Seth Green

He riotously roasted George Lucas and Star Wars in three Robot Chicken specials. Now evil genius Seth Green is ready to defame and defile yet another sacred sci-fi cow — the DC Comics universe! Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken DC Comics Special (Sunday, Sept. 9, midnight/11c) boasts an awesome voice cast including Nathan Fillion (Green Lantern), Paul Reubens (The Riddler), Megan Fox (Lois Lane) and Alfred Molina (Lex Luthor), plus DC toys and action figures doing the most, well, unexpected things. Yep, that’s Superman (Breckin Meyer) indulging in some homoerotic liplocks, and Batman baddie Two-Face (Neil Patrick Harris) not flushing after going No. 2! That much-maligned superhero Aquaman (Green) even turns villain and joins the dreaded Legion of Doom. TV Guide Magazine spoke with Green to find out how he and his RC team gets away with such rowdy irreverence.

TV Guide Magazine: So how does this work? Once George Lucas has given you permission to spoof his universe, everybody else just falls in line?

Green: DC completely understands this kind of parody — that we’re not making fun but celebrating. It also makes DC look supercool. They know their characters are so powerful and indelible that letting us monkey idiots fool around with them is totally OK. DC pretty much let us do our thing. They didn’t have many mandates.

TV Guide Magazine: Apparently not. They even let you call their superhero Firestorm a "douche."

Green: [Laughs] Which only serves to make the character more interesting! We’re providing a service here! [DC Chief Creative Officer] Geoff Johns wrote part of the special and was with us whenever he wasn’t doing important DC business. We got to set up shop in the DC offices for three weeks in one of their conference rooms, which super-inspired us! We had access to endless amounts of material, including all their encyclopedias. And we went into their big merchandise room and grabbed all the toys right away, of course.

TV Guide Magazine: Now that you’ve scored with Lucas and DC, what’s your next holy grail?

Green: We’d love to get our hands on Marvel! But I don’t think Disney would ever let us play like this.

TV Guide Magazine: The special boasts a cast of thousands but the main story arc goes to Aquaman and his turn to the dark side. Why him?

Green: [Laughs] We always f—k with Aquaman! Everybody does! He’s the most abused and disrespected of all superheroes but that’s what makes him such a great potential villain. He’s an underdog who has suffered great insult.

TV Guide Magazine: What exactly are we saying here, that Superman’s gay? Or just experimenting?

Green: [Laughs] We’re not saying anything! We went back to the movie Superman 2 where Superman planted that amnesia kiss on Lois Lane to make her forget he’s Superman and we thought, "That’s crazy! You have that kind of superpower yet you don’t ever use it again? What’s up with that?" So we decided to have our Superman kiss a few guys. It’s nothing romantic and I don’t think it’s anything to do with his sexuality. He’s got a special tactical defense weapon and he’s just, uh, practicing.

TV Guide Magazine: You really brought out the big guns for this one. What a cast!

Green: A lot of fans thought Nathan Fillion should have played Green Lantern in the movie, the part that went to Ryan Reynolds, so we’re just sort of honoring that. [Laughs] We felt we owed it to pop culture! The same thing goes for Paul Reubens as The Riddler. Back before Jim Carrey was set for the role in Batman Forever, there was talk that Paul might do it. So we felt like we wanted to see some justice there, too! And having Molina is just nuts. I’ll watch him in anything! One day our casting gal, Linda, said, "What about bringing in Alfred Molina?" And I said, "Don’t even tease me with that name!" Getting to direct him was unbelievable. Just crazy! He was so great and so enthusiastic we wound up giving him three roles. He also does Firestorm and Mr. Banjo.

TV Guide Magazine: Word is you have The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman playing himself in an upcoming episode.

Green: We couldn’t parody that show without him. The way we worked him into the plot was a bit ham-handed but I don’t think the fans are going to mind. They’ll love it! It’s kind of a secret. You know how on The Walking Dead they have those horrifically graphic overhead shots of zombies making a kill? [Laughs] Well, that’s your hint. We have a lot of cool people coming up. Jon Stewart plays Matt Tracker from M.A.S.K. We also have Elizabeth Banks, Kat Dennings, Liev Schreiber, 50 Cent, Zachary Levi. We wrote Patrick Stewart into a Dune sketch. One of our writers raised the point that Dune would have been a lot easier if they’d had dune buggies, so we’re going with it! Oh, and Alyson Hannigan.

TV Guide Magazine: Your Buffy costar! What the hell took so long? Aren’t you two close buds?

Green: I know, I know. One day I’m watching How I Met Your Mother and my wife says, "How come Alyson has never done Robot Chicken?" I’m, like, "Whaaat? Of course, she has!" So we looked it up and it was true. No Alyson. My heart just sank. I called her right that second and thank goodness she answered and said OK. But she did make a point of saying, "I couldn’t help but notice I’m the only one in town who hasn’t done your show!"