Dan Harmon’s New Animated Show Examines Life on Earth-Like Planet

No, Mr. Meeseeks did not land a spin-off show.

Nathan W. Pyle’s graphic novel and webcomic series Strange Planet is one of the more quaint, clever and novel content streams on the crowded platforms where Pyle has found his success. The Strange Planet Instagram account boasts over 7 million followers who flock to Pyle’s regular posts about a species of blue people not unlike ourselves living on a planet not unlike Earth and partaking in ordinary activities not unlike our own day-to-day lives — just with decidedly more strange descriptors of the acts. The beings of Strange Planet don’t tell each other “sweet dreams” when they go to sleep, they say, “Imagine pleasant nonsense.” They don’t yell “surprise!” when they ambush each other on their birthdays, they scream, “We deceived you!”

The 10-episode Apple TV+ television adaptation of Strange Planet will premiere on August 9th, and the series probably felt like familiar territory for its co-creator and executive producer Dan Harmon. After all, Strange Planet is a lot like Earth, only different.

Obviously, a show about aliens co-created by Harmon is going to draw parallels to Rick and Morty, but the tone of Strange Planet will probably be less “high-concept sci-fi rigamarole” and more “seemingly mundane situations elevated through quaint-core comedy.” Though Harmon has been quiet about the upcoming series, he clearly connected with the webcomic’s meta, playful tone enough to Harmon-ize the property for streaming — he’s even bringing along Danny Pudi from Community, who has plenty of experience playing alien-like characters with bizarre takes on commonplace events.