Review: Using exquisite corpse, 'The Elephant' tells a captivating story about reincarnation

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Animation is an art of the impossible, though it often settles for the ordinary.Much of what comprises adult animation merely translates into line what might be shown in live action — humans in human settings.

Which is fine.Some great shows fit that bill — “King of the Hill” and “Bob’s Burgers,” for example.

Still, there are infinite avenues to explore, and so it’s good to have Adult Swim, the network that once produced a series whose heroes are a meatball, a shake and a bag of fries, still making aesthetic trouble.“The Elephant,” which premieres Friday on the network, and Saturday on HBO Max alongside a documentary on its creation, “Behind the Elephant,” is an animated take on exquisite corpse, the old surrealist game in which three artists contribute the head, torso or legs of a single figure, folding the paper so as not to see what the others had drawn.This project enlists four fab animators over three acts — “Adventure Time” creator Pendleton Ward, Ian Jones-Quartey (“OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes”), Rebecca Sugar (“Steven Universe”) and Patrick McHale (“Over the Garden Wall”) — to make something that not only had we not seen before, but none of them had either, until their independently produced parts were put together.

All are “Adventure Time” vets, as are Jack Pendarvis and Kent Osborne, who conceived the idea, served as “game keepers,” and share story credit with the animators.Television ‘Common Side Effects,’ centering on a mushroom that can heal anything, is a semi-comical conspiracy thriller with heart.Exquisite corpse was also used in character design.

It invariably produces monsters, if amusing ones, which explains why the character — let’s call her The Character — in Ward’s act has a cactus for an arm and a giant pink foot in place of one leg.In the Jones-Quartey and Sugar act, she has robot arms, fish...