Since its debut in 2005, Robot Chicken's trademark satirical humor has taken aim at some of the world's most famous IPs. Throughout its 20-year existence, the show has undergone several changes to its format, moving from full seasons to more sporadic specials, but the heart of what makes it unique has never changed. The stop-motion animation process may have gotten slicker since the early 2000s, but its style still catches the eye in the same way it did back then.
The Best War Games recently spoke with Robot Chicken's co-creator Seth Green about how the show's humor has evolved over time. In a media landscape that has changed dramatically since the show debuted back in 2005, Green and his team have successfully found ways to stay relevant, and he believes the show's shift to half-hour specials instead of full seasons is a big part of the reason why.
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Robot Chicken's Early Days Made a Strong Impression
When Robot Chicken burst onto screens, it made quite an impression on audiences. Its eye-catching, stop-motion animation style was combined with satirical jokes that weren't afraid to broach some tricky subjects. Of course, shows like South Park and Family Guy were doing something similar, too, and Green believes this was just a product of the time. He explained,
''We started the show at a place where we were saying unbelievably provocative things, because that was the shape of the time. Those words exist. We couldn't do the same thing now, we probably wouldn't do the same thing now. But I am glad that those moments in time exist, absolutely.''
Robot Chicken's Initial Jokes Were Intentionally Provocative at the Time
Green doesn't regret the show's earlier jokes, even though he acknowledges it's a very different time today. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star said he himself is a different person now than he was in 2005, so his humor has changed along with him. He continued,
''Look, there are plenty of jokes that you make at different times. I don't even know why it was okay for us to make certain jokes when we made them, but it just was. Sometimes people are like, that's my favorite episode, and refer to a particular sketch. We're like, wow, why did we make that?''
Many long-running animated comedy shows, like The Simpsons, have had to make similar adjustments in recent years as times and tastes have changed. Of course, it isn't just the humor that's changed since 2005. Green confirmed that the entire stop-motion process has improved massively, making the process of producing Robot Chicken much more efficient. ''We've figured out ways to streamline it so that we can make our production less expensive. Now we'll write five episodes at the same time, and produce all the episodes at the same time,'' he explained, ''The improvements in the stop-motion industry as a whole, like a lot of the stuff that we're able to employ now, it wasn't like that when we first started doing our show.''
The Robot Chicken Self-Discovery Special airs on Sunday, July 20th, on Adult Swim.
- Release Date
- 2005 - 2022
- Network
- Adult Swim
- Showrunner
- Matthew Senreich
- Directors
- Tom Sheppard
- Writers
- Breckin Meyer, Hugh Davidson, Brendan Hay, Dan Milano, Erik Weiner, Geoff Johns, Matthew Libman, Hugh Sterbakov, Jordan Allen-Dutton, Kevin Shinick, Matthew Ireland Beans, Charles Horn, Zeb Wells, daniel libman, Seth Green, Matthew Senreich, Mike Fasolo, Tom Root, Doug Goldstein, Andrew Ti, Milana Vayntrub, Deirdre Devlin, Harmony McElligott, Michael Poisson
Cast
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Seth GreenVarious (voice) -
Matthew SenreichVarious
