It’s hard to believe it, but over 20 years have passed since Adult Swim’sRobot Chickenmade its debut in 2005. 11 seasons, over 200 episodes and 11 specials later, the show is still going strong today, and a brand-new special, titledRobot Chicken: Self-Discovery Special, is about to air. It follows the hapless Robot Chicken Nerd as he embarks on a journey of self-discovery by entering the murkyworld of reality TV.
Ahead of the new special, Game Rant sat down withRobot Chicken’s co-creators Matthew Senreich and Seth Green. They talked about how the show has changed and evolved since it debuted two decades ago.This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Robot Chicken’s Co-Creators Reflect on 20 Years of the Show
Q: Looking back at over two decades ofRobot Chicken, what emotions would you say come up as you approach this unofficial milestone?
MS:The thing that hits me is, I’ve played with my friends for this long, like it’s not even about time. It’s just like I get to keep hanging out with these people and making this show, and it’s been a pleasure.
SG:Time is a circle, so I don’t really think about it in those terms. It is definitely interesting to acknowledge, like, just this morning, I had a kid who is maybe 26 tell me he grew up onRobot Chicken, and I love that. There’s a part of me that loves that, just because I grew up on all kinds of crazy stuff. I watched, you know,Monty PythonandSaturday Night Live, and all these stand-ups. Sketch shows likeBlack Adder, all this British comedy, all of this American pop, and all it did was make me want to make it myself. So I know how I feel about all the people that made that stuff, and I also see how uncomfortable it is for them when I’m like ‘‘Oh, I grew up on your sh*t. I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for you.’’ They’re always like, cool. We were just a bunch of dudes. I don’t know.
We felt like we were knuckleheaded teenagers when we were first making this stuff. So I kind of take it the same way that I take a compliment on my clothing. When somebody’s like, I really love your shirt. You’re like, oh, thanks. Because otherwise it’ll mess with my head in a way that prevents me from being able to continue to do stuff.
Q: The media landscape has changed quite dramatically since the show launched in 2005. How do you manage to keepRobot Chickenrelevant?
MS:I feel like the stuff that we talk about is the most human of things, and those conditions never seem to change, regardless of the cultural overlay or whatever the stimulus that we’re receiving. We like to root our comedy in the most basic ofhuman characteristics, and so, whenever we’re highlighting it against something fantastical, it’s always to point out if this was a person, what do you think they would feel about that? That’s what we are like, always.
SG:Yeah, taking the absurd and making it mundane, like he said it’s like, and there’s always going to be pop culture out there to do that too, no matter what the situation is.Human beings' relationship with pop cultureis always going to stay the same, regardless of the pop that is influencing it.
How Robot Chicken’s Humor Has Adapted Over the Years
Q: How do you strike that balance between staying true to what makes the show what it is, versus having to adapt it to modern-day standards? Are there things in the earlierRobot Chickenepisodes that you think you wouldn’t have included in the year 2025?
SG:Look, there are plenty of jokes that you make at different times. I don’t even know why it was okay for us to make certain jokes when we made them, but it just was. Sometimes people are like, that’s my favorite episode, and refer to a particular sketch. We’re like, oh wow, why did we make that? I’ll say it this way. Steven Spielberg was a different filmmaker after he had kids, right? He made stuff likeClose Encounters. Yet, he wouldn’t havemade a movie likeClose Encounterswhere the guy is like, f*ck my family, I’m going to space, after he himself had kids. It just wouldn’t exist. But we love that those kinds of ideas, those kinds of expressions, exist.
It’s kind of a young man’s game, right? We started the show at a place where we were saying unbelievably provocative things, because that was the shape of the time. Those words exist. We couldn’t do the same thing now, we probably wouldn’t do the same thing now. But I am glad that those moments in time exist, absolutely.
MS:I’ll go one step further. We’re older now, but a lot of the people that we hire, it’s their first jobs. There’s a new generation of writers there to tell us what is relevant today, and also it’s for us to not only learn but experience through their eyes. That’s what we really enjoy, seeing those kinds of things and then saying, this is your platform, take it.
How the Idea for Robot Chicken’s Self-Discovery Special Was Conceived
Q: What sparked the idea for the self-discovery special?
SG:Here’s the thing. We love this show, and we’ve gotten to a place where we’re looking at the way any of this is being made. We sawwhatSouth Parkdid with their specials. People don’t watch shows in the same way anymore. When you promote something, say, twice a year, you have a greater impact, so we started focusing on half-hour specials. Making things that are more in line with, like,Star Wars, or DC, orWalking Deadspecials. Each of those has worked really well, and it’s a fun chance for us to dedicate all of this thinking and creativity to a specific brand.
There have been a lot of corporate mergers, like a lot of these super-massive, multinational, diversified pharmaceutical and electronics companies. They’re just, like, only a little bit interested in this industry that they’ve got called Hollywood. We thought it would be really fun to focus on our new corporate daddy and just have fun with that. So we were like, guys, is it cool if we do this? Are you guys cool? We’ll make it funny and also cool. And they were like, ‘‘We’re cool. What do you want to say?’’ So we agreed to see if we could push their buttons a little bit and have fun.
Q: How has the show’s relationship with its audience evolved over time? Did that affect how you approached this particular special?
SG:Absolutely not. I feel like our relationship with the audience has been consistent from the beginning, and it was the thing that Matt and I first really attached to when we started making the show. These were just jokes that we thought were funny among a niche group of paper enthusiasts. Nobody thought this stuff was cool. Nobody thought Nerdcore was cool. We were talking about all this stuff that we got our asses kicked for liking in high school. So we didn’t expect to get over a million viewers in our first season. We didn’t expect to fill out huge convention halls with fans of this show. We just did not see that coming. So when we got into our second season, we were like, all right, everybody thinks this is funny. What do we want to say? Then that became our mandate. It was like, how do we give people what they want? And now, geek culture is massive.
MS:To be able to turn that 90 degrees on its side could not be more relevant today. The audience still wants to have this. They want to have a fun relationship with all of theirpop culture stuff, that’s never changed for us.
How Robot Chicken’s Production Process Has Changed
Q: Over the years, how has the writing and the production process evolved? Does it look much different now compared to when you first started?
SG:I think, like when it first started, it was just a couple of people. It was like me, Matt, and a few others. Then, as we moved into bringing on different voices, we had to change the structure of our voting system. How things got in. We brought on all kinds of different voices and tried all kinds of things. So the writing process has stayed really the same. We’ve just figured out ways to streamline it so that we can make our production less expensive. Now we’llwrite five episodes at the same time, and produce all the episodes at the same time.
MS:Then also adding to it, like when we started, there weren’t apps that would allow us to animate as easily as we can animate today. Things like Dragonframe didn’t exist whenRobot Chickenstarted.
SG:Theimprovements in the stop-motion industryas a whole, like a lot of the stuff that we’re able to employ now, it wasn’t like when we first started doing our show. They had just evolved into the idea of digital sequencing and to be able to build a timeline on Pro Tools. So it was like, holy sh*t. All of a sudden, you didn’t have to like, measure between your camera and the object.
MS:We do it all in digital now. It really does help.3D printersdid not exist, things like that have just enhanced the whole process.
SG:It helps things move quicker. It helps us to make it for the budget. Because I don’t know, the biggest thing that hasn’t changed is the budget. They’ve never given us more money!
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