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Zach Hadel

Zachary Thomas Hadel ( HAY-dəl; born March 4, 1993), known by his pseudonym psychicpebbles, is an American animator, writer, director, voice actor, and YouTuber. He and Michael Cusack are co-creators and co-stars of the Adult Swim animated series Smiling Friends. He is also known for his Internet animations and for being a co-host of the Let's Play web series OneyPlays.

Early Life

Hadel grew up in Kansas and began his animation career by uploading Adobe Flash animations to Newgrounds, later transitioning to YouTube. He enrolled in college to learn graphic design, but immediately dropped out before attending any classes. A self-taught animator, Hadel has stated that shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, The Simpsons, Dragon Ball Z, Beavis and Butt-Head and South Park inspired his animation style.

Career

His short-form independent cartoons became popular online, such as his animated video responding to overuse of the "arrow in the knee" meme from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which went viral in 2011. Along with fellow Newgrounds animator Chris O'Neill, Hadel created the popular web cartoon series Hellbenders featuring exaggerated versions of O'Neill and himself, which was picked up for a pilot by Adult Swim but ultimately not pursued after several years in development hell. Hadel also collaborated with O'Neill to make a short animated video parodying the Kony 2012 documentary; the video went viral, receiving over 1.7 million views within its first weekend. Hadel was a member of the YouTube group SleepyCabin and co-hosted SleepyCast, a comedy and discussion podcast hosted by former Newgrounds animators that launched on August 30, 2014. As of April 2024, his YouTube channel psychicpebbles has 1.6 million subscribers and 222.28 million views.

Hadel animated a segment of Seth Rogen's Hilarity for Charity with Justin Roiland, co-creator of Rick and Morty. Roiland later appraised the animation as his most transgressive joke. Hadel and Roiland also appeared alongside animator Alex Hirsch on h3h3's livestream podcast for charity where they raised over $100,000 for California wildlife relief.

Hadel hosted the podcast Schmucks from 2017 to 2019, where he interviewed fellow entertainers such as Michael Stevens, Finn Wolfhard, Jon Jafari, and Ethan Klein.

In 2018, Hadel storyboarded for SpongeBob SquarePants for the season 11 episode "The Grill is Gone".

On April 1, 2020, Cartoon Network's late-night Adult Swim block premiered the pilot episode of Hadel and Australian animator Michael Cusack's animated adult television series, Smiling Friends. The series follows Pim and Charlie, two employees of the titular company missioned with making people smile. The series premiered with a full season marathon on January 9, 2022, and later debuted on HBO Max. Adult Swim announced that the show would be renewed for a second season on February 9, 2022.