What is the Adult Swim Block Party, and why is it coming to Fishtown?

It’s time for the kids to get out of the pool.

In other words: It’s Adult Swim time.

A three-day festival that aims to become an annual only-in-Philadelphia fixture on the city’s summer calendar arrives in Fishtown next weekend.

The inaugural Adult Swim Block Party will celebrate the brand built around the nighttime programming on the Cartoon Network cable channel that targets grown-ups with an absurdist sense of humor.

It will be staged at the cluster of venues that includes the Fillmore Philly, Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia, and Punch Line Philly — and on the closed-off street outside them — from Aug. 5 to 7.

So what exactly is it? And why is it happening in Philadelphia?

“My one line about the festival is it’s everything that you love about Adult Swim in one place,” says Jill King, senior vice president of the Atlanta-based company owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Networks.

For acolytes of Adult Swim shows like Rick and Morty — about the interplanetary adventures of a scientist and his grandson — as well as more casual curiosity seekers, King says Block Party-goers should “expect the unexpected.”

There are many things, however, that Adult Swim fans — who are mostly concentrated in the 18-to-34 age range — can know going in. For one, although music acts like Run the Jewels and Tierra Whack are among the main attractions, admission works more like a film festival than a music fest.

That means a ticket is required for each individual event, whether it be Saturday afternoon’s sold-out panel on the upcoming animated show Smiling Friends, which will include unseen clips of the show, or Philly band Hop Along playing Sunday afternoon at Brooklyn Bowl.

Those tickets also gain entry to the Block Party grounds with attractions such as a giant inflatable hot dog ride, or access to Other Half Brewing, the adjacent brewery that is making an Adult Swim pale ale. (Single-day and three-day passes also provide access to all events, except the three popular Comic-Con-style panels, which are sold out.)

Philly food trucks like Humpty’s Dumplings will be parked at the Block Party. And in honor of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, whose movie spin-off Plantasm will be previewed, the Fillmore will be serving Little Meat Wads and Master Shakes.

And along with the screenings of Adult Swim shows and a full slate of stand-up comedy, there will be lots of music. Philly acts Spirit of the Beehive, Chill Moody, and Snacktime are featured acts, as are Alabama rapper Flo Milli and Eshu Tune, the project of comedian Hannibal Buress.

Music discovery is a big part of Adult Swim, which launched in 2001 and whose early hits included Cowboy Bebop and the surrealist talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Three nights of headliners at the Fillmore kick off with Run the Jewels, the hard-hitting, politically astute duo of rapper Michael “Killer Mike” Render and rapper-producer El-P, whose given name is Jaime Meline. They’ll be followed by Philly rapper Whack on Saturday and Dethklok, featuring creator Brendon Small and the real-life musicians behind the animated show Metalocalypse, on Sunday.

Run the Jewels, who have released four acclaimed albums since 2013, owes its existence to Adult Swim: Render and Meline were introduced by Jason DeMarco, the exec behind the brand’s Adult Swim Singles Program. “Adult Swim is not typical of TV culture,” Killer Mike told Billboard in 2017. “They seem to understand counterculture.”

For Whack, an Adult Swim alliance feels perfectly natural. “Adult Swim is it,” she said, speaking via Zoom this month from her home in Philadelphia as she got ready to fly to Chicago to perform at the Pitchfork Music Festival. “It’s always been the coolest.”

Since emerging in 2017 with “Mumbo Jumbo,” a song about a visit to the dentist that goes horribly wrong, Whack has established herself as a rising star who does things her own way.

» READ MORE: Welcome to Tierra Whack’s ‘Whack World’: The North Philly rapper only needs 15 minutes of your time

Her wildly creative 2018 debut, Whack World, contained 15 one-minute songs. On TikTok, she frequently appears with her 3-year-old cousin Cahii McCutcheon, who joined her at the Roots Picnic in June. Her most recent collaboration is with Banter by Piercing Pagoda, a 16-piece jewelry collection which ranges in price from $55 to $1,750.

That anything-goes spirit meshes with the Adult Swim aesthetic. Her video for her 2019 song “Unemployed,” which featured a pile of anthropomorphic potatoes, was funded by and premiered on the channel.

In 2020, she voiced a character on the stop-motion sketch show The Shivering Truth. Robot Chicken and Loiter Squad are favorites, but “Adult Swim is one of those networks that you can just have on all day. … They just don’t have any rules. You can do whatever you want. There are no boundaries to creativity, so I respect that.”

Fans have been waiting for a conventional full-length album from Whack. She won’t put a date on it but says it’s coming.

“I’ve been working in the studio so much, but by the grace of God I’ve been getting so many other opportunities that I want to venture out and try,” says Whack, who had a cameo in the Philly hoops movie Hustle. “I’m always in the studio. But we’re just letting it come together, we’re not forcing it. But soon. Because I have so much music. So much music.”

At the Block Party, Whack’s comic flair will fit right in with a slate of Adult Swim-approved comedians. Early and late shows are scheduled at Punch Line Philly with Carmen Christopher and Shane Torres on Friday, Jo Firestone and Ana Fabrega on Saturday, and Brandon Wardell and Reggie Conquest on Sunday.

Adult Swim Festivals were staged in Los Angeles in 2018 and 2019, and virtual versions the last two years. This year’s fest will combine both elements, with highlights of the Philly fest streamed for free online on YouTube.

This year’s fest has been renamed the Adult Swim Block Party in part as result of what helped draw the event to Philadelphia: the cluster of Live Nation-operated Fishtown clubs that make up what’s being called the Fillmore Campus.

That was crucial to Adult Swim’s decision to make a chosen home for the Block Party in Philadelphia, as was the city’s central location on the Northeast corridor.

“We think Philadelphia is one of those places that will have a lot of hometown fandom, but is also a great destination city for people to come to,” King says.

Fitting into the Philly pop-cultural schedule was also a factor, she says. “Philadelphia has amazing festivals. You have the Roots Picnic, and Made in America. We thought there was an opportunity in between those to bring a different kind of event to Philly.”

The Block Party faces the same unexpected challenges that have slowed ticket sales for many concert tours, King acknowledges. “What we didn’t plan for was the situation with gas prices. The struggle is real in terms of daily living and people paying their bills. So we want to be super respectful and mindful of that.”

Still, with the 2,700-capacity Fillmore as its central venue, the Block Party expects to meet its goal of drawing 8,000 to 10,000 people over the weekend.

That would be a healthy start, King said, for a festival that aims to establish itself this year and potentially expand to larger venues like the Met Philadelphia on North Broad or the Mann Center in Fairmount Park.

“That’s what we’re aiming for,” says King. “We want people to come down and experience it. Everything we do as a brand is super experimental, and we like to start small and get feedback. That gives us the flexibility to try things and double down on what’s working. We want to grow in Philadelphia and be back there next year.”

Adult Swim Block Party, Aug. 5-7 at the Fillmore Campus, 29 E. Allen St., $20-$199, 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 5, noon on Aug. 6 and 7. A full schedule of events and ticket options can be found at adultswimfestival.com.