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STUDIO: Cartoon Network
MSRP: $69.98
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 1200 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Deleted Scenes
Commentaries
Featurettes
The Pitch
Seth Green plays with toys.
The Humans
Seth Green, Gary Holm, Marion Ramsey, Fred Tatasciore and Michael Winslow
The Nutshell
Breakneck jokes about toys and movies made in 1980s fly past you with Robot Chicken. Did you ever wonder what it would be like if Professor X was in charge of the Police Academy? I didn’t think that you did, but it’s fun to watch it acted out with Mego figures. The runtimes vary per episode, as some jokes get a few seconds while others can take up to a third of an episode. The ADD kids are in charge of the asylum.
The Lowdown
Seth Green started the show by using the basic principles behind the Twisted Mego Theater and giving it fifteen minutes to shine on Cartoon Network. The DVD takes the same toy playing adventures and presents them uncensored. There’s no tits or anything, but you get to listen to Lion-O say fuck. That’s thrilling, right? You guys like to hear childhood creations act all mature.
Robot Chicken opens its second season with a rather forgettable riff on Alias. This is followed by the little nerd kid from the above screenshot. Seth Green has the star role in the show, as this little nerd kid that gets involved in all sorts of adventures. Whether it’s trying to bang Scarjo or getting a Unicorn to shoot magical mayonnaise, I love it whenever he shows up. Plus, that voice that Green uses. I don’t where he pulls it from, but it’s television magic. Like the moon landing or that episode of Roseanne where Mariel Hemingway kissed John Goodman.
When the show debuted Darth Vader’s phone call to Emperor Palpatine, it began a life of its own. Forever cemented by Seth McFarlane’s spot-on work as the Emperor, Seth Green and company realized that they had a second goldmine. Getting available celeb friends to stop by and make jokes about random creatures at the Mos Eisley cantina. These efforts were spawned off into two Star Wars specials and endless repeat fodder. George Lucas even got in on the fun. Do you think Lucas remembers what fun is? I mean he made Gungans. Gungans are like AIDS fucked racism.
The second season suffered a little, because you had jokes about random toys and celebs that went on too long. The above screenshot is from a segment about Mol-Arr: Dentist of Eternia. It plays like some awful modern SNL sketch about a dentist terrorizing the He-Man backlot. Some jokes work during this season, it’s just that there’s no sense of timing. The problems with the pacing comes across in the deleted scenes too. But, the showrunners had the sense to cut that. For a show that runs a brisk 12-15 minutes, you’d figure that they would know how to keep it running a little tighter.
The Package
The
DVD for the second season comes with a ton of featurettes, commentaries and deleted scenes. Hell, there’s even a collection of video blogs and some info on this season’s PS3 promo. The winner got some junk from Sony and a stop-motion cameo on the show. Thrilling to say the least, but it doesn’t make for exciting supplemental material. The A/V Quality is on par with the other Robot Chicken releases. Just don’t expect an amazing audio track.