It’s unusual to conduct a feedback interview with the creators of a show when the current season is about 1/3 of the way done — normally the interview happens either before or after the season has happened. But Variety did things differently when they summoned Smiling Friends creators Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack to chat about the three specific episodes that Adult Swim ran this past month, as well as chat about the show in general.

Hadel said that the first season was “a bit more plot pointy” and focused on Pim and Charlie’s lives a bit more specifically. Season 2 had a heavier emphasis on improv, something they received a bit of fan complaints about. He said Season 3 has found the right mix between the two. “Since the pilot, we’ve been trying to get that exact ratio right. Like improv to plot, how much do you meander?”

Hadel also said they take inspiration for ideas from “all the real stuff in the world that we find interesting as adult men, that is completely unrelated to cartoons.” He continued further, “If you’re just watching cartoons and making cartoons based on cartoons, it spirals into a big blob of nothing.”

By real world, they don’t mean real issues. Cusack says Smiling Friends will never be a preachy kind of show. “We’re lucky enough that the show was born out of optimism, and we always were anti-nihilist shows. So, oftentimes the thematic question is hovering around those kinds of themes, and then hopefully answering the right thing,” he said.

Here’s where we get into spoilers about specific episodes, so if you haven’t caught up yet, duck:

Cusack said they were “allergic to messages,” but admitted the episodes tend to imply them anyway. “The Mole Man episode is like, ‘Should I be addicted to fandom or do something positive with my life?'” Hadel threw in, “That was more broadly about the relationship between fandoms and shows, and like, what is that? The realistic dialogue thing, that’s probably the most meta it gets, honestly.”

Hadel said Mr. Frog doesn’t keep coming back because he’s popular, or because of fan service, but because the pair simply like him. And the half-serious tone of the most recent Mr. Frog episode was a joke in itself. “I don’t view that as our serious episode. I view that as like, I know the word subversive is kind of over said, but I think it’s a subversion. When you have the dinner scene with Mr. Frog and the dad, it’s done very straight. It’s done like a proper, prestige TV kind of thing. But the undertone is still comedy. It’s still a real man painted green in shorts, pouring his heart out.”

Smiling Friends will not run a new episode next Sunday (not sure why) but it will resume fresh episodes one week after that, on November 2.

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