Robot Chicken

Robot Chicken
File:Robot Chicken.jpg Opening Credits
Created by	Seth Green Matthew Senreich
Voices of	Seth Green
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	40 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	11 minutes approx.
Original release
Network	Adult Swim
Release	February 20, 2005 – present

Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created by Stoop!d Monkey and Sony Pictures Digital and produced by ShadowMachine Films, currently airing in the US as a part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim line-up, in Britain as part of the Bravo's Adult Swim line-up, and in Canada on Teletoon's Detour nightly adult programming. It premiered on Sunday, February 20 2005. Seth Green and Matthew Senreich are the creators and executive producers of the show. They are also on the writing team, and have even directed some episodes. Seth Green provides many voices for the show.

Robot Chicken 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. The show's name was inspired by a dish on the menu at a Chinese restaurant, Kung Pao Bistro, where Green and Senreich had dined.

Robot Chicken will perform a 30 minute parody dedicated to Star Wars on June 17, 2007 featuring the voices of George Lucas and Mark Hamill.

According to Adult Swim's website, Robot Chicken has been renewed for a 20-episode third season, which is slated for Fall of 2007.

There was also a commercial that aired on the end of 2006, entitled, "You Could Be On Robot Chicken", hinting that there may be a third season.

Adult Swim is currently claiming that Every Robot Chicken sketch (skit) is now available for streaming on Adult Swim's website. However some, such as the Final Fantasy VII resturaunt sketch are missing.

Opening

The frame story, seen during the show's opening credits, recounts the life of the eponymous Robot Chicken, a regular chicken who was run over by a car (presumably while crossing the road) and was brought back to life in cyborg form, inadvertently resembling a Borg from "Star Trek" and more specifically the Teen Titans character Cyborg, or possibly as an allusion to Robocop. Its "creator" is a mad scientist named Fritz Huhnmorder ("Hühnermörder" is German for "chicken murderer"). He forces Robot Chicken to watch a random selection of television shows as an act of 'torture' using something similar to the Ludovico technique from "A Clockwork Orange". The main focus of the show is the "TV shows" Robot Chicken watches; the chicken story is usually not relevant to the sketches. However, in one episode a character yells out (apparently in desperation) that anyone watching the show "is the robot chicken". Another instance is on the last episode of the first season when random characters come out of lockers and tell jokes (during an homage to the frequent gag used on Canadian children's show "You Can't Do That on Television"), and the chicken and the scientist do a parody of ,"Why did the chicken cross the road?": Scientist: Hey chicken. Robot Chicken: bawk? Scientist: Why did the chicken cross the road? Robot Chicken: bawk? Scientist: TO DIE IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE! The scientist then chases the chicken away with a chainsaw.

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 a portion of the famous Muzak named "The Gonk" (famously used in George A. Romero's 1978 horror film "Dawn of the Dead") clucked by a chorus of chickens.

Rating

When Robot Chicken first started, it was rated TV-14, often for all four sub-letters--suggestive dialogue [D], offensive language [L], sexual situations [S], and graphic violence [V], often depicting violence against women and children. When Cartoon Network began rating more shows TV-MA like Venture Brothers, Moral Orel, The Boondocks and Metalocalypse, Robot Chicken (both past and present episodes) got rated TV-MA for strong violence, dark (sometimes sexual) humor, and profane language (though the stronger curse words "fuck" and "shit" and use of "Jesus" and "Jesus Christ" as an oath are always bleeped out).

Key elements

File:Robotchicken.jpg

A scene from Robot Chicken featuring a toy Arnold Schwarzenegger and a doctor informing him that "It's not a tumor"

The show was inspired by the comedy antics of Twisted Mego Theatre (now called Twisted ToyFare Theater), which appears monthly in Toyfare Magazine, published by Gareb Shamus' Wizard Entertainment. The segment "The Aussie Hunter" on FOX's MAD TV is an early work of the group. Matthew Senreich worked in various capacities with Wizard Entertainment prior to working on the show. Some of the first shorts were originally on the now-defunct Sony ScreenBlast website under the name "Sweet J Presents"; this website also hosted the animated Lenore shorts. The show is similar in appearance to the many shared internet videos created using toys and household items. Many figures and sets are custom built, or adapted from commercially available toys such G.I. Joe or Barbie, or vehicles such as the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard are also sometimes used.

Besides Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, Chad Morgan, and Dan Milano, a number of celebrities have done voice acting for the series (often portraying themselves), including the entire casts of That 70's Show (Kurtwood Smith, Ashton Kutcher, Topher Grace, Debra Jo Rupp, Danny Masterson, and Wilmer Valderrama), Family Guy (Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, and Mike Henry) and the Scooby-Doo films (Matthew Lillard, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Linda Cardellini), as well as "Weird Al" Yankovic, Jon Heder, Ryan Seacrest, Lance Bass, Wayne Brady, Emma Caulfield, Christian Slater, Joey Fatone, Donald Faison, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mark Hamill, Phil LaMarr, Roger L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Macaulay Culkin, Hugh Hefner, Peter Gallagher, Don Knotts, Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Rachael Leigh Cook, Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Bruce Campbell, Phyllis Diller, Conan O'Brien, Alfonso Ribeiro, Amy Smart, Melissa Joan Hart, Jenna Jameson, Ginnifer Goodwin, Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Donald Faison, Kelly Hu, David Hasselhoff, Elijah Wood, Dave Coulier, Abraham Benrubi, Pat Morita Dana Snyder, George Lowe, Mike Lazzo, and Keith Crofford. Many of these are people that Seth Green has worked with in the past on other projects or that he knows personally.

Robot Chicken often uses extremely outrageous and twisted humor. One recurring theme is the "Hilarious Bloopers" guy, a parody of the Bob Saget era of America's Funniest Home Videos, but is more reminiscent of Ray Combs of Family Feud. Whenever he is featured, he commits suicide at the end of his skit using various household methods. 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 or their positions in world affairs (such as Fidel Castro's Dance Dance Revolucion video game competition from Season Two). 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 or Optimus Prime contracting prostate cancer).

Writing staff

Co-head writers

• Doug Goldstein
• Tom Root

Writers

• Hugh Davidson
• Jordan Allen-Dutton
• Mike Fasolo
• Seth Green
• Charles Horn
• Breckin Meyer
• Dan Milano
• Pat McCallum
• Matthew Senreich
• Erik Weiner

Episodes

Main article: List of Robot Chicken episodes

DVD releases

Cover	Title	Release date	Episodes
File:Robot chicken 1 dvd.jpg	"Season One"	March 28, 2006	1–20
	This two disc boxset includes all 20 episodes from Season 1 in production order. While it contains deleted and uncensored scenes and the several of the original Sony Screenblast webtoons, 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. Seth Green stated at Comic-Con 2006 that the legal problems have been resolved and the segment will be included when Season 2 is released to DVD. Also omitted was the song used in the Voltron sketch, it is replaced by a totally different song, also produced in-house at Robot Chicken.
File:Robot chicken 2 dvd.jpg	"Season Two"	September 4, 2007	21–40
	This two disc boxset will include all 20 episodes from Season 2 in production order. The release date is unknown though it will most likely be released to coincide with the premiere of Season 3. It is currently available for download on iTunes (though the episode "Veggies for Sloth" is absent for an unknown reason.) Seth Green stated at Comic-Con 2006 that the second DVD set will contain the "Beavis and Butthead meet the Teen Titans" sketch, which had been removed from the first DVD set due to copyright issues.

Locations

Several of the sketches seem to take place in or around New Jersey. Various locations are references to actual places such as the highway scenes which feature I-78 "Clinton" which is an actual sign on Interstate 78 in New Jersey when travelling westbound, or the Care Bear parody in which Care-a-lot is turned into New Jersey.

Parodies

The song "Work it Out on the Floor" a parody of DMX's "Get it on the Floor" used in the broadcast version of season 1 episode 5 during the Voltron skit is replaced by another song "Work it, Work it" in the DVD version. It is also on the "Strawberry Shortcake" parody of Season 1 Episode 18.

In one episode they parody the Quentin Tarantino's movie "Kill Bill". The Bride is replaced by Jesus. O-Ren Ishii is Santa Claus and her army (Crazy 88) are Jewish. And the main antagonist (Bill) is the Easter Bunny. Both Jesus and the Bunny are voiced by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane.

In the episode "Cracked China", they parodied Pokemon in which Pikachu was called back inside his pokeball (which looked like a bar inside). Misty comments, "I wonder what it's like inside those Pokeballs", and Ash responds, "I wonder when you'll shut up and make my dinner".

External links

• Adult Swim
• AdultSwim.co.uk - Broadband VOD website for Adult Swim UK. However, you cannot view Robot Chicken content if you live outside the UK because it has been blocked by Digital Rights Management technologies.
• The Robot Chicken Wiki
• Robot Chicken Star Wars Episode