Robot Chicken


Robot Chicken is an American adult animated stop motion sketch comedy television series, created and executive produced for Adult Swim by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. The writers, most prominently Green, also provide many of the voices. Senreich, Goldstein, and Root were formerly writers for the popular action figure hobbyist magazine ToyFare. Robot Chicken has won an Annie Award and six Emmy Awards.

Production history

Robot Chicken is based on "Twisted ToyFare Theatre", a humorous photo comic-strip appearing in ToyFare: The Toy Magazine. 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; the series originally was intended to be called Junk in the Trunk.
The show was created, written, and produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, and produced by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios in association with Stoop!d Monkey, Williams Street, and Sony Pictures Television. The series first appeared as Sweet J Presents on the Sony website Screenblast.com in 2001. In the first episode, Conan O'Brien was a featured character, voiced by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. Sweet J Presents ended after 12 episodes and moved to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in 2005 as Robot Chicken, premiering on Sunday, February 20, 2005.
Some television networks and sketch shows rejected Robot Chicken, including Comedy Central, MADtv, Saturday Night Live, and even Cartoon Network. However, someone at Cartoon Network passed the pitch along to Adult Swim, around the same time that Seth MacFarlane told Seth Green and Matthew Senreich to pitch the show to Adult Swim.
The show mocks popular culture, referencing toys, movies, television, games, popular fads, and more obscure references like anime cartoons and older television programs, much in the same vein as comedy sketch shows like Saturday Night Live. It employs stop motion animation of toys, action figures, claymation, and various other objects, such as tongue depressors, The Game of Life pegs, and popsicle sticks.
One particular motif involves the idea of fantastical characters being placed in a more realistic world or situation. The program aired 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, Billy Dee Williams, and Ahmed Best. The Star Wars episode was nominated for a 2008 Emmy Award as Outstanding Animated Program.
The series was renewed for a 20-episode third season, which ran from August 12, 2007, to October 5, 2008. After an eight-month hiatus during the third season, the show returned on September 7, 2008, to air the remaining 5 episodes. The series was renewed for a fourth season which premiered on December 7, 2008, and ended September 20, 2009. In early 2010, the show was renewed for a fifth and sixth season. Season five premiered on December 12, 2010. The second group of episodes began broadcasting on October 23, 2011. The 100th episode aired on January 15, 2012. In May 2012, Adult Swim announced they were picking up a sixth season of Robot Chicken, which began airing in September 2012. The seventh season premiered on April 13, 2014. Season eight premiered on October 25, 2015. Season nine premiered on December 10, 2017. Season 10 premiered on September 29, 2019. After a five-month hiatus during the tenth season, the show returned on June 28, 2020, to air the remaining 7 episodes with the 200th episode.

Opening sequence

On a stormy night, a mad scientist finds a road-killed chicken, which he takes back to his laboratory to refashion into a cyborg. Midway through the opening sequence, the titular chicken turns his laser eye towards the camera, and the title appears amidst the "laser effects" as Les Claypool of Primus can be heard screaming "It's alive!" quoting Frankenstein. Claypool also composed and performed the show's theme song. The mad scientist then straps the re-animated Robot Chicken into a chair, uses calipers to hold his eyes open, and forces him to watch a bank of television monitors ; this scene segues into the body of the show, which resembles someone frequently changing TV channels.
In the episode "1987", Michael Ian Black claims in the "Best Robot Chicken Ever" sketch that this sequence tells the viewers that they are the chicken, being forced to watch the skits. As a result, the show does not focus on the Robot Chicken until the 100th episode, when he finally makes his escape and later kills the mad scientist when he takes his hen girlfriend Cluckerella.
Beginning in the sixth season, a new opening sequence has been featured with a role reversal. The Robot Chicken comes upon the body of the scientist, which has been decapitated. He decides to do to the scientist what the mad scientist did to him: add robotic parts to him, turn him into a cyborg, and give him a laser eye, then strap him to the same chair he was strapped to and force him to watch the same TV monitors while the chicken and his girlfriend share a kiss.
Beginning in the eighth season, a new opening sequence has been featured with the Robot Chicken being uncovered in snow, frozen in a block of ice, by robots. Taken to a futuristic laboratory, the Robot Chicken is taken out of suspended animation by a masked scientist, revealed to be a descendant of the mad scientist who first reanimated the Robot Chicken. The descendant mad scientist then proceeds to force the Robot Chicken to watch a wall of projected images with different shows, as his ancestor did before him. This new opening was necessary following the plot of last season's episode "Chipotle Miserables" in which the mad scientist's son rips out his father's remaining eye to open a door controlled by an optical biometric reader, and then creates a posse of reanimated cyborg animals, as well as a cyborg homeless person. The posse then proceeds to kidnap all 5 living Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. The Robot Chicken and mad scientist then team up to rescue the presidents, after which, the Robot Chicken flies away, free.
Beginning in the tenth season, a new opening sequence has been featured with the Nerd being turned into a cyborg by both the Robot Chicken and the mad scientist and being forced to watch the skits while they high five. This is a result of the previous season finale where the Nerd dies from a cliff jump stunt to get the show renewed. The letters TEN in the title have been also highlighted to mark the show reaching ten seasons. In the 200th episode, as the title is showing, David Lynch shouts "Robot Chicken!" in a off-screen.

Characters

While Robot Chicken uses a variety of famous real people and fictional characters, it also has original characters created exclusively for the show.

Voice cast

Main cast

Main and major recurring actors/writers are:
Among those celebrities who have contributed to this show are:
Besides the celebrities above, many famous voice actors work on this series including:
All Robot Chicken episodes are available on HBO Max and Hulu.

Home media

have released the first four seasons and all three Star Wars specials in the United Kingdom. A box set including the first 3 seasons and a box set including all three Star Wars specials have also been released.
Madman Entertainment has released all Robot Chicken seasons and specials to date in Australia and New Zealand.

International

The show airs in the United Kingdom and Ireland as part of E4's Adult Swim block, in Canada on Adult Swim, in Australia on The Comedy Channel's Adult Swim block, in Russia on 2x2's Adult Swim block, in Germany on TNT Comedy's Adult Swim block, and in Latin America on the I.Sat Adult Swim block. Many of the show's sketches from Sweet J Presents were redone for Robot Chicken.