Robot Chicken is making its return to Adult Swim with a new special bringing together 25 years worth of characters for a fun new crossover, and ComicBook got the chance to speak with the creators behind it all about how it all came together. Adult Swim has officially kicked off the celebration for its 25th anniversary, and it’s going all out for the occasion with a new special from Robot Chicken. And this is helping to celebrate all of the shows, both live-action and animated, released in the network’s history.
Robot Chicken Adult Swim Special is a new half-hour special bringing together all of Adult Swim’s memorable characters in one place for a fun new cruise that soon enough goes south and turns into a full court case investigation. Speaking with ComicBook ahead of the new special’s premiere, Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich opened up about how the new crossover came to be, the process behind the long running franchise, best moments from the past and more. Read on below for our interview (which has been edited for length and clarity).
NICK VALDEZ, COMICBOOK: I remember watching Robot Chicken‘s premiere all those years ago, and now you’ve recently celebrated Robot Chicken‘s own 20th anniversary and Adult Swim’s 25th anniversary. How are you feeling working on this new special? How did it all come together?
MATTHEW SENREICH: We get to play with toys for a living. I mean, that’s very simple to be able to say how fun it is. Anytime we get to dive into this geek market which grew us. We grew up watching all these things and reading comics, and the fact that we can project them by turning it 90 degrees on its side and have fun, that’s what we love. To say that we’ve been doing it for this long is really scary to think about, but at the same time. We’re still into the same things that we were into when we started making this show.
SETH GREEN: Yeah, there’s zero fear about it for me. It’s amazing. At this point, I only feel like we understand how this thing works, and how to continue to evolve it or apply it to other subjects. I always felt like Robot Chicken is more lifestyle than, like, brand. It’s more like a lifestyle brand than it is a specific thing, right? Like, you could put any totem of it on anything.
I think you two have proven that over the decades. I remember specifically watching that first episode, and being blown away, because were you guys using the actual figures?
SENREICH: First season, yes. We were using actual toys, and what we learned very early on with actual action figures is they lose their poseability. So, into the second season, we had to start creating new versions of real action figures.
GREEN: Stop motion is really hard, and takes a long time. The process of doing it will actually break most toys. We had to pivot, figure out ways to do it, but I still like photographing the real stuff wherever possible. I think that’s what’s most interesting, and demonstrating the limitations of any given toy on behalf of telling the sketch, or telling the jokes, I think that’s really useful. So, I always advocate using real toys wherever possible.
One of the things that always stood out to me with Robot Chicken episodes was the opening where it’s making sure this is kind of fair use parody kind of thing. And speaking to the use of real figures, did you guys ever have to deal with any legal pushback in terms of how far you could push certain characters or sketch ideas?
GREEN: The real answer is no. There hasn’t been anything too significant that wasn’t worked out in some other conversation, and where the toys are concerned, Matt and I have so much experience, predating the creation of this show inside toy companies with their people and their creative stuff. It was just fields we were both really interested in, and that came from, Wizard Magazine, which bannered all these other things, including Toy Fair Magazine, which was all about toys, all about new information.
We both were in there enough that when this started, we positioned it to these companies as a kind of free advertising. It makes stuff that you haven’t thought about in a while very popular. And that, I think, helped. We started having companies like Mattel and Hasbro come to us and talk about collabs that we could do, and in some cases, we’ve even been able to do stuff. Not just commercial stuff for them, but also actually manufacturing product.
You had mentioned how Robot Chicken has evolved, and it’s done so through these new TV specials. So pitched this Adult Swim crossover as one of the specials? Did you all have an idea or did Adult Swim come to you?
SENREICH: Mutual.
GREEN: Yeah, we’ve been talking to Adult Swim for a while about new stuff that we can make, and because the Discovery Special worked so well, they’re open to the idea. These anniversaries are coming up, back-to-back, so the idea of getting to make a special for an Adult Swim anniversary, and use all of the network’s own characters, it was really exciting for us. I don’t have to tell you the history of Adult Swim, but we got to be a part of it at the very early stages of it, after it was already gaining some momentum, and we could just be a part of that.
And as a result, we were close with the other creators, because Adult Swim was intentional about keeping its creators close. That’s what we wanted to make this special about. I felt like we sort of came up with the idea at the same time, because we’ve been pitching… [to Senreich] I feel like you’ve pitched an Adult Swim special.
SENREICH: Yeah, but just a while ago. I’ve always wanted to bring all the creators together and kind of goof around with all of them, because again, there’s never been that Secret Wars for Adult Swim characters. You haven’t seen them.
GREEN: The Monarch, and Carl, and Killface? That’s…c’mon.
SENREICH: So when talking with Michael Ouweleen, it was one of these situations where we’re laughing about it, and he was just like, “Why aren’t we doing this?” And I was like, “Exactly.” It just kind of came together, and it tied to this 25th anniversary, which is perfect timing. It was a great moment.
Is that why you’ve also centralized the narrative for the special too and gathered them on this cruise ship instead of breaking that into sketches?
GREEN: We wrote this the same way that we write all the specials, which is we put all the characters that we want to accomplish up on a board, and we try to write sketches about them. Then we start to see what shape those sketches take. It became really clear that the best device, because there were a couple other devices, a flashback, somebody’s retrospective, all the stuff that was kind of dumb. I forget who pitched the cruise, but a cruise it’s so dangerous just at the mention.
Then you populate it with literally all the characters that we can get on the boat, and it’s meant to be a celebration. There was so much stuff in the news about the “Poop Cruise” documentary had just come out. People were trapped just off of Long Beach. They could see the shore, and they couldn’t get out. That’s my literal nightmare, being stuck on a cruise.
Looking back on it all now, and seeing how much has evolved within and outside of Robot Chicken on Adult Swim, how do you keep up the energy for it after all this time? I’m just so impressed that it still feels like Robot Chicken.
GREEN: We don’t make specials about shit we don’t like. We don’t try to make jokes and tell stories about stuff we don’t like. That’s as simple as it is. We like this stuff. Then we get people who like it too, who are funny, to write about it. And you try to write funny stuff that’s not bullshit, right? You try to write funny stuff that is sincere. We’re not out here trying to serve fake masters. We just want to give the audience what they want, and we really believe that we know. We just keep trying to give it to them.
SENREICH: And we play! It’s all about playing with friends!
GREEN: You get a bunch of friends together to talk about why you like this stuff and what’s funny about it, and you wind up with a sketch. I really trust this process.
I’ve been loving it all so far, but there was also a Cartoon Network Robot Chicken special too, so I’ve got to ask is there anything you can tease about that?
GREEN: Not yet.
SENREICH: We will, but not yet.
GREEN: I can’t wait to talk about it when it’s time. But right now, this is the thing to focus on, because we put a lot of work into this, and we’re really excited to give it to you.
Robot Chicken Adult Swim Special premieres on Sunday, August 30th at midnight ET/PT on Adult Swim, and will stream the next day on HBO Max.
