Sealab 2021

Sealab 2021 is an American adult animated television series created by Adam Reed and Matt Thompson for Cartoon Network's late-night programming block, Adult Swim. Cartoon Network aired the show's first three episodes in December 2000 before the official inception of the Adult Swim block on September 2, 2001, with the final episode airing on April 24, 2005. Sealab 2021 is one of the only four original Williams Street series that premiered in 2000 before Adult Swim officially launched, the others being Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Brak Show, and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. Much like Adult Swim's Space Ghost Coast to Coast, the animation used stock footage from a 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoon, in this case the short-lived, environmentally-themed Sealab 2020, along with original animation. The show was a satirical parody of both the original Sealab series and the general conventions of the 1970s animated children's series. While there was initial resistance from several of the original series' creators to the reuse of their characters, production moved forward on the series. Sealab 2021 was produced by 70/30 Productions. Episodes Production Adam Reed and Matt Thompson, the creators and writers of Sealab 2021, came up with the idea for the show in 1995 while they were production assistants for Cartoon Network. The duo created High Noon Toons in the mid-1990s; this was a three-hour programming block of cartoons hosted by cowboy hand puppets. Thompson and Reed were usually heavily intoxicated while working on the show, and were reprimanded at one point for lighting one of the prop sets on fire. They stumbled on a tape of the show Sealab 2020, and wrote replacement dialogue. Cartoon Network passed on the show because it did not believe it was funny. Five years after quitting Cartoon Network, the two went back to the original tape, this time making the characters do what they wanted. Cartoon Network bought the show, coincidentally around the same time that Adult Swim was created. The original "pitch pilot" is available on the Season 1 DVD as a special feature.