Zachary Thomas "Zach" Hadel (Born: March 4, 1993),[1] better known online as psychicpebbles, is an American animator, artist, voice actor, writer, director, producer, and YouTuber. He is primarily known for his surreal and comedic art style and dark sense of humor within his animations. He is the creator of the Adult Swim cartoon Smiling Friends (with Australian cartoonist and YouTuber Michael Cusack) as well as the co-creator of Hellbenders (with Chris O'Neill, aka OneyPlays).
Biography[]
Early career[]
Hadel started his Flash animation career on the website Newgrounds on April 22nd, 2008, with him making his first debut on a collab on March 21, 2009.[2] He also created a DeviantArt account, as well as a YouTube channel; the latter of which has been deactivated.
The first video uploaded to the "psychicpebbles" YouTube channel was an animation titled "How To Be a YouTube Famous Vblogger!!", critiquing many popular YouTubers of the time such as Ray William Johnson and What The Buck.[3] It was made private on an unknown date.
As his subscribers would slowly climb on his channel, Hadel achieved his break with a video titled "Arrow to The Knee ", parodying the video game "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" and the line of "I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee," making fun of the popularity of the line across the internet. This video caused a surge of popularity in Hadel's channel and brought in hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Hellbenders[]
In 2012, Hadel and his friend/fellow Flash animator OneyNG created the series "Hellbenders," focusing on two characters based on Hadel and O'Neill. The two would create three short animations in the Hellbenders series; a short titled "Ice Cream",[4] a 4-minute episode titled "Applooza,"[5] and a Christmas special titled "A Hellbenders Christmas."[6] The series saw major popularity online and attracted attention of television channel Adult Swim. Hadel revealed in a (now deleted) video that the two animators pitched the cartoon to Adult Swim, but were rejected due to Adult Swim having already accepted pilots for "Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell" and "Mr. Pickles", and not wanting to have too many shows related to Hell on their channel. After this, both animators decided not to pursue the series any longer.
Podcasts and continued growth[]
Around the time of Hellbenders creation, Hadel would join the multimedia group SleepyCabin. The group, made up of other Flash animators, voice actors, and artists. The group consisted of Hadel, OneyNG, StamperTV, Ricepirate, Spazkid, Niall Murray, and JohnnyUtah. The group was primarily known for their podcast, the SleepyCast, where the group would discuss random topics and take fan questions for an hour to two hours, that started in late 2014. As of 2019, SleepyCabin as a collective has dissolved, but the members still occasionally record podcasts when given the opportunity.
After dissolving SleepyCabin, Hadel created his own podcast titled Schmucks. The podcast has featured guests such as JonTron, Ethan Klein of h3h3, and Michael Stevens from VSauce.
In 2017, Hadel's network was hacked, along with his YouTube channel. The hacker's discovered a privatized video on Hadel's channel, which happened to be the unfinished pilot for Hellbenders that himself and O'Neill used to pitch to Adult Swim. This pilot, while only being up momentarily, was quickly downloaded by various users and re-uploaded.[7] Hadel and O'Neill discussed this incident on the SleepyCast, with Hadel revealing that the pilot was uploaded to his channel years prior and that both himself and O'Neill have no interest in continuing the series, though hinted that they may finish the Hellbenders pilot if they have time.
The most popular video on Hadel's channel is "GET OUT OF MY CAR", uploaded in 2017. The video is an animation dubbed by a real argument between an Uber driver and a rude passenger.[8]
As of 2019, Hadel is working on revamping his Schmucks podcast and recently began "The Very Positive Stream " with his friend and fellow artist Michael Cusack. Hadel is also a frequent guest on Chris O'Neill's OneyPlays channel. Hadel and Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland contributed an animation to Seth Rogen's Netflix special "Hilarity for Charity," titled "Char and Ity in The Apple Stand Caper."
Smiling Friends[]
On April 1, 2020, Adult Swim (as part of their April Fools event) aired Zach and Cusack to create a short pilot episode called Smiling Friends. It was confirmed on May 19, 2021 to be greenlit to be a full show, and aired on January 10, 2022. Zach voiced various characters in the show, but the most prominent ones are Charlie Dompler and Glep. The show was later given a second season, which premiered on May 12, 2024. One month later, it was announced that a third season had been renewed.
Trivia[]
- Hadel is known for his nasally and stuffy sounding voice. Their number of claims for why his voice sounds this way, most of which claim Zach has said he was born with a deviated septum in a video or podcast but they lack a direct source.[9]
- Hadel is notably camera shy. While he has appeared at many conventions and posted pictures of himself before, he has stated he has no intention of connecting a face to his art, asking only to be known for his work and not his appearance. He also revealed on an episode of the SleepyCast that he frequently denies fan requests to take photos with him. In recent years, he has been a bit more open, such as in a video for a fan called Zach Hadel and Joshua Tomar insult my brother.
- He frequently does impressions of former United States President Donald Trump on livestreams.
- Many of his fans have created compilations of Hadel screaming as certain characters in his cartoons. Most of his fans agree that they find it very humorous.
- Hadel currently resides in Los Angeles, California. He previously resided in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with the rest of the former SleepyCabin crew, as well as living with Ethan & Hila Klein and JonTron in New York City.
- He makes a brief on-screen appearance in two of Ethan and Hila Klein's vlogs, the first being "Blizzard Watch 2016", and the second being Playing Rick & Morty VR with Justin Roiland.
- Hadel has a girlfriend named Nikki who is also an artist under the name of "NikkiNacks", Nikki has appeared several times on the SleepyCabin podcast.
- He is a college dropout.[10]
References[]
- ↑ NikkiNacks on Twitter
- ↑ https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/487931
- ↑ https://youtu.be/64cWzSaiaWQ
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64ULQCvz3BQ
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNlMwK-HyRw
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1icpvvCxjo
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7jzqXnYwfo
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oih1Yf7l-c0
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/Sleepycabin/comments/o8810e/why_does_zach_sound_like_that/
- ↑ https://youtu.be/hm9ksNrdaK8?t=3884