Woody Harrelson Starred In A Hilarious Comic Book TV Show You Probably Missed
By Witney SeiboldJuly 11, 2026 3:00 pm EST
Gilbert Shelton’s 1971 comic “The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” was one of the more notable underground titles to emerge from the underground comix scene. It followed the adventures of the perpetually stoned title characters, not actually brothers, and their lazy, drugged-up adventures throughout San Francisco. They spent their days merrily eluding cops and happily engaging in the era’s countercultural impulses. The Freaks were hardly heroes, usually finding themselves in idiotic binds of their own making.
The “leader” of the Freaks, if there was one, was the cowboy-inflected Freewheelin’ Franklin Freak, who could at least teach his compatriots some street smarts. Phineas T. Phreak was the “intellectual” who spoke out most about politics, evoking Abbie Hoffman’s Yippie rhetoric. The “dumb one” was Fat Freddy Freekowtski, who was blissfully unaware of his surroundings most of the time. Fat Freddy also had a cat, and the cat usually had its own adventures in separate mini-comics at the bottom of every “Fabulous Furry” page. “The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” was very much a product of its time, and requires a lot of cultural knowledge of the post-Summer-of-Love Freak culture to even understand.
It is very strange, then, that Tubi should think to adapt the comic into “The Freak Brothers,” an animated series that began airing in 2021 (which /Film reported on at the time). Woody Harrelson played Freeheelin’ Franklin, Pete Davidson played Phineas, and John Goodman played Fat Freddy. Tiffany Haddish played their cat, Kitty. The premise was that, in 1969, the Freaks smoked a strain of weed that was spiked with an eerie elixir that put them into stasis. They awaken in the year 2020 in the basement of their new landlords and have to learn what life is like in the future.
It’s wholly obscure
No one has seen The Freak Brothers on Tubi
Tubi
To the credit of the makers of “The Freak Brothers” — which was co-developed by Courtney Solomon, the director of the 16-script, 2000-released “Dungeons & Dragons” movie — the show retained the 1971 strip’s sense of unfocused, stoner chaos. The Freak Brothers themselves are weirdly detached from reality, and just watching them hang out and rant wouldn’t have made for a terribly accessible show. The time-displacement conceit only ensured that the showrunners could get some more traditional TV stories out of these characters, and not just depict them in a weeded-up miasma at all times, as in a Cheech & Chong movie.
The show’s supporting cast included Phil LaMarr and Andrea Savage as Noah and Harper, the Freaks’ new landlords. “The Freak Brothers” is the first animated series distributed by Tubi, which means few people thought to look for it. The phrase “Tubi Original” doesn’t necessarily attract many eyes.
Much of the new series is culture shock humor. After the two-part opener, the Freaks get a job working on the Blue Origin shuttle for Jeff Bezos. In another episode, they found that they can program robot girlfriends at a tech convention. In the season-one finale, they meet a hologram of Jim Morrison. They times, they have a-changed. And while there is something poignant to explore through a 51-year time jump — the Freaks had every opportunity to ponder that hippie idealism died long ago — the show is more raucous than thoughtful. It’s like a raunchier version of “Austin Powers” than a lamentation of time gone by. More “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe” than Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Immortal.”
Has anyone even seen The Freak Brothers?
Tubi
The most brilliant thing about “The Freak Brothers” is its casting of Woody Harrelson and Pete Davidson as wastoid stoners. The Freaks perfectly match their respective real-world personae, as Harrelson is a noted weed advocate and left-wing speaker (see his documentary film “Go Further” sometime), and Davidson projects the air of a laidback stoner. John Goodman, meanwhile, is a great actor and tackles the role of Fat Freddy with aplomb. Tiffany Haddish doesn’t add much to the proceedings, sadly. Not because she’s bad — in fact, she’s brilliant — but Kitty isn’t an improvement over the side-star cat from the original comic strips.
Den of Geek reviewed “The Freak Brothers” when it was first released and pointed out that the original comics were a self-made, counterculture text that proudly flaunted its filthiness and drug content, happy to remain unpublishable by mainstream outlets. The culture of the ’20s, however, no longer sees drug content as on the edge. “The Freak Brothers,” as such, could never possibly have the same counterculture impact as the comix. The show plays more as Boomer nostalgia, then. Although full of poop jokes and weed, it has the opposite of edge. It’s comfort food. One could say the same thing about the music of the 1960s and 1970s. What was once eager to make parents uncomfortable and piss off the squares is now the halcyon mist of middle-aged people.
A modern teen will learn more about 1970s counterculture from the comix themselves. “The Freak Brothers” TV series is amusing and dirty, but it’s not as strong as it ought to be. It does, however, have time to improve. It’s still on the air. Its third season dropped on Tubi on, of course, April 20, 2026.
