
Handsome strong boys.
Photo: Adult Swim
A decade of “large adult sons” humor come across building them Haha, you clowns. The new Adult Swim series from animator Joe Cappa follows a tight-knit family — three big beautiful boys (Preston, Tristan, and Duncan) and their buff dad — as they try to get by after the death of their mother. The show is based on a series of surreal shorts Cappa created for Adult Swim’s Smalls programming block in 2023, which he’s built out into a whole universe in this first season, giving Dad a job as a weatherman, casting June Squibb as Preston’s elderly co-worker, and adding professional pool player Jeannette Lee to the voice cast as a version of herself who lives next door to the boys and offers them sage advice from over the fence.
Haha, you clowns takes its animated-comedy ambitions from The Simpsons and story beats from Seventh Heaven and wraps it all in an outsider-art style reminiscent of an older, more experimental era of Adult Swim. Its goofy sweetness is summed up best by the comments section on the first episode, posted to YouTube ahead of the series’ October 19 TV premiere: “I love how giant the boys are and how often everyone cries it’s amazing.” The show’s proud father, Joe Cappa, spoke to Vulture ahead of its premiere.
Tell me about the process of getting this to air.
They have a thing called Smalls, where they let up-and-coming artists create shows. A year before me Smalls shorts, I started making short animations on Instagram and papier-mâché head videosthen one of those videos went viral on TikTok. I got it Smalls executive producer Dave Hughes, who asked if I could make a longer papier-mâché head video for Adult Swim and also told me about Smalls. All I had to do was pitch him an idea, and at that time, I was toying around with the idea of three boys who just really love their dad and think their dad is just the coolest. I thought there was something funny there. I learned who these characters were as I was making the shorts.
What is it about three boys loving their dad that’s funny to you?
When I made short animations before Adult Swim, people would say that my stuff is so “wholesome.” I never was trying to be wholesome; I just was reacting to a lot of adult animation that felt snarky and cynical — which is great, but I was getting bored of it. So I was just trying to do something different.
Are there any differences between how you voice the three boys? It’s hard to tell.
In the Smalls shorts, they all pretty much sound exactly the same. But in the show, I had to differentiate them a little bit. Duncan is a little bit higher and a little bit more innocent, Tristan’s always being a little bit silly, and then Preston’s pretty much (lower voice) down here. He’s the leader. And the dad is really low. When I’m in the studio recording them, I usually start with Duncan, Tristan, Preston, and then end with Dad once my voice is all gravelly from voicing all day.
When it was time to turn these little shorts into full-blown episode-length stories, how did you flesh out these characters? They all have the same build. I don’t even know how old they are.
We don’t know. After all the scripts were turned into Adult Swim, Cam Tang, who runs development, was like, “So, how old are they?” It was so late in the process. I was like, “I don’t know. They’re in high school.” I would say Preston can drive. Duncan doesn’t know how to drive yet. I don’t think we’ll ever see them in any high-school experience or anything like that. They’re young and they love their dad, and that’s what the show’s about.
There’s nothing quite like this on TV. What are your inspirations?
In regards to the style, I’ve always thought that high-schoolers’ drawings in art class of celebrities is the funniest aesthetic out there — when it looks like the person’s trying to do a good job, but they’re not really nailing it. There’s a certain type of humor that’s being translated when something looks really polished, and when it’s not so polished, there’s another layer of comedy happening there that I’m trying to play with. Nor are we onboarding artists, just so they can kind of understand the sensibilities of the show, we like to say that it’s like a live-action director was given an animated show, and they don’t know how to draw that well, and they have to somehow execute their idea. It’s trying to be sincere, but it’s stumbling along the way and looking a little bit crude.
In the shorts, the mother’s spirit is a presence. In the show, she’s referenced, but there’s not this feeling of being a ghost-mom. Why the change?
I like horror movies where they really keep it subtle and don’t explain too much. For anything that’s paranormal, I think you have to play the long game. To keep a show relevant and interesting over the course of many seasons, you have to play it really slow.
You share a writing credit with Dave Cappa. Is that your brother?
Yeah. When we got the green light, they were asking for writers, and I could only think of my brother. I’d say the show is inspired loosely on my father and my brotherly love with my brother. He lives in England, so it’s been great to have these opportunities to write scripts with him across the Atlantic.
June Squibb is in the voice cast. How did she get involved with the show?
I’ve been a big June Squibb fan ever since About Schmidt. crack rags came out, and I thought it was so good. I reached out to the director, and I was like, “Man, I would love to get you and Squibb on this show.” Then the people at Adult Swim reached out to June Squibb, and she said yes. I don’t know why she decided to do the show, but she would show up to the studio and do it in one take. She’s really that good. She was perfect for that role.
I want to go back to people calling your work “wholesome.” I love this show’s depiction of these big straight men who are so sweet and emotionally open.
I just think they’re very funny characters to write for. The way they see the world and how they interact with each other, I feel like a lot of people can relate to somebody like that in their life. They don’t have self-awareness, in a way, and they don’t seem to care that they might come off cringey. They really just care about being nice people, and from that, you’re going to have wholesome moments where they’re crying to each other.
I think the dad cries every episode.
His eyes definitely go red every episode.
Has your dad seen it?
I think he’s seen all the animatics. He’s very excited for his sons to be working on a show together and knowing that it’s loosely based on him. He’s very tickled by it all.