Smiling Friends, the absurdist Adult Swim animated comedy, has earned its first Emmy nomination for outstanding animated series just months after creators Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel announced they were ending the show due to burnout. The nomination pits the low-budget, 10-minute series against long-running giants The Simpsons and South Park, and comes despite Adult Swim having already renewed it for two further seasons before its creators chose to conclude the story with the aired third season instead.

Cusack, who voices Pim, and Hadel, who voices Charlie, said they were stunned by the recognition, with Hadel describing waking up to a flood of messages and Cusack recalling that Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon told him he was "happy to watch Smiling Friends win". The pair credited season three's Mr Frog episode, which featured Office actor Creed Bratton in live-action green paint as Mr Frog's father, with raising the show's technical and creative bar. Asked about the prospect of a revival, the creators reportedly said the odds were "not zero", though full details of that discussion were not included in the excerpt provided.