Between FuckJerry and Barstool Sports, pushback against online thievery of original content has been a big topic in early 2019, which is probably why a tweet from Adult Swim is getting a lot of attention. Whether it was meant seriously or as a cheeky way to engage with fans, the network turned to Twitter yesterday with a simple request: “Pitch your series in two words.â€
Comedians and television writers, including Adult Swim collaborator Tim Heidecker, used the request for free ideas as an opportunity to call the network out with decidedly different kinds of pitches.
Heidecker’s “pitch†was a response to Adult Swim’s lack of social-media promotion for this year’s On Cinema Oscars special with Gregg Turkington, which Heidecker noted after it livestreamed late last month:
Others, including BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, used the tweet to point out that Adult Swim still hasn’t green-lit any series created solely by women, a fact that has been well-known since 2016:
Writer Owen Ellickson referenced the short-lived Million Dollar Extreme show World Peace that the network aired in 2016, which was known for its alt-right fans and subreddit (which got so bad that it was eventually banned from Reddit):
Others used the tweet to remind aspiring show creators that giving away ideas for free to networks is just a bad idea:
Stay safe out there, writers — it’s a tough industry, but that doesn’t mean you should become a free brainstormer for a network.