Robot Chicken

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robot Chicken

The opening title for Robot Chicken.
Format Stop-motion animation/Comedy
Created by Seth Green
Matthew Senreich
Voices of Seth Green
Dan Milano
Breckin Meyer
Chad Morgan
Seth MacFarlane
Tom Root
Jamie Kaler
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of seasons 3
No. of episodes 55 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time approx 11 minutes, approx.
23 minutes (Star Wars special)
Broadcast
Original channel Adult Swim
Original run February 20, 2005 – present
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Robot Chicken is an Emmy award-winning American stop motion animated comedy television series created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, who are the executive producers. They are also on the writing team, and have directed some episodes. Green provides many voices for the show.

The program is a sketch show that parodies a number of pop culture conventions using stop motion animation of toys, action figures, dolls, and claymation (usually for special effects) and various other objects, such as tongue depressors and Game of Life pegs. The show's name was inspired by a dish on the menu at a West Hollywood Chinese restaurant, Kung Pao Bistro, where Green and Senreich had dined, although the series originally was intended to be titled "Junk in the Trunk".[1]

The show is produced by Stoopid Monkey, ShadowMachine Films, Williams Street, and Sony Pictures Digital, and currently airs in the US as a part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block, in the United Kingdom and Ireland as part of Bravo's Adult Swim block, in Canada on Teletoon's Detour block, in Australia on Comedy Channel's Adult Swim block and in Latin America on the Cartoon Network's block Adult Swim. It premiered on Sunday, February 20, 2005.

The series was renewed for a 20-episode third season, which started on August 12, 2007. The Robot Chicken Season Two DVD was released September 4, 2007.

Recently, the show has been on hiatus. It was announced season three will return (with Tubba-Bubba's Now Hubba-Hubba) on August 31, 2008. The episode also aired as an April Fool's Day prank.

Contents

[edit] Inspirations

"It is not a tumor, it's not a tumor at all."
"It is not a tumor, it's not a tumor at all."

The show was inspired by the comedy antics of Twisted Mego Theatre (now called Twisted ToyFare Theater), which appears monthly in Gareb Shamus's ToyFare magazine. Matthew Senreich worked in various capacities with Wizard Entertainment prior to working on the show. Many figures and sets are custom built, although commercially available toys such as G.I. Joe or Barbie and vehicles, such as the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard, are sometimes used.

Robot Chicken often uses extremely outrageous and twisted humor. One recurring segment is "Hilarious Bloopers", a parody of the Bob Saget era of America's Funniest Home Videos featuring the host constantly moving around in various exaggerated, spastic motions. Unlike that show, this skit ends with the host using various household methods of suicide. The show tends to avoid political issues, instead mocking pop culture, referencing toys, films, television, and popular fads. When political figures are depicted on the program, the focus of their appearance is usually only tangentially-related to recent news, a parody of their personal foibles, or their positions in world affairs (such as Fidel Castro's Dance Dance Counter-Revolucíon video game competition from Season Two and President George W. Bush fantasizing he is a Jedi). One particular motif often involves the idea of fantastical characters being placed in a more realistic world or situation (such as Stretch Armstrong requiring a corn syrup transplant, Optimus Prime performing a prostate cancer PSA, and Godzilla having problems in the bedroom). The program even had a 30 minute episode dedicated to Star Wars which premiered June 17, 2007 in the US featuring the voices of Star Wars notables George Lucas, Mark Hamill (from a previous episode) and Ahmed Best.

The show's theme song was composed and performed by Les Claypool of Primus, and he sings the song's only lyrics, "It's alive!", in typical Frankenstein fashion. The ending theme of the show is actually not from Muzak but from a cut from a Capitol Hi-'Q' production music album entitled "The Gonk" (famously used in George A. Romero's 1978 horror film Dawn of the Dead) clucked by a chorus of chickens, which are actually the crew members.

Robot Chicken is currently the highest rated original show in Adult Swim and the second highest in the network (right after Family Guy.) [2]

[edit] Opening sequence

The opening sequence, which is the only part of the show that includes a robot chicken (with the exceptions of "The Black Cherry" and the Christmas Special), is as follows:

A mad scientist finds a road-killed chicken and takes it back to his laboratory, where he refashions it into a cyborg remsembling Locutus of Borg. He then straps it into a chair, uses specula to hold its eyes open, and forces it to watch a bank of television monitors (an allusion to A Clockwork Orange); this scene segues into the body of the show.

In the "Star Wars Special", the opening is changed to mimic Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader as depicted in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, with the mad scientist in the role of Darth Sidious and the chicken as Anakin/Vader.

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of Robot Chicken episodes
Season Episodes Originally Aired DVD Release Date
Season 1 20 2005 March 28, 2006
Season 2 20 2006 September 4, 2007
Season 3 20 2007 – 2008 TBD

[edit] Writing staff

[edit] Co-head writers

[edit] Writers

[edit] Stop-Motion Animators

  • Melissa Goodwin
  • Joshua A. Jennings
  • Pete Levin
  • Ethan Marak
  • Kelly Mazurowski
  • Sarah E. Meyer
  • Michael Wolfe
  • Cameron Baity
  • John Harvatine IV
  • Liz Harvatine
  • Martin Jimenez
  • Jeff Riley
  • Gabe Sprenger
  • Matt Manning
  • Misha Klein
  • Eileen K. Kohlhepp
  • Joe Mello
  • Sihanouk Mariona
  • Thomas Smith
  • Alex Kamer
  • Scott Kravitz
  • Suzanne Twining
  • Musa Brooker
  • Thomas Truax

[edit] Celebrity guest voices

Besides the recurring voice acting by Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, Chad Morgan, Dan Milano, Tom Root, and Jamie Kaler in this series, a number of celebrities have done voice acting for the series (often portraying themselves). Among the celebrities are:

As well as:

Many of these are people that Seth Green has worked with in the past on other projects or that he knows personally.[citation needed] Williams Street executives Mike Lazzo and Keith Crofford have also lent their voices to the show on occasions revolving around season premiers.

[edit] Awards

The show won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation in 2006 and 2007 and was a nominee for the 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming less than One Hour) for the episode Lust for Puppets.

This is referenced in the episode "Slaughterhouse on the Prairie", when Seth Green claims that the episode was a minute short and spun the "Wheel of Ideas" to determine the ending of the show. The wheel's choices were "farts", "retards", "balls", and "ironic satire with clever subtext", and although it landed on the latter, the last minute consisted of "farting retards getting kicked in the balls". After this sequence, an intertitle identified the show as "Emmy award winning", while admitting that "The Emmy wasn't for writing".[3]

[edit] DVD releases

Title Release date Episodes
"Season One" March 28, 2006 1–20

This two disc boxset includes all 20 episodes from Season 1 in production order. While it contains many sketches that were edited from the TV airings, the several of the original Sony Screenblast webtoons, and the words "Jesus" and "Christ" as an oath unbleeped (though "fuck" and "shit" are still censored out), the episodes are not all uncut. One particular segment that featured the Teen Titans meeting Beavis and Butt-head was omitted from the DVD due to legal problems. The Voltron/"You Got Served" sketch shown on the DVD has a replacement song due to legal issues over having the song that was used on the TV. At a performance of Family Guy Live in Chicago, during the Q&A session that ends each performance, Seth Green was asked how they came up with the name Robot Chicken. He explained that the title of each episode was a name Adult Swim rejected for the name of the show.
"Season Two: Uncensored" September 4, 2007 21–40

This two disc boxset includes all 20 episodes from Season 2 in production order and uncensored, with the words fuck and shit unbleeped (except for one instance in the episode "Easter Basket" in the Lego sketch). It is currently available for download on iTunes (though the episode "Veggies for Sloth" is absent because of copyright issues involving the "Archie's Final Destination" segment.) Seth Green stated at Comic-Con 2006 that the second DVD set will contain the "Beavis and Butt-head meet the Teen Titans" sketch, which had been removed from the first DVD set due to copyright issues. However, the sketch is absent from the DVD. Bonus features include the Christmas Special. The Archie sketch from "Veggies For Sloth" is missing from this release,[4] possibly due to copyright reasons. A secret Nerf gun fight can be found on the disc 1 extras menu, and pushing "up" over the extras and set-up items on the menu reveals more special features.
"Season Three: Uncensored" Late 2008 41–60

This two disc boxset will include all 20 episodes from Season 3 in production order. It is currently running on Adult Swim.

[edit] Outside references

On an episode of Family Guy entitled "Blue Harvest," at the end of the story Chris Griffin (not coincidentally voiced by Robot Chicken creator Seth Green) accused Peter (not coincidentally voiced by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane) of stealing the Star Wars special idea from the Robot Chicken Star Wars special. This sparks a discussion in which Peter himself denigrates and insults Robot Chicken, and Chris calls him "a real jerk!" and runs out of the room quickly.

[edit] References

  1. ^ G4 - The Screen Savers - Robot Chicken, Constantine, Dark Tip
  2. ^ Toon Zone - Your Source for Toon News!
  3. ^ IGN: Slaughterhouse on the Prairie Review
  4. ^ Robot Chicken - Season 2 Review | TVShowsOnDVD.com

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
v • d • e
Williams Street Studios/Ghost Planet Industries
Vice Presidents
Divisions
Current Productions
Past Productions
Williams Street Records
Misc.
Website: williamsstreet.com