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The two-minute Adult Swim short film Come and Learn with Pibby! combines nostalgia and horror for anyone who grew up watching Cartoon Network.
On October 30, just before Halloween, Adult Swim uploaded the two-minute short film Come and Learn with Pibby!, created by Dodge Greenley, on its YouTube channel. Within days, the short has already surpassed a million views and inspired fan art, Twitter trends, rampant theorizing and high hopes for a full series. For some animation fans, it hasn’t left their nightmares either.
The basic premise of Come and Learn with Pibby! is that of a preschool show gone horribly wrong, where the adorable host is forced to become a hardened warrior in the face of an apocalyptic threat. The twisted kids’ show parody is a familiar trope, from Wonder Showzen to Don’t Hug Me, I’m Scared, but what makes Pibby stand out is how it plays with decades of animation history. The glitch monster that attacks Pibby’s wholesome world transports her into other cartoon realities that face the same corruption, many of which will be familiar to anyone who grew up watching Cartoon Network.
Characters from Looney Tunes, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Scooby Doo, The Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd ‘n Eddy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Samurai Jack, Adventure Time, The Amazing World of Gumball, Steven Universe, The LEGO Movie and Craig of the Creek are shown fighting and/or being absorbed by the glitch. Alongside these direct crossovers from the Warner Bros. library are a variety of other classic animation homages. For instance, Pibby teams up with a superhero sidekick and a Disney-style villain to lead the resistance, and she ventures into worlds inspired by the likes of Care Bears, Rocko’s Modern Life, Speed Racer and SpongeBob SquarePants.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Adult Swim released this little over a month after Cartoon Network revamped its line-up with the preschool-focused Cartoonito block. Little kids are one of the few demographics still watching linear TV in large numbers, as audiences migrate more and more to streaming. With that in mind, the glitch monster may be representative of the death of cable. If that’s the thinking, Come and Learn with Pibby! could very well serve as a definitive “finale” to Cartoon Network as we know it.
Whether there’s actually any deeper meaning to the short or if it’s just expertly crafted dark humor and nostalgic fan service, it’s a memorable two minutes. While it’s effective as a standalone short, it also makes for a great pitch trailer for a potential series. Dodge Greenley has said on Instagram that he hopes to make Pibby into a full series, noting that watching, commenting on and sharing the YouTube video will help convince Adult Swim to give it the full green light.
Given Pibby‘s growing popularity, Adult Swim would be ridiculous not to give Greenley a chance at telling the full story of this unlikely savior of the cartoon multiverse. Even if a series doesn’t happen, we’ll still have that clip of Fred Flintstone sliding to his doom to haunt us forever.
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