Smiling Friends Rotoscoped a Super Monkey Ball Scene

The latest episode of Smiling Friends has delivered another dose of surreal, gut-busting cringe comedy. But amidst the existential dread of littering that’s tackling mother nature, one short sequence caught the eye of animators and gaming enthusiasts alike: a rotoscoped nod to the classic puzzle-platformer, Super Monkey Ball.

Smiling Friends prides itself on jarring style shifts—incorporating claymation, crude Flash animation, and live-action. Instead of reaching for an obscure, high-concept visual effect, the creators deployed rotoscoping: a classic, almost homegrown implementation too, where the artists meticulously traced over live-action of their video footage frame by frame.

As the clip, which Adult Swim released on their Twitter, proves, this was a deliberate throwback to a classic method honed by Newgrounds animators and early internet creators.

Smiling Friends on X: “Original footage for Pim and Boss Super Monkey Ball rotoscope animation performed by @MichaelRCusack and @dariodactyl https://t.co/POF6xSEOAB” / X

The moment comes right at the start of the episode, setting the stage for the company’s “relaxing” vacation. As The Boss introduces the team to their R&R cabin, he reveals one of the key leisure items: a GameCube. The attention to detail in the animation is nearly perfect, capturing the console’s unique ergonomics and button layout (though rendered, naturally, as a legally distinct version).

And what game is taking center stage? Super Monkey Ball. The sequence even pays off with a clever callback towards the episode’s conclusion, tying the gaming session into the overall narrative loop. To fully appreciate the nod, however, you need to understand the cultural and gaming history behind the title.

While the Smiling Friends sequence (which comes on Episode 5, Pim and Charlie Save Mother Nature) specifically references the home console version, the game began life in Japanese arcades in June 2001 under the simple title Monkey Ball.

Sega served as the publisher, with development handled by Amusement Vision, which has since been integrated into the acclaimed Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio (the team behind the Yakuza series). Just a few months after the arcade launch, the game was enhanced and ported to the Nintendo GameCube in September 2001, retitled Super Monkey Ball.

The core of the game is an immediately addictive puzzle-platformer loop. The player’s goal is to guide a monkey, encased in a transparent shell, to the finish line by tilting the entire level within a strict time limit, rather than directly controlling the monkey’s movement.

The four original playable characters were AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, and GonGon, who served as a precursor to the eccentric and memorable rogue’s gallery that the company would later develop for its Yakuza games.

The creator of the game, Toshihiro Nagoshi, originally conceived the title with the idea of simple, accessible controls that could still deliver compelling, physics-based puzzle challenges. The original arcade cabinet utilized a specialized banana-shaped analog controller, making the GameCube’s unique analog stick an almost perfect ergonomic match for the port.

This release was also a significant historical moment for Sega. Following the disappointing sales of the Dreamcast, Super Monkey Ball was one of the first titles the company published for its long-standing rival, Nintendo. It was a clear, symbolic acknowledgment that the console wars were shifting, and it marked the beginning of Sega’s highly successful transition into a third-party developer and publisher.

You may remember that the video game, Burnout: Revenge, on the PS2 was also referenced in an episode of the series. Since the creators of the show run their own let’s play channel, called OneyPlays, it isn’t too surprising that the show continues to be chock-full of references to the GameCube/PS2/Xbox generation of video games. If we catch any more, we’ll be sure to share them with you, so be sure and add us to your Google notifications and get updated on all the latest Smiling Friends references.

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