Insane Sketch Comedy Series Is A Mind-Melting Fever Dream

Like most sketch comedy shows, Robot Chicken is a tightly packed series of skits that occasionally overlap, but are mostly standalone. At the front-end of each episode’s 11-minute runtime, the premise is set up through the eyes of the titular robot chicken, who was once roadkill before being brought back to life by a mad scientists who wants to perform experiments on him.

Saturday Night Live and Madtv kick off with a roll call, talk about the upcoming musical guests and hosts, and the live studio audience straps in for as many laughs-per-minute as the writers can jam into each segment.

Robot Chicken, on the other hand, bombards its viewers with skits that are seemingly playing in tandem on a wall of televisions that the chicken from the opening sequence is strapped in front of like Alex from A Clockwork Orange. When the chicken changes its point of focus, so do the skits, as if you’re being brainwashed along with the poor animal who only exists to function as a frame setup for the multiple narratives that are about to assault you.

Robot Chicken’s “imprisoned channel surfing” framework serves as a launching point for some of the most surreal, over-the-top, and disturbing sketches that would never be allowed to exist in the context of live-action television.

Leaning into dark, absurdist humor to lampoon everything from Marvel and DC properties to commercials for children’s toys, show creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich use stop-motion animation through the use of clay figures, toys, and whatever found objects they can get their hands on.

Most skits in Robot Chicken give the viewer a false sense of security that something wholesome will happen, but matters more often than not take an incredibly dark turn. For example, a simple game of Bop It quickly devolves into an assassination plot where the child is instructed by the interactive toy to read an memorize a manifesto before loading the toy with bullets and shooting a political figure who’s holding a press conference. Or if you’d rather watch a gummy bear scream in agony after walking into a bear trap and deciding the only way out is to eat off its own foot, you’re in luck.

As soon as you recover from what you just witnessed in Robot Chicken, the “channel” has already been changed, and you get to start all over again in an entirely different yet equally messed up setting.

Most notably, season 1’s “Tooth and Consequences,” which involves a domestic-disturbance-turned-hostage-situation as witnessed by the Tooth Fairy, is so jarring that you’ll be upset with yourself for laughing at it. You may think I’m exaggerating, but if I ever saw my kids recreating Robot Chicken skits like this with their dolls, I’d start sleeping with my bedroom door locked.

Star Wars fans can also appreciate all of the various homages and parodies that Robot Chicken has throughout its run. In fact, three entire 22-minute episodes are devoted specifically to the franchise, and even feature the likes of Mark Hamill, George Lucas, Billy Dee Williams, and Ahmed Best in voice-acting roles.

From Palpatine receiving a collect call from a distraught Darth Vader who’s crying over the destruction of the Death Star (and the financial implications that come along with it), to Han Solo cutting open a homeless man’s stomach so Luke Skywalker can use his body for shelter and warmth, no Star Wars stone goes unturned in Robot Chicken.

GFR SCORE

Robot Chicken currently has 11 seasons available for streaming on Max, but we haven’t seen anything new since 2022. Though it may seem that the series is approaching “indefinite hiatus” territory, Matthew Senreich has gone on record claiming that the series is “still going.” While we wait for updates on this front, it’s a great idea to fire up Max right when you’re about to fall asleep so you can hear Les Claypool’s shrill vocals in the opening theme let you know that “It’s Alive!”