Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
From sarahmaeschmidt.com
If you go to the Adult Swim Youtube page and browse, you will sooner or later find a cartoon about a gas station run by animals. About three minutes in length, each episode details the brief, sweet antics of a gas station’s regulars and employees; a two-headed cat and a possum among them, and features strains of exotic alternative music, from ska to metalcore.
These shorts, or “smalls,” in Adult Swim lingo, are entitled Gassy’s Gas ‘N Stuff, and they are the brainchild of Chicago-based animator Sara Schmidt. Schmidt has long been a devotee of alternative music, and has designed numerous show posters for alternative bands (PUP, Free Throw, Pet Symmetry, etc).
Posters from sarahmaeschmidt.com
Schmidt’s first attempt at a music-cartoon hybrid was a play on her friend’s animation: “I thought it was so funny to make this brutal ska soundtrack for this silly animation. It was, like, sci-fi, very serious.” The clip traveled to the desk of Dave Hughes at Adult Swim, who invited Sara to send further pitches.
“I was very fortunate to get a little bit of a head start there by showing that I already finished work prior. So I sent along three different pitches, including this short series about a gas station, which is pretty autobiographical about my life working at a gas station in the middle of Ohio, and they liked that one.”
It was an exciting development, but the timing was complicated. Adult Swim typically releases smalls in batches of three, and Schmidt had just moved to Chicago in 2022 to attend DePaul’s MFA program “and secretly to just escape Ohio.”
“I got the email about working on these smalls right before I started grad school, and I said, ‘I don’t know if I can do three of these.’ They let me do one, and then when that did fairly well, and I wasn’t done with grad school yet, they asked, ‘Would you want to do another one?’”
The music infusion had been a core part of the project since the beginning. “The whole hope was really to take these two worlds that I’m really interested in; animation and music, and try and smash them together a little bit,” said Schmidt.
“The first episode, I had one of our friends from Cleveland, Steve Perrino, do a metalcore box breakdown song,” said Schmidt. (The piece is credited as “Music to Break Down Boxes To.”) “I got Jer Hunter to do some ska for the second one as well.”
Alternative music has long been a source of inspiration and artistic motivation, a model of creative fearlessness. One of her recurring thoughts while working on Gassy’s was “Well, this isn’t really for adults, since it’s [about] animals,” she said, “but I’ve just kind of tried to ignore that sentiment and just keep trying to tell the types of stories I want to tell. If people are making whatever they want music-wise, I should be able to make whatever I want animation-wise. I shouldn’t feel pressured to hold back on that,” she said. “But one of my biggest drives and inspirations when I’m working on anything is listening and music and kind of just being inspired by all these bands and all these artists who are making exactly what they want to make.”
The first Gassy’s was released two years ago, and the show has been met with success and acclaim; the first two episodes have amassed over a million views. A top comment reads “A genuinely delightful short, and its style is so genuine and dynamic. Hopefully this creator keeps on doing what they clearly do best.”
It was an unexpected delight that the show was so well-received. “I’m extremely surprised by the fan base’s support and how interested they are in the characters,” Schmidt said. “I was surprised that the reception was so kind and generous.”
The reception has also included unsolicited invitations from the music community. At an Adult Swim mixer event, Schmidt was approached by the partner of a band member of the post-hardcore band Gouge Away.
“She just kind of lit up,” Schmidt said. “[She] talked to me about Gassy’s, and said, you know, my partner is in Gouge Away, they love your cartoon.” An offer to use their music in an episode soon followed; Gouge Away’s song “The Sharpening” appears in the third episode, “The Ghost.” Ferocious and clangorous, “The Sharpening” has a wild passion and a thundering sound, adding a striking accent to the cartoon.
Schmidt was understandably elated about the Gouge Away connection, and was especially excited that the band has metal sounds fronted by a feminine voice.
“I think it’s very important when I am approaching what I want to show with the essays or with this platform,” she said. “Female rage is very important, especially in cartoons.”
In the face of this success, and fan demand for more episodes, the potential of Gassy’s seems limitless. But Schmidt is modest about the show’s future prospects.
“It’s not like I set out to be a showrunner, or anything,” she said. “When I graduated college, yeah, it sounded nice, but I ended up working on a motion graphics house, working on different music video projects or little commercials, and I really liked that freedom of being able to bounce around to different projects. This is a small project. It can be very nimble,” she said. “It could very well continue to be little episodes that are three minutes long.”
For now, though, Schmidt is enjoying the process.
“It is a really fun world, and I’d love to give more opportunities to more voice actors, burgeoning voice actors, music friends, things like that,” Schmidt says.
“It’s very fun. It’s so fun to draw.”
Gassy’s Gas ‘N Stuff
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Elizabeth Piasecki Phelan| @onefellswoop
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