10 TV Shows That Were Unrecognisable When They Finished
2. Venture Bros. Ditched The Parody And Became Its Own Thing
If there is any truly binding law in this universe, it's this: never, EVER, let your guard down around an Adult Swim show. Adult Swim prides itself on its experimental content, so it only makes sense that said content would change and grow and shift itself into new forms as they go on for longer.
Frankly we could have filled this list with shows from the late night block, but we managed to boil it down to just two. The first being Venture Bros., a one joke parody (a typical starting point for an Adult Swim cartoon) centering around shows like Johnny Quest. Particularly mocking its insane mythology, unrealistic child characters, and how Johnny Quest's father was the real main character of the show when you get right down to it.
Venture Bros. has been around a long time, and in keeping with Adult Swim's programming, they could have kept driving in that joke until they bore through the Earth and let the anti-comedy do the rest. But instead the show - almost casually - just drops the parody altogether and just starts building its own narrative. Oh sure it still remembers that it's a comedy, but in between the jokes, they add in dense internal world building, genuinely 3-dimensional characters, and a narrative that keeps you hooked.
Frankly there's only one other Adult Swim show that commits to such a drastic change in how it tells its story.