REVIEW: Adult Swim’s ‘The Elephant’ Is A Mesmerising Experiment In Animated Storytelling
- Emma Fisher
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
This article contains spoilers for Adult Swim’s The Elephant.
Adult Swim’s The Elephant is a creative experiment featuring three acts made in isolation that form a single narrative from the minds of Patrick McHale (Over the Garden Wall), Ian Jones-Quartey (OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes), Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), and Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time). What follows is not so much a conventional story as a sequence of vivid, emotionally charged encounters, stitched together by mood, imagery, and a persistent sense of longing. It’s strange, funny, unsettling, and, at moments, unexpectedly tender for a project that could have gone so wrong but does not.
While this could be said about the entire 23-minute runtime, the opening act is especially striking as a visual feast. The animation is mesmerising as colours bloom and clash, shapes bend and reform, and the screen feels constantly in motion without ever making you dizzy. Paired with a score that moves in synchronicity with the imagery, the result is hypnotic. Sound and colour do much of the storytelling here, establishing an emotional tone before the dialogue begins to circle deeper questions. There is a joy to it, but also a faint unease, as though something important is being glossed over by spectacle.
As the special moves into its second act, that unease shifts into introspection. An unnamed figure at the centre of the action begins to articulate thoughts that feel both intimate and uncomfortably familiar: "I could feel this was the centre of something frighteningly grand. But who was I? How did I get here? And why did I feel so terribly alone?" This act revolves around an identity that is defined by performance and distraction for others. There’s a tragic irony in watching someone be admired for what they provide while feeling increasingly disconnected from themselves. When anxieties break through, they are pushed aside with the press of a button, cueing music, cheers, and a return to dancing. Curiosity itself becomes framed as a problem to be solved or eliminated once and for all. A warning reinforces this idea, suggesting that certain paths, particularly those associated with knowledge, are better left unexplored.
"Existence is so much easier if you don't question it,” the voice observes. The audience’s appetite is insatiable, and when the performance stops, their reaction is not concern but fury. For a special that feels existential, the relationship between performer and crowd is transactional and cruel. When the defining button is finally torn away and thrown into the audience, the moment feels both liberating and bleak. The button continues to function perfectly without its operator, much to the crowd’s delight. Even stripped of its source, the mechanism of entertainment survives, a devastating suggestion that the individual was never truly required. Freedom, when it comes, is fleeting. "It seemed a spell of some kind had been lifted, and I was free to be my truest self at last. And to my surprise, I was free to be everything else at the same time. I just wish my time here wasn't so short." It’s difficult not to feel the sting of that admission.
The final act pivots again, this time into something that initially resembles a warped fairy tale or an imaginary friend filtered through Adult Swim’s signature irreverence. A child’s wish conjures a bizarre, four-armed green figure, and the animation becomes more playful without losing its underlying tension. Without spoiling too much, change here is not growth, but instability, which in turn is relentless and disorienting.
The introduction of Dan, a lonely individual seeking connection, reframes everything that has come before. Their interactions are awkward, tender, and painfully human. What this results in is a shift in perspective that will simultaneously warm and hurt the heart.
Knowing that The Elephant was created as a collaborative experience, with each act developed in isolation before becoming a standalone special, only deepens appreciation for how cohesive it ultimately feels. In an industry that often treats animation as disposable or secondary, The Elephant stands as a testament to the medium’s depth and versatility. It doesn’t offer answers so much as it invites reflection on existence, identity, and the potential of animation when it is trusted to take risks.
Adult Swim’s The Elephant premieres as an ad-free experience on Friday, December 19 at 11:00 PM ET/PT on Adult Swim. Adult Swim will also debut a behind-the-scenes documentary, Behind the Elephant, alongside an encore airing of the special on December 20 and on HBO Max. The documentary reveals the unique challenges and discoveries that made the project a truly original experience for both the audience and the creators themselves.
About Adult Swim's The Elephant
Premiere Date: 19 December 2025
Synopsis: Adult Swim’s The Elephant is a rare creative experiment in which each of the three-acts are made in isolation. With Sugar and Jones-Quartey working as a duo and McHale and Ward overseeing their own separate parts, the special is guided by “game masters” and Adventure Time alums Jack Pendarvis and Kent Osborne for a storytelling experiment that unfolds as a collaborative surprise, ultimately merging into a single, unexpected narrative.
