'China, IL' Is One of TIME's 50 Most Underappreciated TV Shows
Time · LC · trust 37/100
Cable’s home for adult animation (and offbeat live-action comedies), Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block is a cult-TV factory. Tim and Eric , The Boondocks , Aqua Teen Hunger Force , The Eric Andre Show —they all have outspoken fan bases. Rick and Morty has such an enormous and obsessive following , it might be the biggest cult show of all time. But not every Adult Swim gem gets the decade-plus run that its signature hits often enjoy, and some standout titles ultimately drop off the radar of even the brand’s core audience. Such has been the case for China, IL , a cartoon that had a long, web-based prehistory before leveling up to series status in 2011. Created by Brad Neely, a comics artist and creative polymath known for his beloved alternate Harry Potter soundtrack , the pastel-hued oddity uses a state university populated by petty, neurotic academics as a backdrop for all sorts of fantastical hilarity. The time-traveling premiere, which humiliates both Reagan and Hitler, is sure to weed out anyone unsuited to Neely’s rude, lewd, manically referential style of humor. But if it makes you chuckle, you’ll probably also delight in the episode where the science lab produces a baby the size of a building and the one that has a secret society of bored professors downing a potion that transforms them into orgy-prone forest creatures. This brand of comedy is perfectly suited to Adult Swim’s signature joke-dense, 11-minute format. And in case you weren’t aware, China, IL is just one of dozens of shows, new and old, streaming for free on the brand’s website.
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