Adult Swim Sets September Premiere for The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza and This Looks Delightfully Weird

Adult Swim has spent decades perfecting the fine art of making us stare at our television screens and ask, “What the hell am I watching?” Apparently, Jordan Mendoza saw that tradition and decided to accept the challenge.

The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza, a new live-action sketch comedy created by the comedian, writer and filmmaker, will officially premiere Sunday, September 13 at midnight ET/PT on Adult Swim. The quarter-hour series blends sketch comedy with surreal horror, following Mendoza as a very scared man attempting to navigate a collection of increasingly bizarre and terrifying dreamscapes. Basically, imagine somebody cracked open their anxiety-riddled subconscious and Adult Swim said,

“Yeah, give us 15 minutes of that.”

Mendoza isn't simply starring in this thing either. He created the series, directs and serves as an executive producer, giving him plenty of room to fully commit to whatever strange little nightmare he's cooked up. The show will explore fears that range from deeply personal to painfully universal, although judging by the first look Adult Swim released earlier this month, “universal” doesn't necessarily mean remotely normal. Would we want normal from Adult Swim?

The Guest List Is Almost as Wild as the Premise

Mendoza has somehow convinced an impressive collection of people to enter his nightmares with him. Steve Buscemi, Wanda Sykes, Randall Park, Haley Joel Osment, Marc Maron, Thomas Lennon, Fred Melamed and Eva Victor are among the guest stars announced for the first season, with an even larger collection of familiar comedy faces expected to appear throughout the series.

That cast makes the show's anything-can-happen sketch format even more intriguing. Buscemi popping up in somebody's surreal nightmare feels almost too appropriate, while giving performers like Sykes, Park and Maron room to play inside Adult Swim's particular brand of weird could produce some genuinely hilarious combinations.

Mendoza himself has credits including Dave, Chad Powers, Overcompensating, Big Mouth and Ziwe, but his reaction to finally getting a premiere date might tell you more about the show's personality than any résumé could. In the official announcement, Mendoza joked about having a dream that the entire production and the last several years of making it had actually been an elaborate prank, before poking fun at the usual polished creator quote found in television press releases.

Okay, we like him already.

Adult Swim Might Have Found Its Next Late-Night Oddity

There's something refreshing about a series that doesn't require us to study three seasons of mythology before pressing play. The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza is giving us 15-minute doses of comedy, horror, anxiety and whatever else happens to be rattling around inside Mendoza's head that week.

The concept also feels tailor-made for Adult Swim. This is the network that has spent years turning bizarre, experimental ideas into late-night television staples, and a surreal sketch show built around fear fits comfortably into that tradition while still sounding distinct enough to carve out its own corner.

Will we understand everything we're watching? Based on what Adult Swim has shown us so far, probably not. But sometimes that's half the fun.

The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza premieres Sunday, September 13 at midnight ET/PT on Adult Swim.