Mitch Hedberg’s Adult Swim Appearance in ‘Home Movies’ Was Quintessential Mitch Hedberg

I used to want to watch an Adult Swim show centered entirely around the comedy stylings of Mitch Hedberg. I still do, but I used to, too.

Despite his sizable following, which still worships his work 18 years after his passing, Hedberg never made much of a splash in movies or television — not that it mattered all that much to him. “When you’re in Hollywood and you’re a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you’re a stand-up comedian, can you write us a script? That’s not fair,” he famously cracked. “That’s like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I’m a really good cook, they’d say, ‘Okay, you’re a cook. Can you farm?’”

Hedberg-heads only got a handful of appearances from their favorite mumbler on TV, but the few they got were memorable, most notably with Hedberg’s four-episode gig on Home Movies in 1999, one of the first semi-original series ever produced by Cartoon Network’s nighttime programming block Adult Swim. Hedberg’s time on Home Movies would be his longest tenure on any TV show in his entire career — and it was perfect Mitch.

The Mitch character only appeared in the Season One episode “Yoko,” but Hedberg would return to play bit parts throughout the first season. In 2002, Hedberg reunited with Home Movies co-creator Loren Bouchard to play various parts in the pilot Saddle Rash, but, sadly, Adult Swim didn’t pick up the pair’s second collaboration.

Home Movies’ star and other creator Brendon Small would go on to create the cult hit Metalocalypse in 2006, just one year after Hedberg passed away. In another universe, Hedberg lived long enough to lend his talents to the defining TV show of death metal — he already had a killer band name in the chamber.