Seth Green

DVD Review: ROBOT CHICKEN - SEASON 1

Cartoon Network’s most random hit or miss series makes it to DVD chock full of content for the ADD kid in all of us.

STARS: Seth Green, Matthew Senreich, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rachael Leigh Cook, Scarlett Johansson

WRITER: Seth Green, Matthew Senreich

DIRECTOR: Seth Green, Matthew Senreich

For those with short attention spans, listen up. I said ... hey you in the corner, I said listen up. There is a perfect show you’re not watching — pay attention dumbass. ROBOT CHICKEN: SEASON 1 features all the lovely attention deficit disorder programming you will ever need wrapped up in neat 12 minute intervals so you don’t have to take time away from hitting the bong, playing on your Xbox 360 you saved up for working at the used CD warehouse and cleaning up the parent’s garage, er, your bedroom.

Chock full of pop culture references, stop-motion animation and parodies of, well, you name it, ROBOT CHICKEN is one of Cartoon Network’s more interesting Adult Swim shows - and trust me that’s saying something considering this is the channel that airs HOME MOVIES, HARVEY BIRDMAN: ATTORNEY AT LAW and the awesome SEALAB 2021. Now interesting doesn’t necessarily make it a good show but its hard not to watch a show that’s so fast paced and jumps around all over the map since there is literally a new sketch in a minute or less. I ask you where else can you find a DEBBIE DOES DALLAS parody done with popsicle sticks?

Each episode either shows signs of sheer brilliance or is just a mess that crashes faster than it burns. Sketches like “Voltron Got Served” and some of the STAR WARS bits (that rival the third party workers on the Death Star conversation from CLERKS) are pure genius. Unfortunately, these are too few, too far between to really enjoy the show more than just in passing. But one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure and others probably think every sketch from ROBOT CHICKEN is pure gold.

The DVD special features to ROBOT CHICKEN: SEASON 1 is a mish-mash of wild and weird elements that some seem like they made them up as they went along. However, you can tell they took time to concentrate on giving fans something and putting in an effort for extra content - a cool thing considering some creators could give a rat’s ass about fans.

The two-disc DVD set contains a healthy dose of extras including a variety of deleted sketches that never really made it past one or two ideas before going down like the Hindenburg. These are fairly interesting considering we see what wouldn’t make it past even them - surprisingly they didn’t just use everything although you’d be hard pressed to differentiate what got tossed and what got the green light. Regardless, it’s a good feature.

Two of the more amusing featurettes are the animation meetings where basically the crew poke fun at Seth Green while he makes an idiot of himself and the very funny advertisements that ran on the Cartoon Network pushing the series. Some of them are funnier than the show.

The making of featurette takes the viewers through how to make an episode of ROBOT CHICKEN as well as how the crazy idea got started and why Cartoon Network bought off on the idea. Photo galleries and the short webisodes that Seth Green also created also accompany the DVD.

Now fans may be slighted by some of the treatment on the DVD including that it is not uncut or uncensored (unlike other Adult Swim shows and Comedy Central shows that have eliminated the bleep on DVD). Plus, it appears they didn’t include the Christmas special or the TEEN TITANS special some fans may clamor for and some of the music has been changed due more than likely to licensing issues.

ROBOT CHICKEN: SEASON 1 is offered in full screen only in English language with English, Spanish and French subtitles.