Adult Swim has had its share of highs and lows but out of everything on its current lineup there is one show that stands out above the rest. The brainchild of Seth Green and Matthew Seinreich, Robot Chicken is a bloody brilliant masterpiece of mayhem and fun. The stop-motion animation show uses vintage toys and crafted sets for some of the funniest sketches you’ll ever see. The entire first season is available today on DVD; let’s take a look…
Robot Chicken – Volume 1
4 & 1/2 Stars
Seth Green is da’ man! Robot Chicken was created by Green and Matthew Senreich to be something quite unique, insanely funny, and thoroughly enjoyable. The show’s episodes are only 15 minutes a piece (about 10 without commercials) and air late at night on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” lineup. Because of the shortness of the episodes and the odd timeslots (often something like 11:45 pm) I haven’t caught many of ‘em so it was a real treat to sit down and watch the season crammed onto two discs (this is definately the way to view the show).
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The show is set-up to be various stop-motion animation skits (some as long as four or five minutes, some as short as 5 seconds) structured together in a switching channel framework as if you, the viewer, are seeing what’s showing on different channels. The voices are provided by cast regulars Seth Green, Chad Morgan, Dan Milano, Seth MacFarlane, Breckin Meyer, Jamie Kaler, and guests like Mila Kunis, Scarlett Johannsson, Sarah Michelle Geller, Jon Heder, Macaulay Culkin, Dean Cain, the entire cast of That 70’s Show and others.
So what might you see? Well how about an A-Team episode, a Scooby Doo spoof, CSI bloopers, a Canonball Run sketch with the voices of Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, an episode of “Zombie Idol” (with judges Count Chocula and Boo-Berry), a Se7en themed Smurf sketch, the most brutal one-sided fist fights, a sketch pointing out several problems with King Kong, “Behind the Music with The Electic Mayhem”, what would really happen to Billy Batson if he said his magic word, a bird teaching it’s young how to poop on strangers, “Ass-Pirates of the Carribean,” the unintentional effect Sailor Moon would have on her foes, a Hillary Duff version of The Diary of Anne Frank, Voltron getting served, and an Empire Strikes Back parody (with Mark Hamill providing his own voice) where Darth Vader reveals all.
The show uses current and vintage toys (you’ll recognize G.I. Joe and He-Man figures, among many, many others) to act out the various skits and also comissions a company to make custom made celebrity heads for their figures allowing them to do anything from an N’Sync to a Harrison Ford sketch. The quality of the show is quite good considering how much time is taken to create the sets and then film it frame by frame going back to add effects and dialogue. The shooting is first rate and the range of movements from the various props and figures is often quite amazing.
This is a collection I can’t recommend highly enough. Yes it’s brutal and violent, yes it’s offensive, yes it’s incredibly not politically correct, and yes not every skit is a winner (though it does have a higher percent of good ones than most sketch shows). You know what it is though? Really #*%@ funny! 20 extremely funny episodes, great commentary, and tons of extras packaged in this nice two-disc DVD set.
Keep your remote handy to pause and take a look at the spinning newspapers and credits which contain several jokes you’ll miss the first time around and be prepared to hum that theme song for the next day and a half. Simply put folks this is an awesome show well packaged here in this set and it’s a must have for fans of the show, Seth Green, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, or just really fun sketch comedy done with puppets. Go get yours now!