Country of origin United States First episode date September 2014 | Original language(s) English Language English | |
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Presented by Dave BonawitsAndrew ChoeMatt HarriganMax Simonet No. of episodes 600+ (as of January 2016) Running time 11 minutes (television) Original network AdultSwim.com (online)Adult Swim (television) Similar Eagleheart, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman - Attorney, Black Jesus, Squidbillies | ||
FishCenter Live (also shortened to FishCenter) 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.
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Summary and production
FishCenter Live is presented as a 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 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 of Adult Swim, from the network's digital department room. 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.
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.
Critical reception has been positive. Eric Lindvall of The A.V. Club called 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".
