Smiling Friends is great, because it's not edgy bullshit for the sake of being nihilistic or edgy. It's premise is to make people (the audience) smile (and by extension laugh. The most violence for the sake of violence we've seen is Mr. Frog in the Jimble episode, but his character is already established as a psycho. The Frowning Friends kind of had it coming they were antagonists after all, but even they Grim and Gnarly smiled at the end before the Renaissance men showed up. There's no poltiical leaning left or right, there's no message at the end, which even early South Park had. I'd say it's closer to the early Simpsons than anything else except without the aspect of family to it; but the Simpsons was also going for a deconstruction of the American nuclear family sitcom. Maybe Futurama?
