Watch This: Sunny Side Down
Science fiction and animation are natural bedfellows. With the only limitation your imagination, animation is arguably the perfect medium for sci-fi. If anything, it's surprising that there isn't more of it. In most cases (in the west at least) animated sci-fi is also sci-fi comedy. Stuff such as Futurama and Final Space. And now we can add to the list the rather excellent parody sci-fi series Sunny Side Down.
Created by MAKE Originals, the series launched in October 2025. It has released four episodes so far, of around two to three minutes each, with another two episodes still to go. The series is fully hand-drawn 2D animation with a retro feel, and it looks pretty great.
The series follows Nat, who works as a waitress at the diner Sunny Side Down. Now, this isn't your average American-style diner, as it is located in outer space at the edge of a Super-Massive Black Hole. Nat is seemingly the only human around as the clientele and fellow staff are all aliens of various different species.
Trailer
Despite their modest running time, the episodes are full of sci-fi and 90s cultural references. They range from the obvious- Star Trek, The Matrix, Star Wars- to deep cuts- Daft Punk's Interstella 555, Dr Who-. Keep an eye on the backgrounds for other visual references and imaginative designs.
The first episode Boldy Going Nowhere, sees Nat encounter a Star Trek-esque starship crew. The second episode, The Black Hole: Reloaded riffs on The Matrix franchise. The third episode Imposter Syndrome is a smart spin on John Carpenter's The Thing. Meanwhile, the most recent episode EP IV: A New Dope, references Star Wars and crashes in into an inspirational sports movie.
MAKE describes the series as "Spaceballs meets Cheers meets Radical 90's"."Our human waitress Nat is our Sam, interacting with a cast of diner regulars. Meanwhile, the diner is stuck in time, permeated aesthetically with 90’s nostalgia… and a whole lot of smoking. Does anyone not chain smoke here??? Besides the sci-fi parody, the series features the relationship between Nat and her older alien mentor, Yabba.
Sunny Side Down is a slickly made series with beautifully done 2D animation. But it's not just a pretty face- it's also very funny and every detail down to the music and voice acting is top draw. It's easy to imagine that with full length episodes it could happily air on Adult Swim or stream on Netflix.
The series is directed by Natalia Poteryakhin and written by Kevin Wisdom, Mike Fasolo and Natalia Poteryakhin. The six-episode series was produced in-house at MAKE over the course of three years, produced between client work. The series' visual style was finalised by Natalia Poteryakhin and Aaron Quist who described it as “what if an adult animated comedy got anime compositing and cinematic staging to look the best it could?” Well, we think you'll agree they have achieved it!
The final two episodes will be released soon. For more on the series, you can read this article and check out tons of great artwork. For more on MAKE Originals, see here.
