Smiling Friends is leaving on a positive note.

After launching in 2022, the absurdist animated series gained a rabid Gen Z fan base that obsessed over the exploits of Pim and Charlie as they worked to spread happiness. Despite Adult Swim having renewed Smiling Friends for two more seasons, creators Michael Cusack (who voices Pim) and Zach Hadel (Charlie) announced in February that they were “burnt out” and would abruptly end the show with the previously aired third season.

Fans got a new reason to smile when the program was nominated for the best animated series Emmy, marking its first nom and competing with stalwarts The Simpsons and South Park. Hadel, 33, and Cusack, a 35-year-old Aussie, discuss taking new risks with season three, casting a star of The Office despite never having seen the show and the odds of more Smiling Friends.

What goes through your mind when you get that first Emmy nom?

ZACH HADEL I say, “Holy crap.” You can censor that out. I woke up to about a million text messages and missed phone calls. It’s surreal to see our tiny, 10-minute Adult Swim show next to these giants like South Park or The Simpsons, which we grew up on.

MICHAEL CUSACK Very honored. Very unexpected. We’ll probably lose, but that’s fine. (Laughs.)

When I congratulated Dan Harmon on Rick and Morty being nominated in the category, he was honored but said, “I’m happy to watch Smiling Friends win.”

CUSACK He didn’t say that.

HADEL Is that real?

It’s very real.

HADEL I didn’t even know he knew what Smiling Friends was. I think we will lose. We’ll probably cry when we lose, too, and the cameras will show us crying.

Have you been to the Emmys before?

HADEL No. We’re not big awards-show guys, but this is the Emmys.

CUSACK This whole thing is a very nice ending to it.

HADEL It feels like a nice little pat on the back, like an old man walking into the sunset.

What was it about season three, and the Mr. Frog episode that was nominated, that led to this recognition?

CUSACK This season, and specifically this episode, has raised the bar in terms of technicality. The cinematography of the live-action stuff was a bit more elevated than what we would have done in season one, and even the animation. The Halloween episode showed that, too.

HADEL We knew the characters to a degree in season one, but if you watch the show, you can feel us understanding the characters more. Then we’re allowed to go a bit wilder with it, get weird with it. We were a lot freer with the writing. We could juggle the little Fabergé eggs a bit better without as much fear.

Creed Bratton took to Instagram to congratulate the show’s team for the nomination. How did the Office alum end up playing Mr. Frog’s live-action dad in green paint?

HADEL When we talked about Mr. Frog going back to his family, we just started talking about, “What if it’s either a mom or a dad?” Once we thought that maybe it’s a real guy, it just became a lot more interesting to us. Aron [Fromm], our editor and compositor, recommended Creed, whom he knows personally. Neither of us has seen The Office.

What?

HADEL I know, I know. That’s a death-penalty offense in America, especially in comedy. So we just started looking at Creed clips. We’re like, “This guy is pretty funny.” Aron sent a little read of him doing the scene at his dinner table. He killed it and did it better than what we were imagining.

Smiling Friends had been picked up for two more seasons before you shut it down. What changed?

CUSACK Every season’s been hard to make, and that’s just the nature of the show. At the end of season three, both Zach and I talked to each other and were just like, “Our tank is empty right now.” We just knew it was right to end it there. We slept on it and came back a week or two later and were like, “We can’t go into it when we’re feeling like this, so let’s just end it.”

HADEL The biggest misconception is people thinking that we were creatively burnt out, or we didn’t have any ideas. That’s the opposite of true. It’s hard for people to understand because, when you’re watching Family Guy or South Park, it’s like, “But [Smiling Friends] is half the length of those.” We had a much smaller budget and much, much, much smaller crew. Those shows have entire writers rooms. Michael and I are the creators, the directors, the writers, the voice actors — we’re there beginning to end, all the way through. We still have a Google doc full of a bunch of ideas, but we wouldn’t have been happy doing it. It wouldn’t have been bad, but it just would have lost the juice. It would have lost the spark.

What is occupying your time these days? Michael, I know you co-created Dad’s House, which hits Netflix soon.

CUSACK We developed that in 2015, then it just sat on a shelf. It’s just a way to get out the Australian humor I like to do.

HADEL Michael and I are already doing something that’s very small and very stupid. Some people will fucking hate it, but that makes me love it. It might split the audience. (Laughs.)

You told me previously that you had started writing scripts for a season four.

CUSACK We had scripts ready for season four, even if it was draft-y. In a few years, if Zach and I feel like making the show again, we’ll dig them out and see if they’re worth making or if we want to start fresh again.

What is the percentage of likelihood that we’ll see more episodes?

HADEL It’s not low. It’s not 90 percent. It was a very difficult decision to make, but it was the right one. Michael, what do you think — 25, 30 percent?

From the way you were talking, I was hoping 60.

HADEL Can we say this? Some days, it’s 60. Some days, it’s 80. Some days, it’s 20. It really does change day to day. But it’s not zero.

This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.