FishCenter Live (also shortened to FishCenter or FC Live 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.
Video FishCenter Live
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. The fish are ranked according to their points, which are awarded when the fish complete a number of challenges. These challenges include "Coin Quest", floating over coins that are superimposed on the video feed. The show is hosted by Dave Bonawits, Andrew Choe, Matt Harrigan, and Max Simonet, 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. Later, both David Bonawits and Max Simonet co-created Tender Touches.
Maps FishCenter Live
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.
Guests
Animal cast
Former animal cast
Super and Galaxy Kings
- 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, and Hard Working Americans (HWA) played on FishCenter Live. Alvvays' played the song "Not My Baby" from their sophomore album Antisocialites. HWA played the songs "Burn Out Shoes" and "Half Ass Moses". HWA was on tour promoting their live album We're All In This Together. Post Malone was also a guest but got bitten by Hamburger. Waka Flocka Flame and DJ Whoo Kid played on FCL as well. Fish-themed Joy Division cover band, Koi Division, said their dream is to appear on FishCenter Live., Lead Zeppelin
Other guests
Actor Colin Hay appeared on FishCenter Live on February 25, 2017.
Broadcast and reception
FishCenter Live was originally released in September 2014 on Adult Swim's official website. 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.
In the first week of its televised broadcast, the show garnered 2.6 million viewers in total. 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. 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.
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.
Critical reception has been positive. Adweek's Jason Lynch called FishCenter Live "its flagship livestreaming show." 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." Decider's Kayla Cobb said "[i]t's weird, but it works." 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." JamBase's Andy Kahn called it "wacky." 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." 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".
Live for Live Music's Ming Lee Newcomb described FishCenter Live as "eccentric" and "bizarre." 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." In reviewing Tender Touches, Geek's Jose Rodriguez said the pilot had "more in common with Xavier: Renegade Angel or FishCenter." 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." 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." 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."
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. Images of the cosplay were widely shared on social media sites as Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston speculated they were cosplaying as the game Rampage, while Facebook commenters drew a connection with the anime Terror in Tokyo.
Explanatory notes
References
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.
External links
- Official website
- "FishCenter (TV Series 2015- )" on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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