In November 2019, Adult Swim renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on May 10, 2020.[1]
Overview
When announced in a press release by Adult Swim in May 2017, The Shivering Truth was described as "a delicately crafted, darkly surreal anthology comedy, a miniature propulsive omnibus cluster bomb of painfully riotous daymares all dripping with the orange goo of dream logic. A series of loosely-linked emotional parables about stories within tales that crawled out of the deepest caverns of your unconscious mind and became lovingly animated in breath-slapping stop motion – in other words, it is the TRUTH".[2][3]
Development
The characters in the show are 10-inch (250 mm) puppets with wire-based armatures, created with silicone, wool, polystyrene, and resin.[4] Chatman stated that around six months of physical production, a month of recording, and 2+1⁄2 months of post-production were needed to complete six episodes. Chatman has noted several inspirations for his work on the show, including Terry Gilliam's work on Monty Python's Flying Circus, stating that "I saw it when I was very young, so it scared me. I didn't know when the animation was beginning or ending."[4] He also explained that "A lot of my influences are non-animated, primarily in short films, novels, even radio shows. A recent one is David Eagleman's books on the brain. He's a neuroscientist and he gives you 40 different versions of the afterlife, and none of them can co-exist."[4] Solen has spoken on her inspirations as well, saying that "I loved the movie The Wizard of Speed and Time, which is a cautionary tale about making movies. Another film that I loved as a kid was Nicolas Roeg's [film] adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches, which featured both Anjelica Huston and Jim Henson's puppets. It scared me so much!"[4]
The song played during the closing credits is usually some version of the old English ballad Long Lankin. The music is often distorted in some way and usually begins near the end of the ballad, at the lines "There's blood in the kitchen, there's blood in the hall / There's blood in the parlour where my lady did fall." The original score is by Heather Christian.[5]
The tales of kinky roommates, the greatest peek-a-boo player the world has ever known, chicken blood infusions and an unproductive office worker who learns to love himself.
The tales of a trip to the dentist, a magician who discovered a new type of meat and a man's emptiness.
Release
The pilot episode premiered on the Adult Swim website on May 22, 2018.[17] Before the television premiere on December 10, 2018, Adult Swim created an "online scavenger hunt" by releasing all six episodes on multiple websites and platforms.[18]
In June 2020, the series was uploaded to subscription video on demandstreaming serviceHBO Max, with the exception of the episode "Ogled Inklings", which was intentionally excluded due to a scene where a woman gives birth to a child wearing a peaked policeman's cap, whom the doctor refers to as "a dirty pig". This ban took place due to the then-ongoing George Floyd protests and rising prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement, with an Adult Swim representative stating that "When Adult Swim transitions series to a new platform we determine what episodes are selected through creative and cultural filters and our standards and practices policies. Oftentimes these decisions are made in collaboration with the show’s creator”. Similar action was also taken against episodes of The Boondocks and an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.[19]
Reception
Daniel Kurland of Den of Geek praised the pilot along with the subsequent first episodes to premiere, giving the show a score of 5/5 and calling it "straight up one of the best things that I’ve ever seen in my life".[20][21] Jonathan Barkan of Dread Central called the show "pure nightmare fuel genius", writing that it "looks like the cast aside baby of Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson ... it's packed full of absurdist humor, the kind of stuff that you will watch and not be sure if you should laugh, wince, or look at your friends and ask, 'What the fuck?'"[22] Dave Trumbore of Collider wrote that "It’s not often you get to put this level of artistry and insanity on display on an international television network", and that "You’ll definitely laugh while watching The Shivering Truth, but there’s just as good a chance that you’ll throw up a bit, too".[23]
^Daniel Kurland (December 9, 2018). "The Shivering Truth Review". Den of Geek. Dennis Publishing. Archived from the original on December 11, 2018. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
