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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.
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 Titan character Cyborg. 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.
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).
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 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, Al Roker, 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, Jon Gruden, Donald Faison, Kelly Hu, Cameron Diaz, David Hasselhoff, Elijah Wood, Dave Coulier, Abraham Benrubi, and Pat Morita. 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 like changing up Dora the Explorer (Dora Behind The Scenes). 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).
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.
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.