Yes, you read that correctly: Adult Swim is making the rounds with a gigantic black-and-pink blow-up castle filled with (sponsored) attractions like a KFC-branded rotating mirror-tunnel, an Ice Breakers cage in which participants are required to sing for their freedom and sundry other extremely weird attractions.
We saw this nonsense last summer at San Diego Comic Con, and it's a good time. I don't remember the Tippy Tunnel, but then again, I don't remember much about the experience generally, and have only a T-shirt to prove I was there. Yes, the T-shirts will be a feature of the revitalized Fun House, too.
From February to May, the castle will tour colleges around the U.S., notably U.C. Riverside, Texas A&M, Auburn and some others—10 schools over 12 weeks, in all.
It's an unorthodox ad buy, to put it mildly, but KFC and Hershey (which makes Ice Breakers) are getting spots on the network as part of their sponsorship of the various dizzy-making attractions. Those spots will also promote awareness of the Fun House on air, beginning Feb. 24 on Adult Swim.
2013 was a great year for the network—it came in second among 18-34-year-old viewers in prime time (to sister net TBS), despite not actually airing between 8 and 9 p.m. That's set to change in March, and with new airtime coming up, it's important to make sure Adult Swim's core audience is aware of the new time schedule.
Not that they have to take advice from me, but they're going to want to get something really big to promote that. Something that catches the eye.