The Best of Adult Swim: Robot Chicken
Rated TV-MA, Robot Chicken first aired February 20, 2005 on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. The show is a stop-motion animated comedy that uses claymation, toys, and various other props to create parodies from both past and present pop culture sensations. Celebrities, comic book characters, movies, and board games are just a few of the many things that are on the menu for this hilarious show. Great skits from Skeletor car pooling with Cobra Commander, Mum’Ra, and Lex Luther to nerds playing Dungeons & Dragons will keep you in stitches.
The show puts a twisted spin on some of our favorite shows and characters. Like a Public Service Announcement from Optimus Prime about prostate cancer, a drunk Aquaman hitting up a dolphin for a booty call, or Buzz Lightyear losing his mind after Andy shoved him into his girlfriend’s nether region. The thought of some of those examples may be disturbing and some may claim the show goes too far with its “out of the box” parodies, but that “anything goes” writing style is absolutely perfect. Pushing the envelope and putting it all on the edge is what makes Robot Chicken “3, 2, 1, awesome!” Plus it has 4 Emmy Awards, now that is something to brag about.
Created and produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, Robot Chicken has something that just about everyone who watches can relate to. Episodes often take us back to our childhood with a warped spin on skits that include Knight Rider, Star Wars, M.A.S.K. and many others. Anything that may be subject to interpretation in the Star Wars movies will have a good chance of becoming part of the show. If it was not for Robot Chicken, we would have never found out that a Storm Trooper named Gary accidentally burned Luke’s aunt & uncle’s moisture farm, or that the confrontation between Ponda Baba and Luke Skywalker in the cantina on Tantooine was just a misunderstanding. Thanks Robot Chicken! Poor Ponda Baba.
Another aspect of the show is that each episode bounces from skit to skit as if changing channels on your TV. Brilliant! Entire episodes are usually about completely unrelated skits and you never know what is coming up next. This creates a constantly changing but steady pace that keeps your mind from getting complacent and your eyes locked onto the screen, just like the chicken in the opening sequence.
Robot Chicken is so rich with humor, picking a favorite episode is impossible and it is one of the best comedy shows created on Adult Swim. It delivers episode after episode of great skits that will leave you begging for more.