Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
When we talk about streaming culture, we’re usually enthusing about what’s new, but one of the best things about streaming is how it’s made old and obscure cult hits available to a new generation. Presenting Cult Corner: your weekly look into hidden gems and long-lost curiosities that you can find on streaming.
Most shows have a point. Adult Swim’s FishCenter Live isn’t most shows. However, if you’re looking for something quirky enough to keep you interested but predictable enough that it can ease you to sleep, this slice of televised randomness is for you.
Hosted by Dave Bonawits, Andrew Choe, Matt Harrigan, and Max Simonet, FishCenter Live is essentially a call-in talk show. As these four Adult Swim employees play customized sound bites and answer a never-ending string of absurd questions, the audio is broadcast over a stream of fish in a tank. Each season the fish have to complete a series of challenges such as swimming over floating coins that have been superimposed onto the screen. You may think that this coin collection doesn’t mean anything, but you would be wrong. Fish are ranked by their ability to collect the most coins, and each season a winner is declared. Of course these fish know nothing of the brutal competition they’re secretly apart of. They’re just living their own underwater lives.
However, this is just a small part of the unbridled insanity that is FishCenter Live. While I was writing this article, Adult Swim’s FishCenter Live channel featured someone painstakingly photoshopping a fish’s head to an old woman’s body to the tune of Spanish rap and then Childish Gambino. That’s what makes FishCenter Live a great background binge. You never know what to expect from this aquatic insanity, but you know it’ll be both oddly entertaining in a local radio kind of way and require next to no mental energy. Also, with fish names like Th’Lump, Mom, and Kip Clawford (formerly Hot Steve, formerly Lupin the Third), it’s hard not to find yourself rooting for your favorite underwater champion.
FishCenter Live is one of those rare Adult Swim shows that found its start on the network’s site. The show premiered in September of 2014 but moved onto the network in February of 2015. Since then, the network has been broadcasting regular 11-minute episodes on an almost daily basis. FishCenter Live isn’t award-winning television. It’s over-the-top and purposefully time-wasting in a way that will frustrate some viewers. That being said, the talk show combines so many elements that differentiate Adult Swim from anything else on television — unapologetic randomness, perfectly timed awkward humor, and public access backgrounds that are both hilarious in their own right and mock the prestige TV environments around them. It’s weird, but it works. Next time you’re in the mood for an off-kilter background binge, look up FishCenter Live. And go Hamburger.
New episodes of FishCenter Live premiere live weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on AdultSwim.com.
