Adult Swim’s Smiling Friends has quietly turned its Season 3 finale into a streaming victory lap, and the numbers explain why the industry is starting to treat it as something closer to a <em>Rick & Morty</em> successor than a niche cult cartoon. On HBO Max, the series is landing in the Top 10 across a wide spread of international markets, with especially consistent placements in Latin America, parts of Europe, and the U.S., where it’s been hovering in the #4–#8 range throughout the week.
What makes the performance more impressive is how accessible the show has become. Smiling Friends is charting simultaneously on the Apple TV Store in markets like Australia and Canada, and even appearing on WOW in Germany, where Adult Swim animation rarely sustains momentum. These are transactional and secondary platforms, meaning viewers are likely actively seeking the show out rather than stumbling across it.
Not to mention the real edge the show has over Rick & Morty, which is scale and rhythm. Smiling Friends episodes are short, aggressively rewatchable, and built around absurd micro-arcs rather than mythology. That makes it algorithm-friendly in a way that prestige animation often isn’t. Viewers can drop in anywhere, finish an episode quickly, and keep going. Post-finale, that loop matters more than hype. Instead of collapsing once the season ends, Smiling Friends clearly seems to be expanding outward while positioning itself as one of Adult Swim’s most reliable modern exports.
‘Rick and Morty’ vs. ‘Smiling Friends’ Rotten Tomatoes Scores
On Rotten Tomatoes, Rick and Morty still sets the adult animation benchmark with a 90% critic score and an 82% audience score across 8 seasons. That spread matters: critics stay impressed, while audiences remain loyal even as long-running shows naturally get more divisive. Smiling Friends, after three installments, sits at a 93% audience score after 3 seasons, and has no critics’ rating yet.
The season count is the story behind the high audience score for Smiling Friends, though. Fewer seasons often means less fatigue, fewer weak era debates, and a cleaner entry point, which helps both ratings stability and streaming completion. If Smiling Friends Season 4 lands clean, the show will be able to keep its audience score high while building a stronger critic footprint, and that combination is exactly what usually drives repeat viewership.
Smiling Friends is available to stream on HBO Max. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
- April 1, 2020
- Network
- Adult Swim
- Directors
- Zach Hadel, Michael Cusack, Jeff Liu
Michael Cusack
Pim Pimling / Allan Red (voice)
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Zach Hadel
Charlie Dompler / Glep (voice)
