There are plenty of things about animation that make it a magical medium, and its visual and aesthetic limitlessness is definitely one of the biggest. Creators can do absolutely anything they can imagine with animation, and if that’s a twistedly trippy and psychedelic show, then so be it. Over the years, there have been plenty of TV series that meet those qualities.
From Adult Swim classics to full-fledged children’s shows that have been giving kids nightmares for decades, history’s trippiest animated TV shows prove that you don’t need foreign substances to have a transcendental experience. They can be funny, they can be scary, and they can be unforgettable and unsettling, but one thing they never fail to be is entertaining.
15
‘The California Raisin Show’ (1989–1990)
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Image via CBS</figure>
The 1980s saw the airing of so many all-American cartoons that some of them have inevitably fallen into oblivion as the years have passed, and it’s an absolute crime that The California Raisin Show is among those forgotten ’80s cartoons. Based on the claymation advertising characters The California Raisins and the claymation television special Meet the Raisins!, this sure is one odd cartoon.
The shift from claymation to 2D animation pretty much killed any appeal that a show based on the California Raisins might have had, which led the series to be canceled after a 13-episode run. But 36 years after its conclusion, The California Raisin Show has earned a pop-cultural reassessment. It’s a fascinating time capsule full of unapologetically ’80s-y surrealism, a tone that has allowed it to age like a fine, funky wine.
14
‘Regular Show’ (2010–2017)
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Image via Cartoon Network</figure>
The animated sitcom Regular Show is one of Cartoon Network’s biggest cult classics to date, a brilliant blend of mundane slacker comedy and completely bonkers surreal, cosmic, and supernatural mayhem and chaos. It all leads to one of the best sci-fi show finales of the last 10 years, but the journey to that destination is why this is such a must-see for anyone who loves over-the-top animation.
The formula never, ever gets old: Mordecai and Rigby engage in some sort of regular activity, only for a rapid-fire escalation of stakes and trippiness to arrive and make each episode unforgettable. It’s a formula that allowed for a whopping eight incredible seasons of irresistibly entertaining television, and one which has kept the series timeless nearly a decade after its conclusion.
13
‘The Shivering Truth’ (2018–2020)
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Image via Adult Swim</figure>
Adult Swim has been delivering television’s most unforgettable adult animated projects for many years, and yet, they always find a way to make each new show feel entirely special and unique. The stop-motion-animated comedy horror anthology The Shivering Truth is most certainly one of the network’s most unique shows, one that’s definitely not meant for all tastes.
Indeed, The Shivering Truth is an unapologetic celebration of the grotesque, and though people who aren’t intrigued by the idea aren’t likely to love it, those who love viscerally surreal and nightmarish animation should find it delightful. Deeply unsettling and visually masterful, it’s the sort of masterpiece that deserved to be on the small screen for at least a few more seasons.
12
‘The Big Lez Show’ (2012–2019)
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Image via YouTube</figure>
Web series shouldn’t be underestimated, particularly not when it comes to the field of trippy adult animation. For proof, one needn’t look much further than The Big Lez Show, one of the best animated shows you’ve probably never heard of. This Australian stoner comedy garnered such a passionate cult following on YouTube that a spin-off series was commissioned by Comedy Central Australia.
Seven years after it came to an end, The Big Lez Show hasn’t lost one bit of its delectably mind-bending and psychedelic sheen. For a very intentionally low-fi show that’s very overtly about drug culture, it should come as no surprise that Big Lez Show is as hilariously bizarre and exquisitely colorful as it is.
11
‘Common Side Effects’ (2024–Present)
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Image via Adult Swim</figure>
Common Side Effects is one of Adult Swim’s latest sensations, one of those new animated shows that are perfect from start to finish. With a well-deserved 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this true masterpiece of a show functions equally well as a nail-biting conspiracy thriller and as a frequently hilarious social satire critiquing corporate greed and Big Pharma.
But as deeply thought-provoking and powerfully reflective of real-world issues as it is, Common Side Effects never forgets to be irresistibly fun—and often, that fun comes in the form of hysterically odd animation, surreal drug-induced hallucination scenes, and a tone and atmosphere that are intentionally built to be as potently dreamlike as possible.
10
‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ (1999–2022)
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Image via Cartoon Network</figure>
One of Cartoon Network’s most iconic shows ever, Courage the Cowardly Dog debuted in 1996 as an animated short that received an Oscar nomination, which it lost to Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave. The short was then greenlit to become the show that every kid who grew up watching knows, loves, and has traumatizing memories with.
Indeed, Courage the Cowardly Dog is one of the creepiest kids’ shows ever, with a trippy atmosphere that feels like it was plucked right out of a David Lynch film. It’s fascinating in its creativity and surprisingly shameless in its depiction of violence, but sometimes, even the little ones of the family deserve a nightmare-inducing surreal experience.
9
‘Rick and Morty’ (2013–Present)
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Image via Adult Swim</figure>
Inconsistent though its later seasons may be, one thing remains true: Rick and Morty is still one of the best sci-fi sitcoms currently on television. People love its complex storytelling and layered character arcs, its sophisticated yet silly sense of humor, and its delightful meta aspects. It’s incredibly well written and visually stunning throughout.
The show, when it needs to be, can also be undeniably trippy. Episodes like “Mortynight Run” and “Total Rickall” are mind-bending and irreverent in all the right ways, and some of the gags, visuals, and stories of several other episodes are also quasi-hallucinatory. Not the entirety of Rick and Morty is trippy, but a good deal of it certainly is.
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life
looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in
return.
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and
somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right
thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
- This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat,
fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends. - You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost
everything you touch is older than your entire family line. - The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives
every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight. - You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where
you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is
finding out what is over there.
- One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who
each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together. - You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off
somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea. - The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land
harder because of that rather than in spite of it. - You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of
it.
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The
Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the
people are where it all gets complicated.
- Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is
a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept. - You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the
Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer. - The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a
rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people. - You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story
got told wrong.
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and
you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as
everybody kept telling you.
- Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners,
which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse. - You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for
something nobody thought to test for. - The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud
every time a prophecy tries to get in the way. - Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you
difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
8
‘Adventure Time’ (2010–2018)
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Image via Cartoon Network</figure>
Yet another one of Cartoon Network’s most iconic TV shows ever, Adventure Time is a cult classic like no other the network has ever produced. Drawing inspiration from all sorts of different fantasy media, the show wears its influences out on its sleeve, and that’s a huge part of why audiences love it so much. It’s also a big part of why it has a basis that’s more than strong enough to get experimental when it wants to.
Everything about the show seems ripe for psychedelic qualities, which it often exploits to their fullest potential. Its simple yet surreal visuals are a delight, its absurd sense of humor is irresistible, and its trippy tone makes it hard not to feel fully invested in the story, characters, and themes. It’s why it’s often praised as one of the best animated fantasy TV shows ever
7
‘Smiling Friends’ (2020–2026)
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Image via Adult Swim </figure>
Smiling Friends is one of the best comedy shows of the decade so far, one of Adult Swim’s most bizarre and surreal projects ever, which is saying an awful lot. There’s no mistaking what one is getting into. From the first episode, Smiling Friends makes it abundantly clear that it likes to get really weird really often.
It’s precisely that surreal tone, those psychedelic visuals, and that colorful atmosphere that has garnered it a huge cult following, though. It can get grotesque, it can get chaotic, and it always gets unsettling, but that’s precisely the source of its charm. For people looking for a show that’ll have them scratching their heads in fascinated confusion every single episode, this one seems perfect.
6
‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ (1995–1996)
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Image via TV Tokyo</figure>
Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most important and influential anime series in history, spawning a highly successful franchise that includes movies, manga, and other media. It has aged like fine wine, largely thanks to the brilliant way in which it deals with timeless themes like religion, human nature, and psychology.
Ripe for analysis of all sorts, but also undeniably entertaining throughout, Neon Genesis Evangelion is easily one of the most masterful anime shows of the ’90s. It’s also one of the trippiest anime series ever produced, both in its visuals and in its narrative, particularly as the story progresses into its ending—culminating in the film The End of Evangelion, which is the trippiest of all.
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