{ "id": "ept072tf3f", "slug": "the-freak-brothers", "title": "The Freak Brothers", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series", "label": "Series and fictional screen worlds", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv", "label": "Scripted television and comedy series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series", "label": "Animated television series (individual series)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series.adult-animated-comedy-series", "label": "Adult animated comedy series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series.adult-animated-comedy-series" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series.adult-animated-comedy-series", "label": "United States · 2021 and later: Adult animated comedy series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series.adult-animated-comedy-series", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": 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"https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series", "label": "Animated television series (individual series)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series.adult-animated-comedy-series", "label": "Adult animated comedy series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series.adult-animated-comedy-series" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Freak Brothers is a Tubi adult animated comedy (2021) adapting Gilbert Shelton's 1968 underground comic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, starring Woody Harrelson, John Goodman, Pete Davidson, and Tiffany Haddish as time-displaced stoners in modern San Francisco.", "snippet": "The Freak Brothers is a Tubi adult animated comedy (2021) adapting Gilbert Shelton's 1968 underground comic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, starring Woody Harrelson, John Goodman, Pete Davidson, and Tiffany Haddish as time-displaced stoners in modern San Francisco.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_scripted_tv.animated-series.adult-animated-comedy-series", "markdown": "# The Freak Brothers\n\n**The Freak Brothers** is an American adult animated comedy series that adapts Gilbert Shelton's underground comic strip *The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers* for television, following three 1960s stoners and their cat who wake up fifty years after smoking a magical strain of cannabis and must adjust to life in present-day San Francisco.[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) It premiered on the streaming service Tubi on November 14, 2021, as the platform's first-ever original animated series, and has since run for three seasons.[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) • [2](https://www.awn.com/news/freak-brothers-season-3-sets-april-20-return-tubi)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Premiere | November 14, 2021, on Tubi; the first two episodes of an eight-episode first season debuted that day[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) |\n| Source material | *The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers*, an underground comix strip created by Gilbert Shelton in 1968[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) |\n| Main voice cast | Woody Harrelson (Freewheelin' Franklin Freek), John Goodman (Fat Freddy Freekowtski), Pete Davidson (Phineas T. Phreakears), Tiffany Haddish (Kitty)[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) |\n| Production | Produced by WTG Enterprises, distributed by Lionsgate; animation by Starburns Industries and Pure Imagination Studios[3](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/streaming/foxs-tubi-picks-up-the-freak-brothers-its-first-original-animated-series-209913.html) |\n| Seasons | Season 1: 8 episodes (Nov 2021); Season 2: 14 episodes (Jun 2023); Season 3: 6 episodes, all released April 20, 2026[2](https://www.awn.com/news/freak-brothers-season-3-sets-april-20-return-tubi) |\n| Rating and format | TV-MA animated comedy, roughly 25 to 26 minutes per episode[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_freak_brothers) |\n| Comic's sales | More than 45 million copies sold in 16 languages; named by *The Comics Journal* one of the \"100 Greatest Comics of the Century\"[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Premise\n\nThe series follows three cannabis-loving, time-traveling \"Freaks\" from the late 1960s: the laid-back Freewheelin' Franklin Freek, the paranoid Phineas T. Phreakears, the man-child Fat Freddy Freekowtski, and Fat Freddy's sardonic cat, Kitty. In 1969, while dodging the draft, the narcotics police, and steady employment, they smoke a magical strain of weed and fall into a fifty-year sleep. They wake up in their renovated San Francisco house, now owned by the Switzers, a family of ethnically diverse \"trippin' squares.\" The tech-savvy Switzers guide the Freaks through modern life, while the Freaks, unburdened by the baggage of the present, help the family embrace the values of a simpler time.[5](https://thefreakbrothers.com/pages/the-show)\n\nThe supporting cast rounds out both households. Adam Devine and [Blake Anderson](https://www.edgepedia.org/blake-anderson) voice Chuck and Charlie, a pair of weed savants constantly pursuing side hustles; [Andrea Savage](https://www.edgepedia.org/andrea-savage) voices Harper, a no-nonsense techie who wears the pants in her household; [La La Anthony](https://www.edgepedia.org/la-la-anthony) voices Gretchen, Harper's idealistic, socially engaged younger sister; and rapper ScHoolboy Q voices an animated version of himself.[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/)\n\n### Episodes and seasons\n\nThe first season's eight episodes ran weekly from November 14 through the finale on December 26, 2021.[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) Early episodes send the Freaks to [Woodstock](https://www.edgepedia.org/woodstock) in search of a mystic who holds the secret of the \"ultimate high,\" and follow their attempts to regrow the strain of dope that transported them to 2020.[6](https://tubitv.com/series/300007896/the-freak-brother) Season 2 followed in June 2023 with 14 episodes.[2](https://www.awn.com/news/freak-brothers-season-3-sets-april-20-return-tubi)\n\n**Season 3.** All six episodes of the third season launched on Tubi on April 20, 2026. In it, Franklin, Phineas, Freddy, and Kitty become small business owners running a cannabis shop, and their misadventures take them from Colombia, where they cross paths with a cartel, to 1980s Hollywood, and into a futuristic dystopia.[2](https://www.awn.com/news/freak-brothers-season-3-sets-april-20-return-tubi)\n\n## Production\n\nThe series was developed by WTG Enterprises, which owns the rights to the original comic, with Courtney Solomon and Mark Canton executive-producing alongside Alan Cohen and Alan Freedland, the writers and showrunners known for *King of the Hill* and *American Dad!*. The principal voice actors also serve as executive producers, as do Gilbert Shelton and Manfred Mroczkowski.[7](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/series/the-freak-brothers-wraps-production-on-eight-episode-first-season-more-cast-announced-204193.html) Lionsgate handles global distribution.[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) The animation was handled by Starburns Industries, the studio behind *Rick and Morty*, and Pure Imagination Studios.[3](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/streaming/foxs-tubi-picks-up-the-freak-brothers-its-first-original-animated-series-209913.html) Production on the first season wrapped in April 2021, after an original plan to debut in early 2020 slipped.[7](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/series/the-freak-brothers-wraps-production-on-eight-episode-first-season-more-cast-announced-204193.html)\n\n## The original comic\n\nGilbert Shelton, a founding figure of the underground comix movement, created *The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers* in 1968. The strip first appeared in *The Rag*, an underground newspaper in [Austin, Texas](https://www.edgepedia.org/austin-texas), in May 1968.[8](https://thefreakbrothers.com/pages/history) Shelton founded his own publisher, Rip Off Press, in 1969 and issued the first long Freak Brothers comic book, 52 pages, in 1971; thirteen Rip Off Press Freaks books appeared over the following two decades, and a separate series of books featuring Fat Freddy's Cat began in 1975. From 1974 Shelton collaborated with other artists, notably Dave Sheridan and Paul Mavrides, who joined the strip in 1978.[9](https://gric.univ-lehavre.fr/IMG/pdf/claire_bowen_far-out_unbathed_leftists._the_fabulous_furry_freak_brothers_and_middle_america.pdf)\n\nThe strip follows three countercultural slackers who are not actual brothers, along with their much smarter cat, and its early stories are short, incident-based narratives in which the Freaks wheel and deal their way out of trouble while avoiding work, the police, and ordinary middle-American society.[8](https://thefreakbrothers.com/pages/history) • [9](https://gric.univ-lehavre.fr/IMG/pdf/claire_bowen_far-out_unbathed_leftists._the_fabulous_furry_freak_brothers_and_middle_america.pdf) The comic has sold more than 45 million copies in 16 languages, and *The Comics Journal* named it one of the 100 greatest comics of the century.[1](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/) Shelton was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2012.[10](https://blog.fantagraphics.com/fantagraphics-to-collect-legendary-underground-comix-the-fabulous-furry-freak-brothers-ahead-of-their-new-animated-series/)\n\nIn 2021, ahead of the animated series, the publisher Fantagraphics announced a new four-volume collection of the strip under the title *The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Follies*, with the first volume, *The Idiots Abroad and Other Follies*, released in January 2022.[10](https://blog.fantagraphics.com/fantagraphics-to-collect-legendary-underground-comix-the-fabulous-furry-freak-brothers-ahead-of-their-new-animated-series/) The comic has also been translated repeatedly into Italian, by both alternative publishers such as Arcana and Stampa Alternativa and mainstream houses such as Mondadori and Comicon, making it a case study in how politically committed countercultural satire travels across languages.[11](https://punctum.gr/volume-07-issue-02-2021-the-social-political-and-ideological-semiotics-of-comics-and-cartoons/2021-0016/)\n\n## Distribution\n\nThe series streams on Tubi in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, and has been licensed internationally to platforms including [HBO Max](https://www.edgepedia.org/hbo-max) in much of Europe, Crave in Canada, Globo in Brazil, mgm in the United Kingdom and Ireland, ProSieben FUN in German-speaking Europe, and M-Net in South Africa.[12](https://thefreakbrothers.com/pages/where-to-watch) It is also available for digital purchase starting at $9.99 per season on services such as Amazon Video and Apple TV.[13](https://www.moviefone.com/tv-shows/the-freak-brothers/qbcTwB09JFQdqHLimElVz5/where-to-watch/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [THE GRASS IS GREENER ON TUBI, Tubi press release, October 19, 2021](https://corporate.tubitv.com/press/the-grass-is-greener-on-tubi/)\n2. ['The Freak Brothers' Season 3 Sets April 20 Return on Tubi, Animation World Network, April 14, 2026](https://www.awn.com/news/freak-brothers-season-3-sets-april-20-return-tubi)\n3. [Fox's Tubi Picks Up 'The Freak Brothers,' Its First Original Animated Series, Cartoon Brew, October 21, 2021](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/streaming/foxs-tubi-picks-up-the-freak-brothers-its-first-original-animated-series-209913.html)\n4. [The Freak Brothers, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_freak_brothers)\n5. [The Show, The Freak Brothers official site](https://thefreakbrothers.com/pages/the-show)\n6. [The Freak Brothers, Tubi episode listing](https://tubitv.com/series/300007896/the-freak-brother)\n7. ['The Freak Brothers' Wraps Production On Eight-Episode First Season; Cast Announced, Cartoon Brew, April 21, 2021](https://www.cartoonbrew.com/series/the-freak-brothers-wraps-production-on-eight-episode-first-season-more-cast-announced-204193.html)\n8. [The Freakin' History, The Freak Brothers official site](https://thefreakbrothers.com/pages/history)\n9. [Claire Bowen, \"Far-Out, Unbathed Leftists.\" The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Middle America, Université du Havre](https://gric.univ-lehavre.fr/IMG/pdf/claire_bowen_far-out_unbathed_leftists._the_fabulous_furry_freak_brothers_and_middle_america.pdf)\n10. [Fantagraphics to Collect Legendary Underground Comix THE FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS Ahead of Their New Animated Series, Fantagraphics Blog, August 3, 2021](https://blog.fantagraphics.com/fantagraphics-to-collect-legendary-underground-comix-the-fabulous-furry-freak-brothers-ahead-of-their-new-animated-series/)\n11. [Chiara Polli, Isotopy as a Tool for the Analysis of Comics in Translation: The Italian 'Rip-Off' of Gilbert Shelton's Freak Brothers, Punctum, 2021](https://punctum.gr/volume-07-issue-02-2021-the-social-political-and-ideological-semiotics-of-comics-and-cartoons/2021-0016/)\n12. [Where To Watch, The Freak Brothers official site](https://thefreakbrothers.com/pages/where-to-watch)\n13. [The Freak Brothers Where to Watch, Moviefone](https://www.moviefone.com/tv-shows/the-freak-brothers/qbcTwB09JFQdqHLimElVz5/where-to-watch/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Animated television series (individual series) › Adult animated comedy series*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-freak-brothers", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-freak-brothers.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Freak Brothers\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-freak-brothers. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Freak Brothers](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-freak-brothers)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-freak-brothers](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-freak-brothers). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Freak Brothers\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-freak-brothers. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Freak Brothers is a Tubi adult animated comedy adapting Gilbert Shelton's 1968 underground comic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, starring Woody Harrelson, John Goodman, Pete Davidson, and Tiffany Haddish as time-displaced stoners in modern San Francisco." }