After three seasons, the animated show “Smiling Friends” came to an abrupt end, leaving me straight faced.

“Smiling Friends,” created by animators Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, originally aired in 2020 on Adult Swim.

The show follows a group of people who work at a firm in a crazy place where their job is to make people smile, but it does not always go as planned.  

Main characters Charlie and Pim are complete opposites, with Charlie being more of a lazy, monotone character and Pim an overzealous, little guy full of optimism  

Side characters include Mr. Boss, Allan and Glep, who add to the shows’ hilarity.

The show’s cancellation was announced by the creators Zach and Michael on Feb. 25 through a YouTube video expressing burnout, according to a YouTube video. 

“After we finished season three, Zach and I just both had the same feeling where we feel pretty burnt out after putting years and years into this, but also pretty accomplished,” Cusack said.

Before the show’s cancellation, it was originally contracted to have five seasons, according to a Feb. 25 Deadline article. 

After a month of anticipation, the final episodes of the third season were a major let-down in typical comedic antics. 

The first episode is about Pim and Charlie taking care of “Friend-Bot” who helps way too much.

Comedic gags felt weak, with jokes being either long build ups or flat jokes. 

When Charlie and Pim meet Friend-Bot, Charlie is so enameled by its ability to make pictures of his friends as hot dogs, which felt like the writing was done by a third grader.

At the end of the episode, Friend-Bot is revealed to be a human who scammed Charlie and Pim into thinking he was a real robot.

Arguably, this was the worst of the two, with the 10th episode redeeming the poor writing quality.  

Episode 10’s final adventure follows Pim and Charlie as they help Charlie’s Uncle Bilbert smile on his final day left to live. 

The only problem is that Uncle Bilbert, voiced by John DiMaggio, is a narcissistic, verbally abusive slob, introduced to the audience sleeping naked in a chair with a gun in his hand.

Charlie and Pim are errand boys for Uncle Bilbert, with the only joke being a coked up drug dealer throwing his brain against a wall because he thought Charlie called him stupid.

Bilbert is eventually stood up to, then revealed to be a crazed wanted sex pest criminal, whatever that means.  

The episode’s random nature of bits felt exactly like what I wanted from a Smiling Friends finale.

Other episodes in season three had way better gags with Glep starting the black plague or when an evil wizard thought killing magical creatures would fix his baldness. 

The pop culture references were a great touch from “Silent Hill” and other Gen-Z humor. 

There was also a lack of subplots in episode nine, making the episode quickly stale.

For episode 10, the subplot involved side character Allan Red going on a date with a woman who is turned-on by the color red. 

While Allan goes on this date, he’s quick to fall in love with his date before finding out it’s his landlord in disguise. 

Although filled with silly humor reminiscent of the creators’ humor on YouTube and elsewhere, the end still felt lackluster and burnt out. 

“Smiling Friends” was fun while it lasted but ended on a sour note.