Late Night Tastes Like Robot Chicken
There is just too much TV nowadays. No matter how much good stuff you’re watching, there’s always more, always stuff you’ve heard about but never found the time to get to because your TV dance card is always full.
I’ve been hearing good things about Robot Chicken for years, but never found the time to check it out. I only knew three things about it: 1) It’s on Adult Swim 2) Seth Green is involved and 3) they did a couple of “Star Wars” specials.
This week I finally got hip to Robot Chicken, and I am going to have to carve out just a little more time to watch TV, because this thing is a hoot. I’d assumed it was a cartoon (because it airs on Adult Swim/Cartoon Network) but it’s actually stop-motion animation, mostly very short sketches starring action figures, some storebought and some made for the show, gleefully making fun of the obsessions of nerd culture with their very nerdiest extensions.
There is no continuity or serialization to Robot Chicken, no need to go back and catch up on season one before you can enjoy season six. It’s just a rapid-fire sketch show. Some the the sketches aren’t even sketches, just ten-second single jokes. Some of the episodes have a theme, like the DC Universe Special or the Star Wars episodes; others are just free-associating jokes about comics, sci-fi, horror movies, and other pop-culture standbys.
The thing I like about Twitter is that it has no beginning, no end. You can read your feed for 20 seconds or 20 minutes and the experience is fundamentally the same. Robot Chicken is like that. There’s no beginning and no end, just a river of funny that you can dip into or out of as your needs dictate.
Robot Chicken is currently on hiatus, between seasons 7 and 8; encore episodes air at 12:00 and 12:15 am and 3:00 and 3:15 am on Adult Swim, and select episodes are available on demand at Adult Swim’s website.