Seth Green

Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich have turned their show into the breakout hit I predicted it would become. The show has a major following [a million people is no longer a cult] and are deep into their second season. I got a chance to chat with them about the highly anticipated DVD of Robot Chicken’s first season.

Buy the DVD of Robot Chicken

Daniel Robert Epstein: Seth with your sitcom are you able to still do Robot Chicken right now?

Seth Green: Yes because I actually finished Four Kings in December. We shot 13 episodes for the midseason. So all the episodes have been shot and now they’re airing. For a period of time I was doing double duty. Doing both Four Kings and Robot Chicken but now I’m just doing Robot Chicken.

DRE: Robot Chicken is such a big hit, don’t like a million people watch each episode?

Seth: We had several occasions in our last season where we got over a million viewers.

Matthew Senreich: And that’s only the 18 to 34 age bracket.

DRE: What has happened as a result of that for the second season?

Seth: Well by the second season we got built in increases like most contracts get. But mostly we organized our schedules better. We learned from the mistakes we made last year and built an extra day into our schedule to allow for more animation. We had a longer prep period so we weren’t so hand to mouth with all the production.

Matthew: It was less about a bigger budget than just having better ways to manage our time.

DRE: What were some of the mistakes that you guys made last season that you feel like you’re correcting?

Seth: We only had two weeks of pre-production and everything on our stop motion show needs to be built and fabricated. So every set, every character, every piece of clothing needs to be either found or made and we were building everything a little less than a week before it was being shot. That’s a huge mistake. Plus we were still in the midst of writing while we were filming everything. So instead of 30 weeks doing everything at the same time, we now have 46 weeks with our responsibilities a little more spread out.

Matthew: With the first season we were able to really see what animation worked and what didn’t and we were able to write sketches more towards what played out in the animation rather than write things that just don’t look right.

Seth: The first season was a lot of experimentation. We hadn’t done this format before so we had some guesswork to do while we cemented what the idea was. But for the second season, we now know exactly what plays on TV, exactly what those toys can and can’t do and what jokes work in this format.

DRE: I got to interview Dino Stamatopoulos who does Moral Orel. He uses a lot of the same animation crew as you guys.

Matthew: His office is literally right across the hall from us.

DRE: Seth, Dino told me that you act out a lot of stuff for your animators, is that true?

Seth: That’s true. It started when I was out of the country last year while we were filming. I would want specific action or specific timing for some of the jokes, so I’d videotape myself acting out directions. That proved to be a really useful tool, so I’ve done that for every episode of last season and this season.

Matthew: Much to Seth’s chagrin.

Seth: Its really hard, dude. It’s like 45 minutes to an hour of just performing and some of the stuff is pretty physical. But we actually included a couple of the segments on the first season DVD because we thought they were funny.

DRE: Matt, do you get in there and act out stuff too?

Matthew: No, I’m much happier being behind the scenes and doing all the things that you won’t see me on camera for. I’m perfectly content to watch Seth do it.

DRE: Do you still do that as much Seth or have the animators picked up on what you want?

Seth: It’s not a matter of them not being able to pick up on anything, it’s more if we have a very specific joke that necessitates specific timing or there’s some physicality. It’s always easier for an animator to have a road map and then be able to add their own flair and personality to it. It’s a pain in the ass to do, but I don’t mind doing it and the animators tend to really appreciate it.

DRE: What would be a good example of something you had to act out?

Seth: I think we did it for Pimp My Sister.

Matthew: The Educational Wrestling Federation too.

Seth: Right, I demonstrated some specific wrestling moves.

DRE: I remember one really upsetting Robot Chicken sketch about domestic violence. Where did that idea come from?

Seth: We wanted to do a sketch where the entire scene is played out behind a closed door so that just the sound makes you infer what’s going on. We did this sketch where the tooth fairy comes to visit a kid and the father comes home in the middle of the night and picks a fight with his wife and then the tooth fairy is then stuck in this kid’s room and can’t leave for fear that something bad will happen to the kid. So she sits there while the parents fight. We couldn’t come up with an ending to the sketch; we had three different ways to end it that we all thought were pretty funny. So we just wound up adding alternate endings and put them on the DVD. We just thought it was a neat way to play with the format. You don’t see a lot of stuff like that; we thought it was really interesting and funny.

DRE: My wife won’t watch the show anymore because of that sketch [laughs].

Seth: [laughs] Yeah we were surprised because we didn’t think of it as a domestic violence sketch, but that’s the way everybody reacted to it.

Matthew: Sometimes it’s just a matter of putting someone in an uncomfortable situation.

Seth: Sometimes the circumstances are just so horrible, or weird, or strange or surreal, that it catches the audience off guard and you’ll wind up laughing in spite of yourself.

Matthew: We’re making fun of the whole idea of someone laughing at something that they shouldn’t laugh at.

DRE: Have you gotten any hate mail?

Seth: Not at all man, we’ve gotten tons of support. We’re really pleased and surprised at the level of support for the show. We’re not doing anything that mean spirited, it’s just a little weird, strange and funny.

DRE: With Robot Chicken being the breakout show on Adult Swim, how does it change how you deal with Cartoon Network?

Seth: We’ve had the same relationship with Cartoon Network from the very beginning. They’re super supportive of creative people and they don’t want to stand in the way. But they have great advice because they’ve launched dozens and dozens of shows and they know what will and won’t play on their network.

Matthew: It really is a perfect relationship where if they disagree, they’ll tell us, but at the end of the day they’ll leave it up to us to make the decisions. But 99 percent of the time when they disagree with us we realize they are right. They’re watching this as fans and that’s what makes this relationship so great.

Seth: But at the same time, if we really believe in something, we’ll fight for it. There was one sketch that [Cartoon Network head of comedy programming] Mike Lazzo did not like in script form and didn’t think was going to be funny. We insisted on going ahead with it and when he saw the final cut he took it back and said it was really funny. He apologized to us and admitted he was wrong, which is very rare.

DRE: Has anyone talked about spinning off any of the characters from Robot Chicken?

Seth: We entertained the idea but it’s so premature.

Matthew: As of right now we’re having too much of a good time doing this show to do a spin-off. That’s not to say down the line we wouldn’t want to do one.

DRE: In each show you guys do so many jokes, are there ones that you feel didn’t work?

Seth: Man, the writing process is so hilarious and we try to encourage our writers to just have the thickest skin in the world because we are brutal. I’d say 90 percent of the stuff that is pitched, does not ever get to the show.

Matthew: Then of all the stuff that actually makes it to air, I would say that one of the four of us was adamant against it.

Seth: But we’re a democratic process.

Matthew: At the end of the day, I find myself despising some of the sketches but then fans will tell me that’s their favorite sketch which blows my mind.

Seth: Since there’s so much content in such a short period of time there’s enough for anybody to find something they connect with and find something they hate.

DRE: Is [Greg the Bunny co-creator] Dan Milano on the writing staff now?

Matthew: We wrote 20 episodes over 20 weeks, so we brought in additional writers for each five week period. Dan Milano and Breckin Meyer both wrote on the show this season. One of the great things about having a show is you get to employ your super talented friends. It’s one of those rare cases where I can literally call up people that I know, who are really talented, and say, “Do you want to be an astronaut fighting a dragon? Do you want to be a gigantic black hooker?” We had Melanie Griffith come in and play a Care Bear.

DRE: How do you know Melanie Griffith?

Seth: She was making a show called Twins right next door to Four Kings with the same producers. I saw her everyday and she actually approached me. She was like, “I hear you have a cartoon show, I do voices.” I was like, “Melanie I’ll bring you in a second.”

DRE: Matt, is this your full time gig?

Matthew: Right now it’s my full time thing, before this I was working at Wizard Magazine as the editorial director. Also I wrote two live action drama pilots for Fox over the last two years. None of which have gotten picked up, but it was a good opportunity.

DRE: Are we going to see more recurring characters in Robot Chicken?

Seth: I got five words for you, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. We got the boys reunited.

I’m really thrilled with this season coming out just because we’ve put a lot of time and effort into it. We’ve really hit a stride. The level of the production value is so much higher because we have more time and we’re playing to our strengths. We know what the audience likes and we’re doing a little bit of experimentation too. We’re experimenting more with original sketch comedy as well as parody stuff.

DRE: How so?

Seth: Say for example we’ll do a Dragon Ball Z sketch or a Rainbow Brite sketch, we’ll also do a sketch about a guy being chased by a vampire. It is not always a branded character; it’s something that we make up.

DRE: Is [Family Guy creator] Seth MacFarlane too busy to do something besides voices for Robot Chicken?

Seth: He just does voices, yeah. He’s coming in on a couple episodes this season, but he’s basically doing our job on both Family Guy and American Dad. I don’t know how he even sleeps.

DRE: Any crossovers between Robot Chicken and Family Guy?

Seth: Peter Griffin made a cameo in our season premiere.

DRE: Has Robot Chicken had any problems with censorship?

Seth: A bit. It still sucks. It’s amazing that our country got so out of hand. People are imposing half a million dollar fines for stuff that was acceptable previously. I understand where the concerns are but I feel that it’s misplaced and mishandled.

DRE: Do you guys feel like there’s stuff on network TV that’s irresponsible outside the animal attack type shows?

Seth: I feel that the reality shows are far more irresponsible than the fiction shows because they present a produced reality that people are aspiring to. We’ve got these disposable reality celebrities but it’s all really vacuous. It’s all presented as though it’s offering good values to people and a high moral standing but instead it really feels highly materialistic and trendy. Like how if you don’t have this jacket or this car or this pimped out LCD screen in your low riding Range Rover, then you’re a fucking scumbag.

DRE: What other extras are on the DVD?

Seth: Oh my Gosh man, the DVD is unbelievable. We put in as much stuff in as we could. All the behind the scenes, all the technical information, tons of deleted scenes, tons of deleted jokes that are still in animatic form and never got animated. We did commentary on every episode.

Matthew: With a lot of different guest stars doing commentary with us.

Seth: We have actors just improv in the [voiceover] booth sometimes and have the animators work around that. So we included some of the lengthier, funnier audio takes. Also before we made the show for the Cartoon Network we had done it on the Internet in a shorter form, so we included a couple of those sketches.

DRE: Is there uncensored stuff on the DVD?

Matthew: Not on this one. Cartoon Network wants to see how the first DVD sells and from there they will make their decision as to an unrated one for season two or even go back and do a season one unrated. But right now it’s the same as it aired pretty much.

DRE: Seth, are you still working on the comic book, Freshmen?

Seth: Oh yeah! Hugh wrote six issues of the comic and all six have come out. We’re putting out the trade paperback in the middle of April.

DRE: How was the comic experience for you?

Seth: It was awesome. One of my best friends and I got to make a comic book. We grew up reading and drawing our own comics for fun and then we got to produce a real one. I got to introduce everybody to this brilliant writer that I’ve known all my life.

by Daniel Robert Epstein