Don't mind me, just finding a place to put a part of MTL history, especially a piece where the exec spent over a half hour meticulously writing out a twitter thread, linking links, etc. that he'd later end up deleting not too long after~. So, this is in the past but I'm just archiving this - you know me, I like to archive things.
IDK why my phone squashed this extended screenshot, but I've transcribed it word-for-word, including the various grammar/ capitalisation omissions â heâs so focused on telling this grandiose story that he neglected to proof-read his words. Pretty much, he tries and fails to compare the Halloween Ends situation with their borderline strange handling of the cancellation of MTL, despite having received the funding to complete the show â the entire thread is full of contradictions, especially for those who know the bigger picture of what was happening, beyond his recollection of the events.
the whole #HalloweenEnds petition/diaper filing got me thinking: know who set the GOLD standard of handling fan petitions? adult swim. here's the behind the scenes for the infamous BRING BACK METALOCALYPSE petition.
so metalocalypse got canned. why? who knows what lurks in the mind of former head mike lazzo. Iâd ask and heâs give his reasons. the basic gist was that lazzo felt the show had veered from being funny into more convoluted BRUTAL waters.
metalocalypse never did rick and morty numbers. but it had a vocal fanbase, now pissed that it ended on a cliffhanger. and get that, but here's what i donât get: the absolute, non-stop bitching across every one of our social media channels FOR YEARS.
i wrote for both adult swim facebook and twitter. didn't matter what our posts were about. we'd receive an onslaught from aggrieved metalocalypse fans thinking (incorrectly) we'd bring the show back.
[side note: i met brendon small at a wedding. lovely guy. i explained my job at adult swim. "oh man. yeah i def think fans are intense. sorry haha."]
what amazed me wasn't the entitlement, nor the intense fandom. no, what i found INCREDIBLE was how they thought they were harassing, as if adult-fucking-swim was going to concede as INCH to trolls. had these people even watched adult swim?
adult swim continued saying nothing, weathering the memes and bad vibes â until the change.org petition: ((he inserts the final chapter petition link))
so we held our weekly meeting and started tossing ideas around as to whether we should address the petition after all, the idea was gaining traction across the internet. âOk how about we start our OWN petition?â lazzo pitched. âA petition to sign THEIR petition.â
classic lazzo. then I added an extra wrinkle: petitioners would also need to complete an âessayâ portion of at least 125 words and then âfaxâ their work to us. ((he inserts a link from metal injection âNow adult swim is teasing fans about a new season of metalocalypseâ))
so we set up a page on our website (partially seen here) where folks could âdownload a formâ to fill out and fax. not pictured was this caveat: âAdult Swimâs endorsement of said petition â in no way whatsoever â will bring back Metalocalypseâ
the page went live. faxes started rolling in, and we live-streamed every petition/essay/dick picture as it fell unread into the trash. this was a marvelous day ((Arrison then links a reddit link âAdult Swim is live streaming footage of a fax machineâŚâ))
sure people faxed lots of stupid shit. but we received plenty of essays from earnest fans. was this kind of cruel? NOPE. you get what you get and trolling adult swim "for years" was a clown move. ((Arrison inserts yet another link from inverse.com âAdult Swim is laughing at Metalocalypse fans fax petiton))
[side note: I hung out with the late, great jon schnepp at comic-con and revealed I wrote adult swimâs petition. he laughed his ass off. another stellar metalocalypse dude.]
to be fair: we honored the deal. I plucked out twenty-five essays from the trash and , with zero fanfare, an at-the-time intern sealed the deal. metalocalypse was still cancelled, but we didnât welch ((He puts out a youtube link â I think this was of the intern signing the petition?))
epilogue: lazzo retired late 2019. I remember saying to him I bet metalocalypse comes back the second he leaves. âI donât give two fucks, chris.â sure enough, metalocalypse will be back soon with a movi on hbo max, and honestly, thatâs great. ((He inserts some google search link)) great.
1. Fan petitions make you look insecure in your fandom, not strong. Sometimes stories end. Or they end differently than you imagined. Live with it.
2. FuCK wITh aDuLT SWiM At YoUr oWn pERIL.
seems like a [thread emoji I cba to paste in] @AdultSwimNoCon or @Adult SwimReddit might find enlightening
revision: actually fucking with adult swim these days wouldnât be like the old days. read into that as you will
