FishCenter Live

FishCenter Live
The words "fish" and "center" in capital letters surrounding a picture of a blue fish enclosed in a circle, all of which is on a blue background
Genre Comedy
Talk show
Fish Entertainment
Presented by
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of episodes 740+ (as of January 2016)
Production
Running time 11 minutes (television)
Production company(s) Williams Street
Release
Original network AdultSwim.com (online)
Adult Swim (television)
Original release September 22, 2014 (2014-09-22) – present
External links
Website

FishCenter Live (also shortened to FishCenter or FC Live[1] or just FCL) is an American talk show hosted by Dave Bonawits, Andrew Choe, Matt Harrigan, and Max Simonet. It premiered on the official website of Adult Swim in September 2014; it started airing on the network proper in February 2015.

Summary and production

FishCenter Live is presented as a weekday call-in talk show narrating over footage of tropical fish swimming around in a fish tank.[1][2][3][4][5] The fish are ranked according to their points, which are awarded when the fish complete a number of challenges.[4][6] These challenges include "Coin Quest", floating over coins that are superimposed on the video feed.[7] The show is hosted by Dave Bonawits,[1][8] Andrew Choe,[1][8] Matt Harrigan,[1][lower-alpha 1][8] and Max Simonet,[1][10][8] employees from the digital department room of Adult Swim. An original incarnation of the show involved a straight video feed of the fish tank, without narration. Commentary and a phone number for call-in segments were later added. Initially, callers were mostly other Adult Swim employees; when the competition portion was added, the hosts saw an increase of outside callers.[11] Later, both David Bonawits and Max Simonet co-created Tender Touches.[12]

Games

The callers, fish, and guests compete for points in various games:

  • Coin Quest: fish swim into the coins superimposed over the tank to collect points. A live-version sponsored by Snickers was played at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con where the fish swim into the Snickers chocolate bars to "eat" them.[7]

Guests

Six fish depicted in the main tank (left to right, top to bottom): Greenbird, Styletoy, Mom, T.X. Cupper, Mimosa, and Ale.

Animal cast

Name Species Tank
Greenbird (or "Greenberg"[8]) Bird wrasse Cave tank
Hamburger[8][13] (or "Eel Hamburger"[8][14]) Zebra moray[8]
Mimosa[8] Queen coris
Styletoy Flame Angelfish
Top Xander Cupper Pinktail Triggerfish
Mom[15][14][16] Arothron meleagris[16] (or "Golden Puffer")
Bijou Marine Betta Grouper Bubble tank
Th'Lump[15][14][8] White-spotted puffer
Jeremy Legg Cuban hogfish
Slider Sailfin tang
Hot Steve[15] (formerly Lupin the Third[15]) Foxface rabbitfish
[unnamed] Crayfish Crawfish tank

Former animal cast

Name Species Reason for departure
Dottie[8][10] Clown triggerfish Death[10] (February 19, 2016)
Long Donovan Yellow-brown wrasse Death (August 26, 2016)
Mammoth[8] Harlequin tuskfish Death (September 6, 2016)
Ronside Majestic angelfish Death (September 21, 2016)
Sir Squirt[11][8] Lagoon triggerfish Death (October 3, 2016)
"Yo Hal Look At That Tang" Tang[11][8] Sohal surgeonfish Removed from tank due to size and aggression
Ol' Blue[8] King angelfish Removed from tank due to size and aggression, sold at fish store
David Anderson[8] Crayfish Death (May 11, 2015) Live food fed to Hamburger[8]
Hoagie Kush[17] Sea urchin Death (June 28, 2016) eaten by Th'lump
Ale Squirrelfish Death (July 16, 2018)

Super and Galaxy Kings

Year Winter Spring Summer Fall Galaxy King
2015 TangHamburgerMammothSir SquirtMammoth
2016 Sir Squirt*HamburgerGreenbirdMimosaGreenbird
2017 Th'LumpTX CupperGreenbirdGreenbirdGreenbird
2018 Hot SteveAleMimosaTBDTBD
  • Sir Squirt was represented by Hamburger in the 2016 Galaxy series. Due to Sir Squirt's death the second place fish for the Winter season, being Hamburger, was declared the Super King representative.

Musical guests

Alvvays, Consider the Source,[18] and Hard Working Americans (HWA) played on FishCenter Live. Alvvays' played the song "Not My Baby" from their sophomore album Antisocialites.[19] HWA played the songs "Burn Out Shoes" and "Half Ass Moses".[5] HWA was on tour promoting their live album We’re All In This Together.[20][5] Post Malone was also a guest but got bitten by Hamburger.[13] Waka Flocka Flame and DJ Whoo Kid played on FCL as well.[14] Fish-themed Joy Division cover band, Koi Division, said their dream is to appear on FishCenter Live.[6]

Other guests

Actor Colin Hay appeared on FishCenter Live on February 25, 2017.[21]

Broadcast and reception

What is our version of a sports show? What is our version of a relationship Q&A show? You can test these things out, just as we did with FishCenter, in an office with a couple microphones.

—Mike Lazzo, Adult Swim executive[11]

FishCenter Live was originally released in September 2014 on Adult Swim's official website.[22] The show came about when staff decided to film the tropical fish swimming around their aquarium as an idea for developing content for the website's online streaming channels. New episodes are presented on weekdays. The show was added to the network proper in February 2015, broadcast at 4 a.m. These airings are condensed versions of the live version, consisting of 11-minute highlights from each day.[11][lower-alpha 2]

In the first week of its televised broadcast, the show garnered 2.6 million viewers in total.[11] In a press release, the network ranked the program first place across all targeted demographics in its time slot during the second week of March 2015.[23] The network observed some of these viewers as confused Twitter users, wondering if the show was a prank. After these airings, live viewership rose from 120 to 5,000. The success led to the creation of a separate live stream dedicated to the network's Toonami block.[11]

In August 2017, a premiere of a Rick and Morty episode was delayed due to an episode of FishCenter Live on the same live stream.[16]

Critical reception has been positive. Adweek's Jason Lynch called FishCenter Live "its flagship livestreaming show."[7] The Comedy Bureau received the series favorably with "you’ll find, while giggling the whole way through, that you do get sort of invested in the individual fish."[24] Decider's Kayla Cobb said "[i]t's weird, but it works."[15] Ranked sixth in their list of best "unknown" television series of 2015, Newsday's Verne Gay reviewed "“FC Live” is insane — as such, a perfect distillation of all that is Adult Swim."[1] JamBase's Andy Kahn called it "wacky."[20] The Guardian's Mark Lawson critiqued "Ambitiously, this is a phone-in show, although disappointingly, the fish don’t take the calls, but swim in tanks that surround the presenters."[25] The A.V. Club's Erik Lindvall said FishCenter "the latest weird thing" to come from the network "in a streak of really weird things", describing it as a "wonderful, web-based world of piscine sports".[4]

Live for Live Music's Ming Lee Newcomb described FishCenter Live as "eccentric" and "bizarre."[5] Ranked fourth in their list of "[t]he 26 Weirdest Adult Swim Shows Ever," Deadspin's Sheldon Pearce commented "Adult Swim employees came up with this one, which means it’s definitely on-brand if nothing else."[26] In reviewing Tender Touches, Geek's Jose Rodriguez said the pilot had "more in common with Xavier: Renegade Angel or FishCenter."[27] Reviewing their Alvvays performance, Uproxx's Derrick Rossignol declared "every band should be on it, because at the very least, it’s one of the most bizarre live internet shows you can possibly watch."[19] Later, while reviewing the Post Malone episode, Rossignol followed-up with "a totally bizarre, daytime, aquatic, call-in web show that doesn’t make much sense, and that’s what makes it great."[13] In an interview with host Max Simonet, Sonoma Index-Tribune's David Templeton remarked "[it's] a bizarrely simple cult-hit web-and-television show."[10]

Controversy

In 2016, two Dragon Con cosplayers, claiming an association with Adult Swim and Cartoon Network and wore "Make FishCenter Great Again" hats, dressed as the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks.[28][29][2][30] Images of the cosplay were widely shared on social media sites as Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter.[28][30] Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston speculated they were cosplaying as the game Rampage,[2] while Facebook commenters drew a connection with the anime Terror in Tokyo.[29]

Australian Adaption

Australian channel 9Go! promoted their Australian adaption of Fishcenter airing at 12:00 on the channel along with the Adult Swim block they have on the channel.

Explanatory notes

  1. ↑ Harrigan, a creative director at the network, was first hired at Turner Broadcasting System in 1994. The Wall Street Journal observed this relationship as a rule of management to not "get hung up on hierarchy and protocol" at the studio.[9]
  2. ↑ These broadcast versions have also been uploaded to the network's YouTube channel.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gay, Verne (28 December 2015). "Best TV shows you didn't watch in 2015: Hulu's 'Difficult People,' more under-the-radar series". Newsday. Edward Bushey & Debby Krenek. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 Johnston, Rich (6 September 2016). "Cosplay Controversy At Dragon*Con – 9/11 Or Rampage?". Bleeding Cool. Avatar Press. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  3. ↑ Lee, Christina (18 June 2015). "A day inside Adult Swim: the craziest TV network in America". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Lindvall, Eric (February 11, 2015). "Discover the Wonderful, Web-Based World of Piscine Sports with Adult Swim's FishCenter Live". The A.V. Club. Onion Inc. Archived from the original on February 11, 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
    • For "tropical", see: Jurgensen, John (March 12, 2015). "Adult Swim: How to Run a Creative Hothouse". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. Archived from the original on March 13, 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Newcomb, Ming Lee (6 October 2017). "Watch Hard Working Americans Play Adult Swim's Bizarre Fish-Tank Stream/Talk Show, 'FishCenter Live'". Live for Live Music. L4LM. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  6. 1 2 Rylah, Julliet Bennett (7 September 2017). "Koi Division Is the Fish-Themed Joy Division Cover Band the World Needs Right Now". LA Weekly. Voice Media Group. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  7. 1 2 3 Lynch, Jason (20 July 2017). "How Adult Swim Cracked the Code on Livestreaming to Attract Massive Audiences". Adweek. Beringer Capital. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Kopcow, Chris (29 May 2015). "Adult Swim's 'FishCenter': A Beginner's Guide". Splitsider. The Awl. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  9. ↑ Jurgensen, John (March 12, 2015). "Shop Rules at Adult Swim". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. Archived from the original on March 13, 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Templeton, David (23 February 2017). "Sonoma's Max Simonet making big splash on Adult Swim". Sonoma Index-Tribune. Sonoma Media Investments, LLC. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Jurgensen, John (March 12, 2015). "Adult Swim: How to Run a Creative Hothouse". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. Archived from the original on March 13, 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
  12. ↑ Schwarz, John (17 December 2017). "Adult Swim To Premiere Five Nights Of “Tender Touches” – Bubbleblabber". Bubbleblabber. bubbleblabber.com. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
  13. 1 2 3 Rossignol, Derrick (1 November 2017). "Post Malone Went On Adult Swim's Absurd 'FishCenter' Web Show And Got Bitten By A Fish". Uproxx. Uproxx Media Group. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Cortez, Kevin (17 April 2017). "Watch Waka Flocka's Fish Tank Play By Play". Mass Appeal. massappeal.com. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 Cobb, Kayla (10 May 2017). "Cult Corner: 'FishCenter Live' Is The Most Delightfully Pointless Show on TV". Decider. New York Post. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  16. 1 2 3 Dwilson, Stephanie Rube (7 August 2017). "'Rick and Morty': What Is the Fishcenter Live Stream?". Heavy.com. Heavy Inc. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  17. ↑ Adult Swim staff (7 July 2016). "Adult Swim - Posts". Facebook. facebook.com. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  18. ↑ Mason, Pete (10 February 2018). "Consider The Source Announce Coast-To-Coast Spring Tour". NYS Music. nysmusic.com. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
  19. 1 2 Rossignol, Derrick (11 October 2017). "Alvvays Can't Stop Laughing At The Absurdity Of Performing On Adult Swim's 'FishCenter'". Uproxx. Uproxx Media Group. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  20. 1 2 Kahn, Andy (6 October 2017). "Hard Working Americans Perform On Adult Swim's 'FishCenter Live'". JamBase. JamBase Inc. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  21. ↑ Hay, Colin (25 February 2017). "Colin appears on FishCenter". Colin Hay. Tumblr. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
  22. ↑ Jurgensen, John (March 12, 2015). "Adult Swim: How to Run a Creative Hothouse". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. Archived from the original on March 13, 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
    • For "September", see: Jurgensen, John (March 12, 2015). "Shop Rules at Adult Swim". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. Archived from the original on March 13, 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
  23. ↑ Kondolojy, Amanda (March 10, 2015). "Monthly Ratings Notes for Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT & NBA TV: Rizzoli & Isles, Cougar Town, NBA Basketball & More". TV by the Numbers. Tribune Digital Ventures. Archived from the original on March 14, 2015. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
  24. ↑ The Comedy Bureau (10 February 2015). "Adult Swim Will Apparently Be Streaming a Daily..." The Comedy Bureau. Tumblr. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
  25. ↑ Lawson, Mark (25 July 2016). "Bring on the orphaned elephant: why TV's animal takeover is almost complete". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  26. ↑ Pearce, Sheldon (19 November 2015). "The 26 Weirdest Adult Swim Shows Ever". Deadspin. Gizmodo Media Group. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  27. ↑ Rodriguez, Josef (5 October 2017). "NYCC: Adult Swim's On the Green Tour". Geek. Geek Media Ventures/Source Interlink Media. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
  28. 1 2 Boult, Adam (5 September 2016). "Anger over 'Twin Towers' cosplayers". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  29. 1 2 Frye, Patrick (6 September 2016). "2016 Dragoncon Twin Towers Cosplay Costume Takes NYC 9/11 Jokes Too Far, Cartoon Network Adult Swim-Inspired Costumes Had Flaming Barbie Dolls Jumping To Their Deaths From World Trade Center". The Inquistr. inquistr.com. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  30. 1 2 Sandle, Tim (5 September 2016). "Dragon Con sci-fi fans trigger 9/11 controversy". Digital Journal. digitaljournal.com. Retrieved 28 November 2017.

Further reading

  • Kopcow, Chris (May 29, 2015). "Adult Swim's FishCenter: A Beginner's Guide". Splitsider. The Awl. Archived from the original on August 31, 2015.
  • "Populist: Items of interest this week". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. May 29, 2015. Archived from the original on June 6, 2015.
  • Franks, Nico (March 25, 2015). "Adult Swim floats new app". C21 Media. C21 Media Limited. Archived from the original on June 6, 2015.
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