Freaknik- The Musical -

Until Adult Swim finally decides to un-bury it, we are left with grainy YouTube clips, fond memories, and the ghost of T-Pain singing about traffic jams. It might not be the Freaknik you remember. But then again, the real one probably wasn’t either.

Jones, an animator and writer who worked on The Boondocks and later created Black Dynamite: The Animated Series , pitched a wild idea to Adult Swim: What if we made a musical about Freaknik that is also a parody of disaster movies and Broadway show tunes? The result was a one-hour special that aired on March 7, 2010, as part of Adult Swim’s infamous “Eat, Flash, and You” block. The narrative of Freaknik- The Musical is simultaneously simple and insane. The protagonists are two college students, David (voiced by Daniel "Skywalker" Jenkins ) and his best friend, Ryan ( Gruff Rhys of the band Super Furry Animals). They road-trip to Atlanta in a beat-up Honda Accord to attend the legendary Freaknik, hoping to lose their virginities. Freaknik- The Musical

What follows is an apocalyptic traffic jam. The city of Atlanta morphs into a labyrinth of stopped cars, horn-honking demons, and horny college students. The musical numbers—scored primarily by (who also serves as the show’s musical director and a voice actor)—range from auto-tuned ballads to bombastic gospel parodies. Until Adult Swim finally decides to un-bury it,

defended the special in a 2010 interview: “If you went to Freaknik, you know it was already a cartoon. We just added singing.” The show’s defenders point out that nearly every writer and voice actor is Black, and that the humor comes from a place of fond, if twisted, nostalgia. The Legacy: Lost, Found, and Un-streamed Here is where the story of Freaknik- The Musical gets tragic for modern fans. For over a decade, the special has been nearly impossible to find legally. Due to music licensing issues (clearance for dozens of hip-hop samples) and Adult Swim’s shifting content library, the show never received a proper DVD release or a permanent spot on HBO Max (now Max). Jones, an animator and writer who worked on