Squidbillies

Squidbillies is an American adult animated sitcom created by Jim Fortier and Dave Willis for Cartoon Network's late-night programming block Adult Swim. An unofficial pilot for the series aired on April 1, 2005. The series later made its official debut on October 16, 2005, and ended on December 12, 2021, with a total of 132 episodes over the course of 13 seasons.

The series is about the Cuylers, an impoverished family of anthropomorphic hillbilly mud squids living in the Georgia region of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The series revolves around the exploits of an alcoholic father (Early), who is often abusive in a comedic way towards his family. His son, Rusty, is desperate for his approval; his mother and grandmother, known in the show as Granny, are often the center of his aggression; and Lily, Early's sister, is mostly unconscious in a pool of her own vomit.

The series also airs in syndication in other countries and has been released on various DVD sets and other forms of home media.

Squidbillies follows the exploits of the Cuyler family and their interactions with the local populace, which usually results in a fair amount of destruction, mutilation, and death. The Cuylers are essentially given free rein and protected from the consequences of their actions whenever possible by their crudely drawn friend, the Sheriff (whose name is "Sharif"), as they are said to be the last twisted remnants of a federally protected endangered species, the "Appalachian Mud Squid". They live in the southern Appalachian Mountains located in the North Georgia mountains. At the epicenter of this rural paradise is Dougal County, home to crippling gambling addictions, a murderous corporation, sexual deviants, and the authentic Southern mountain squid. The show often satirizes the history and culture of the American South, including the Lost Cause, slavery, religious fundamentalism, segregation, political conservatism, bigotry, racism, and poverty. In the words of The New York Times, the show takes "backwoods stereotypes" and turns them into "a cudgel with which to pound maniacally on all manner of topical subjects."

Squidbillies was created by Dave Willis, co-creator of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Jim Fortier, previously of The Brak Show, both of whom worked on the Adult Swim series Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The show was animated by Radical Axis until 2012, with Awesome Inc taking on animation duties until the show’s conclusion.

The series has its origins in 2003, when Mike Lazzo, former vice president of Adult Swim, asked to develop a project around the title Squidbilly's, about which he speculated during a conversation with his colleagues about Hanna-Barbera's Squiddly Diddly character. In July of the same year, Matt Maiellaro and Pete Smith produced the first script of the pilot episode, but it was scrapped, and over 35 scripts were written by Maiellaro, Smith, Dave Willis, Jim Fortier, Matt Harrigan, and Mike Lazzo over the course of a year. Later, Lazzo approved and commissioned a screenplay by Dave Willis and Jim Fortier, who decided to base the plot and related characters on the stories of the two creators who both grew up in Conyers, Georgia. According to vice president Keith Crofford, development of the first season was delayed due to a lack of ideas, revealing that the pilot episode was scheduled to air in December 2004. The original budget of the pilot episode was about $1100.

On March 25, 2004, the series was announced to be in production with a first season consisting of seven episodes planned. Adult Swim later showed short clips from the first episode during San Diego Comic-Con and Dragon Con in 2004. The series was announced as in development with as many as 96 episodes, that the pilot episode would air on November 7, 2004, and that the official broadcast would take place in January 2005. On November 4, 2004, three days before the pilot episode was scheduled to air, the animated special Anime Talk Show aired, featuring future Squidbillies star Early Cuyler, along with Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sharko from Sealab 2021, who are interviewed by Space Ghost. The special was later placed as a bonus feature on the first DVD volume of Squidbillies. The pilot episode was heavily promoted to air on November 7, 2004. On that date, however, Adult Swim decided to air the first episode of Perfect Hair Forever unannounced due to the incompleteness of the Squidbillies episode.

In March 2005, Adult Swim announced that a six-episode first season would air from September of that year alongside 12 oz. Mouse and Perfect Hair Forever. An unfinished version of the pilot episode aired on April Fool's Day, later revealed by a bumper that it would be completed in five weeks. On October 16, 2005, after being posted on the official website two days earlier, the episode aired alongside the rest of the season.