Adult Swim's Global Smash Hit Show Is So Good, It's Already Renewed Through Season 12

While adult swim has a lot of great, inventive cartoon comedies, the network’s biggest hit ever is one of the few animated sitcoms to make it to season 12. Throughout the history of American TV sitcoms, there are few shows as influential as The Simpsons. MASH and Seinfeld arguably did as much to shape the sitcom landscape, but The Simpsons single-handedly popularized the adult animation format in a way that no other movie or show managed, and spawned endless imitators as a result.

Almost all the longest-running animated comedy shows on television are directly creatively indebted to The Simpsons, as they are mostly episodic sitcoms with no fixed canon about dysfunctional nuclear families. Family Guy, American Dad, and Bob’s Burgers have all lasted over a decade, and all fit this description, with only Futurama and South Park lasting for over a dozen outings while still maintaining a different spin on the adult animated comedy format.

However, there is one other animated comedy show about a dysfunctional family that is both indebted to The Simpsons and radically, undeniably inventive in its own way, and that adult swim hit is soon set to reach the all-important season 10 milestone. While Rick and Morty season 9 episode 1 only just arrived in May 2026, the anarchic adult swim comedy series is already renewed through to season 12 thanks to Rick and Morty's massive, historic success for the network.

Rick and Morty’s Season 12 Renewal Proves The Show Could Last Forever

For decades, adult swim was home to some of TV’s most interesting and experimental comedy shows, but the network could never quite get a mainstream hit. Perhaps because of their commitment to surrealism and absurdity, shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Robot Chicken gained and maintained large loyal fan bases, but never crossed over into the mainstream and became global pop culture sensations.

That changed with Rick and Morty’s arrival in 2013, as the series fused the smart, strange sensibilities of earlier adult swim shows with an approachable, straightforward sitcom setup. As the genre-blending antics of Rick and Morty’s season 9 premiere prove, the show is far from simplistic or formulaic.

That said, co-creator Dan Harmon’s extensive experience in network TV writing ensures that, as wacky and wild as Rick and Morty is, the series never loses sight of its origins as a goofy family sitcom. Even at its most ambitiously bizarre, Rick and Morty remains a mainstream crowd-pleaser, and this is a quality it has never shared with the rest of adult swim’s acclaimed but esoteric output.

How Rick and Morty Maintained Its Critical Acclaim Across Nine Seasons

Rick and Morty always comes back, at its core, to the family dynamics that keep the show engaging. Despite its title, most of the show’s best episodes focus on Jerry, Beth, Summer, and even Space Beth as much as Rick and Morty themselves, and the Smith family are the show’s true stars rather than Rick and Morty alone.

In an era when everything from Stranger Things to Game of Thrones fumbled their popularity by spreading the focus of the shows too wide and introducing too many characters, Rick and Morty wisely sticks to a winning formula. The show might be ruder, raunchier, and more R-rated than The Simpsons could ever hope to become, but Rick and Morty still owes a creative debt to the pioneering adult animated comedy.

Like Family Guy, the adult swim show immediately developed an identity of its own that feels different from the earlier mega hit. However, the core of the show’s consistent critical acclaim is still its ability to feel inventive, original, and innovative while, from season 1 to season 9 to the upcoming three future seasons, Rick and Morty remains a family sitcom.