Robot Chicken will be shown from 11:30 to 11:45 p.m. Sundays on the Cartoon Network. Television doesn't get much loopier than the Cartoon Network's latest "Adult Swim" cartoon, Robot Chicken. "It's a stop-motion sketch comedy show, so it's fast and furious," said Seth Green, one of the show's creators. "It's in theforum of watching television, so you'll flip through the channels and you'll see bursts of static. We have sketches that are as short as two seconds, and sketches as long as four minutes. And the whole thing is a tightly packed ADD-type of television, satirical content, lampooning pop-culture events." "Saturday Night Live
with action figures," added Matt Senreich, the show's other
creator. Green is best known for such roles as Scott Evil in
the Austin Powers movies, the slacker werewolf Oz in Buffy The duo met several years ago when Green was profiled in Toyfare magazine, a Wizard publication about action figures (Green is such a toy fan that one year he made customized action figures of his Buffy castmates as Christmas gifts). The magazine takes a tongue-in-cheek
approach to toys, and one of its most popular features is "Twisted
Mego Theatre," in which toys are posed and photographed
to make satiric comic strips. Several trade paperbacks have been
released with compilations of those strips under the title Twisted
Toyfare Theatre. "Seth came to me with the idea of doing
a variety show along that line," Senreich That idea eventually turned into Robot Chicken, in which action figures, toy robots and dolls interact in parodies of everything from HBO's gritty drama Oz (here depicted using Wizard of Oz action figures) to weepy disease-of-the-week melodramas to C-SPAN. Thanks to Green's connections
in the entertainment industry, he has been able to get famous
guest stars to provide voiceovers for episodes of Robot Chicken.
In the first episode, Rachael Leigh Cook As for the toys themselves, some are actual toys that people fondly remember from their childhoods, such as the Transformers; others are reasonable facsimiles created to avoid legal problems. The jokes are sometimes crude, sometimes surreal, and often potentially offensive ... in other words, just what you'd expect from a guy with a background in Family Guy and Austin Powers. "We actually did a virtual
shot-for-shot re-creation of the Kill Bill trailer, starring
Jesus as Uma Thurman, who wakes up near death and decides to
go down his list of people who put him there," Green said.
"These are the Crazy 88 Rabbis that he has to fight against
in the Four Leaves Temple." "We're an equal opportunity
offenderwith this show," said Keith Crofford, the vice president
of Source: Journalnow.com – Tim Clodfelter (February 17, 2005) 
When Seth Green was 12, he
learned the screw on G.I. Joe's back was the key to it all. Take
a hobby drill to the screw, and the whole figure starts to come
apart. It turned out to be valuable information "Chicken" is a natural
career extension for Green, whose wiseacre edge came in handy
for him on the big screen with the "Austin Powers"
movies and last year's "Without a Paddle." He describes
making toys as "meditative," and is a frequent visitor
to major comic book and toy shows around the country. He and
the former editor of Toy Biz magazine, Matthew Senreich, struck
up a friendship a few years back, and that led to their collaboration
on "Chicken." The 15-minute show features up to 20
sketches and sight gags, most of which skewer pop culture in
rapid succession: The "Wizard of Oz" Scarecrow takes
a shiv in a send-up of HBO's "OZ"; Rachael Leigh Cook
goes on an anti-drug rampage with a frying pan; and there's an
"ode" to men being kicked between the legs. Think of
"Chicken" as "Laugh-In" set in Gumby's world.
And although Green and Senreich say they are satisfed with Cartoon
Network censors, the two have been told to cut back now and then.
For example, one sketch about a On the other hand, Green says
he gives advance warning to a few celebrities who are being teased
and even invites them to be part of it. "I'm a fairly nice
guy and don't go around kicking cats or anything," he says.
"I make calls to a lot of the people that I know and say,
"Do you want to come and make fun of yourself?" We
get a lot of celebrity participation." Senreich, Green and
two writers Years ago Green and Senreich
became fast friends after developing a short film for Conan O'Brien's
show. After that, they started doing shorts for Sony. From those,
they pitched the idea for "Chicken" around Hollywood
- specifically places such as Comedy Central and MTV. The Cartoon
Network originally also turned down the show, but that was before
the cable channel launched its "Adult Swim" Source: Fortwayne.com / Terry Morrow – February 27, 2005 ROBOT CHICKEN TV Review: Adult Swim does a Skit-Com - Sorta If you're a regular viewer
of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, you've probably
seen the bizarre promos for their newest series, Robot Chicken.
Seen in the opening titles for the show, the Robot Chicken is Using stop motion animation
and more action figures than you would find at a Toys R Us after
Christmas sale, Robot Chicken is sort of a hort Attention Span
Theater. Some of the gags run on a little long and some of the
humor is decidedly sophomoric thanks to the combined talents
behind the series, former Buffy the Vampire Slayer, regular Taking action figures and turning them into comedic actors looks a lot easier than it really is. A crew of 50 people from Screen Novelties, animators of MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch, work on each episode. While the stop motion won't give Ray Harryhausen anything to worry about (in fact, it may make him weep for the state of his art), it does give the show a distinct look and feel that sets it apart from Adult Swim's other programs. Unlike Nickelodeon's action figure based series, Action League Now!, RC doesn't cheat by combining the stop motion with people obviously holding the figures for faster movements. Other animation is done in post production to give the mouths and eyes movement, which takes a little getting used to. The pilot for another AS series,
The Venture Brothers, has taught me not to be too harsh on pilots
but Robot Chicken's pilot episode shows a lot of rough edges.
A gag with Optimus Prime and the other Transfomers for colon
cancer just runs too long but does provide a quick little punch
line further into the show. An opening gag featuring Rachel Leigh
Cook in a parody of her famous "this is your brain on drugs"
ad would be funnier if it hadn't been done a million The episode doesn't have any true laugh out loud moments but there is potential here for a funny series that could become destinationviewing. Future episodes feature a parody of MTV's The Real World with Real World: Metropolis, James Kirk, Kirk Cameron and Khan Noonian Singh starring in Two Kirks, a Khan and a Pizza Place (a joke that would be funnier if the series it was based on hadn't been off the air for a few years and it hadn't changed its name somewhere in the second season) and I, Rosie, where we get caught up on the unsolved murder of George Jetson at the hands of his robotic maid. Worthy of a chuckle or two, we'll have to see if Robot Chicken can maintain its spot in the Adult Swim pecking order. Source: filmforce.com "THE FRESHMAN" COMIC BOOK This summer, Seth Green, Hugh
Sterbakov and Leonard Kirk are combining super-heroes and college
life and launching The Freshmen, a new series from Top Cow that's
been described by Sterbakov as Yes, the Seth Green. Scott
Evil (from the Austen Powers films). Daniel 'Oz' Osbourne from
Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel television series.
Co-creator, writer and director of Robot Chicken. Yes, that Seth
Green. "Hugh and I thought it would make a really cool movie,
in the vei of X-Men or Superman - a 'grounded in reality, comedic
college environment/kids get superpowers' kind of story,"
Green told Newsarama. "We pitched it to all of the From the way the co-creators
described it (the Hollywood way, of course), The Freshmen is
unlike any super-hero comic that anyone has read. "It's
very different, because it's focused 100% on the characters,"
Sterbakov explained. "The plot mechanisms in The Freshmen
are like the plot mechanisms in a Cameron Crowe movie -- they
just serve as a method to get the characters into motion. The
pathos you find in kids who've just been thrust out of their
happy bedrooms in their parents' homes and off onto their own,
basically re-starting their social lives for the first time -- From the premise, The Freshmen
may sound like a typical super-hero story. But take the creators'
word for it. This ain't your usual super-hero comics. "An
energy shockwave goes off that gives our kids powers based on
whatever they're doing at that moment. Some powers are totally
silly -- one kid's privates become unbelievably enlarged. One
guy, who is looking at a Squirrel, starts to hoard acorns. Another
kid, playing with Post-Its, becomes sticky Next, imagine Seth Green and
High Sterbakov as comic book characters. "There are two
leaders: Wannabe and Puppeteer. Wannabe is the guy who has grown
up his entire life loving comic books. Let's face it -- he's
me. He's got 50 white boxes, really strong opinions about The
Watchmen, Sandman, Astro City... and don't get him started on
the creators. He goes into every super-hero movie with a scowl,
waiting to be convinced. All his life, he's secretly dreamed
of being a super hero. And then he leaves the dorm to buy a pizza
when the energy shockwave. So he's "We also have The Intoxicator,
a great mathematician, who has to be drunk to use his powers.
Once he's intoxicated, he can burp at you and make you drunk
too. It also works when he's hung-over. Lots of fun to be had
there -- wait 'til you see him at a college football game. "The
Seductress is an overweight, not terribly attractive girl who
is love struck. She's the girl who spent all of high school drawing
hearts with people's names in them. She gains the power to make
people fall in love with her. When we initially devised this
power, I was afraid it might be cliché, but "Quaker is an overweight
Amish kid who can create earthquakes with his belly. This is
a very religious, very reserved kid who has barely ever been
around electric machines, and he's thrust into the world of Sidekicks
and frat guys. "We also have a guy who can talk to plants.
And let me tell ya -- think about how plants are treated in modern
society. They have a lot to say, and they're not at all happy.
His ficus tree has a Fatal Attraction-like love for him, so he
can't get any sleep. And he's a Vegan -- he won't eat meat, and
now most vegetables can talk to him. Poor guy
While Sterbakov's a fan of
Stan Lee and John Romita's Amazing Spider-Man, Kurt Busiek's
Astro City, Chris Claremont's X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, Matt
Wagner's Grendel, he is also good friends with Geoff Johns and
"he blows me away on Teen Titans every month -- and what
a great Avengers run he had. [Frank]Miller's run on Daredevil.
And then there are the standards - Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns,
yadda yadda. But there are some Seth Green, on the other hand,
was a huge fan of Mage. "He used to wear that lightning
bolt shirt every day in junior high. "What I like? A hero
in crisis. Check out Bill Mantlo's run in Peter Parker, the Spectacular
Spider-Man, numbers in the late 70's, early 80's. Spider-Man
is about to fight a new, improved Doc Ock, and thinks he's going
to die. So he says goodbye to everyone he loves. "What I
hate? Gimmicks and retcons. As mentioned, joining them
on The Freshmen is artist Leonard (Supergirl) Kirk. "Leonard
Kirk was one of a couple guys that Top Cow picked to read my
treatment," Sterbakov said. "He responded immediately
and enthusiastically with phenomenal character designs, even
developing the characters' personalities a bit with little notes
on their looks. We chose him, frankly, over more famous artists,
because he won the job. You have to respect creative The Freshmen will be previewed in the 99¢ Top Cow Triple Play one- shot in June, together with V.I.C.E. and Necromancer. Source: Newsarama.com / Benjamin Ong Pang Kean (March 8, 2005)  Click to join sethgreennews |
Fast, furious and totally loopy: That’s
Robot Chicken (Spoilers)
Chicken Creator Began by Demolishing
G.I. Joe
major studios, and they all told us to go
establish it as a comic book property. So here we are,"
Sterbakov added. Green and Sterbakov have been friends since
kindergarten. "We grew up together in Philadelphia,"
Sterbakov recalled."We've written two scripts before, and
we're working on some things I wrote by myself. Creatively, we
work together very well, because we understand each other."
With The Freshmen, the both of them plan to "take the comic
world by storm, single handedly revitalizing the comic as an
entertainment medium and totally ****ing up all the kids who
read it... for life," Green said.
While Green is a known actor and is now
a writer and director of his and Matthew Senreich's creation,
Robot Chicken, his pal Sterbakov is a screenwriter. Although
the both of them are huge comics fans, what made them bring The
Freshmen to Top Cow? "Top Cow's books are polished,"
Sterbakov said. "Pure and simple, every book they put out
looks like a work of art. Seth and I don't make comics, so we
wanted a team we could trust to take our idea and makeit work
as a comic. Can't think of a better home to hang our hat. "I've
been a comic lover since I can remember. I got serious about
collecting when I was 8 -- it was Spider-Man's "Hobgoblin
story" arc that drew me in. I'm the kid who walked through
a blizzard to get Secret Wars #3, who waited almost 12 hours
in the comic store when Web of Spider-Man #1 was delayed, who
begged, borrowed and stole to get the Dark Knight limited edition
hardback. As I grew up, I got serious about getting in the storytelling
game. "I have an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA. I've won
a couple of those silly screenwriting contests, and I've sold
features and TV pilots. Been hired to write films. I've been
in development in some stage with some of the best producers
in the game, and I've come this close more times than I could
count. But nothing has been produced. Which, let me tell ya,
gets really old really quick. So I wanted some satisfaction,
an audience beyond Hollywood's development community. I'm thrilled
about this opportunity. This is my first comic book work, and
I can't wait to see it realized for myself and then share it
with everyone."
The Spider-Man clone story through the return
of Norman Osborn - dead means dead, people - and that awful,
confused reboot. Literally made me nauseous. I won't hinge it
--I think a writer is creatively bankrupt when he/she brings
a character back from the dead. Now cut this out and mail it
to me when I start resurrecting characters in the fifth series
of The Freshmen."