In an era of "prestige animation" where shows like Rick and Morty drown in multiverse lore and Bojack Horseman leaves you staring at the ceiling for three hours, Adult Swim’s Royal Crackers arrived in 2023 like a sugar-high toddler running through a funeral. It is loud, it is deeply sad, it is occasionally nonsensical, and it is arguably the most honest depiction of family, failure, and capitalism since The Simpsons lost its edge.

The series pilot hits you with a brutal, hilarious cold open. The family patriarch, "Royal" Hornsby (voiced with gruff melancholy by Andrew Dismukes), is the founder of the cracker empire. He built the brand on a single mediocre recipe ("It’s a cracker... but it’s royal ") and a mustache that screams 1980s boardroom. However, after a freak accident involving a hyper-realistic cake and a stroke, Royal becomes a bedridden, barely conscious vegetable.

It’s a show about a family trying to sell a product nobody wants, made by a network that knows exactly what it’s doing. Royal Crackers is stale, salty, and oddly addictive. Just like the snack itself.

A flashback episode revealing that Uncle Jim was actually the genius behind the cracker. It’s done in the style of a 1970s Scorsese film, complete with voiceover and freeze frames. It ends with Jim eating the original recipe and vomiting because "I forgot I’m lactose intolerant."