camera footage cutting, though we can hear the screams of everyone… it cuts to the front yard to see the birthday guests all on the ground outside too.

So what the hell does this all mean?

At its core, This House Has People in It is about a family imploding. The daughter’s depression is made literal as she is literally sinking, though her parents don’t notice until it’s far too late. They’re too busy with their own thoughts, not paying enough attention to their daughter, as they instead see her behavior as typical teenage rebellion.

It’s also obvious that there’s something strange going on between the parents. A tension, which is seen later on in the basement when the father is frantically telling the mother that he loves her and that they will always be a family. Perhaps then, the daughter’s depression stems from the dysfunctional aspect of her family.

After all, her parents are fighting and neglecting her. Her grandmother is neglectful as well, pointing at this being a cycle through the generations.

And because of her depression, her siblings are affected as well. All of these children are severely neglected, though the parents hide it well, trying to pick up the pieces as much as they can. They love their children, they just can’t seem to connect with them.

Truly, the most horrifying part of this short is the ending. The screeches of terror as the daughter falls through the floor into the basement, the footage cutting to black… the people outside in the same predicament.

It’s a crazy and loopy short film that takes the concept of the dysfunctional family and sculpts it into something far more sinister yet outlandish. It’s a weird-ass metaphor because families aren’t so cut and dry. It’s a perfect way to showcase the horrors of family dynamics.

For those interested in the ARG aspect, Night Mind also made a video on this one:

Too Many Cooks

I’m guessing most of you know this one.

Too Many Cooks went insanely viral, popping into mainstream media for its innovative and creative parody on classic sitcoms.

It clocks in at 11:11 (cool angel number), short enough to leave you laughing—or staring blankly, wondering what the hell you just watched.

It starts out innocently enough, acting as a sitcom intro; characters come on screen and their names are shown. However, this only continues, with the show and music changing genres as a killer stalks the background… all while new Cook members are introduced.

Too Many Cooks goes from 80s sitcom, cop drama, soap opera, medical drama, slasher, G.I. Joe… Star Trek…

Honestly, it goes through pretty much every genre that was popular in the 80s.

There’s no single message here—and that’s part of the horror.

If Unedited Footage of a Bear is the horror of addiction, and This House Has People in It shows the horrors of disconnection, then Too Many Cooks shows the horror of creation.

The real skin-crawling horror comes in for those who are creators. The average audience finds the terror and humor in it on the surface, but those who make art may find something deeper here.

The repetition of it all feels eerily similar to the Hollywood machine. The constant need for remakes, sequels… the lack of respect for creativity.

There seems to be a lack of original films, if only because the reboots are constantly pushed and marketed instead. We see the same stories with different skins every other year, a constant cycle that is pushed out to us because we keep shilling the money.

I LOVE Smarf.

Too Many Cooks represents how the industry simply sees art as an investment, rather than something that keeps us all glued together. Even something as simple as a sitcom, although “low brow” to some, is art at its core.

Artists are expendable, their art a product. They’re given tight deadlines, told to clean up the “offensive” parts, and smile all while doing it.

The recycling of art only dilutes what it’s meant to be. A message is watered down. A laugh track is gargled. A plotline is drowned. The only thing left is noise disguised as entertainment.

The characters in Too Many Cooks are suffering—they are stuck in a doomed cycle, unable to escape from their own hell. They’re stuck in a loop of industrial neglect.

Adult Swim is no stranger to horror.

Even their bumpers play with uneasiness… remember “The Dawn is Your Enemy”?

One thing that Adult Swim does right is that the network gives artists a chance. No matter how weird or surreal a project may sound, Adult Swim is quick to sign off on it and let it be a reality.

Infomercials was no different, showcasing crazy short films, ranging from absurd comedy to straight up horror surrealism.

Be careful watching late night cartoons. You may just wake up to your newest nightmare.