Review: Robot Chicken [adult swim] 25th Anniversary Special
Back in the years of 2019 and 2020, there was a podcast I regularly listened to that reminisced about Adult Swim programming called [as] podcast. It was run by two guys named Matthew Jay and Steve Yurko and the former said something that always stuck with me. On one of the episodes, he mentioned how he knew people that work on Adult Swim productions and tried to get them on the podcast because he liked the stuff they did, but they refused to come on. Why? Because they had such a bad time working there, they didn’t want to discuss their hard work.
I say all of this because whether you’ve been a longtime fan, or someone that worked there, it can be really easy to be cynical of the idea of Adult Swim. They take advantage of Atlanta’s labor laws to the point where people like Carey Means (voice of Frylock on Aqua Teen Hunger Force) have to put up separate GoFundMes in order to keep living in a house. And that’s just one example. Folks like C. Martin Croker (animator, writer, voice of Zorak and Moltar on Space Ghost Coast to Coast) are no longer with us due to their negligence. Then there’s the seemingly-random cancellations of beloved shows to no longer greenlighting a bunch of esoteric projects since 2018 at least. Some of this isn’t entirely to blame on them. Like anyone working under the Warner company, they went through a slew of mergers, and like any company in general, had to deal with a pandemic.
All of this and more is why even though I was interested in seeing this anniversary special put out by the folks at Stoopid Buddy Studios, I kept a certain dose of cynicism in my mind. In the circles I’m in, I’m the kind of guy that appreciates stuff like Robot Chicken; a sketch comedy centered around stop-motion segments with pop culture icons is something that feels should have stayed during the 2000s, but they’re still around (although not as full seasons and just as specials now) making them just as old as series like Avatar: The Last Airbender and American Dad! It’s honestly tough to make parody sketches of pop culture when a large portion of entertainment media doesn’t have action figures made of their characters (certainly feels like why characters from series like The Boondocks don’t appear in this).
Those older than me but stopped watching Robot Chicken a long time ago may forget that the series doesn’t just do parody sketches; they essentially mostly just tell stories with pop culture characters from time to time, to the point where it could honestly pass as crossover fan-fiction. In this fan-fiction, a bunch of characters from many Adult Swim series are boarding a cruise, all appearing to hope to have a good time being welcomed by the very-gentle Joe Pera (voiced by Joe Pera). All seems fine and good until a figure from the present day interrupts. We are suddenly in a courtroom where Harvey Birdman (voiced once again by Gary Cole) is in the process of suing the cruise for the negligent deaths of many people. The special then cuts back to our previous time, to which we see the events play out that lead to the victims’ demise.
If I were to count how many series get represented in this off the top of my head, I’d say it’s at most 12-15 series, but it doesn’t feel like such when you are seeing characters who are popping up from cancelled shows from two decades ago (like The Drinky Crow Show or Frisky Dingo). It’s a neat reminder that for each individual series, certain characters and vocal performances helped shine and make it stand out. It’s clear that when making and writing this special, the team focused on who they thought would be best to write this special for,.
In true Robot Chicken fashion, they try and get as many people as they could that were willing and/or available to come voice characters they previous;y voiced or performed onscreen as; and the ones they can’t, well, they get sound-a-likes, for better or for worse. For example Zach Callison voices Clay Puppington from Moral Orel in this instead of Scott Adsit, and to be honest, there have been better impersonators (even if it is a fun Easter egg that one of the co-creators of Smiling Friends is voicing him). However, whoever voices Orel (Ed. note, pretty sure it was Rachel Ramras) in this as a replacement for Carolyn Lawrence did a great job; makes me wish the credits went by slower on my 1st watch. As for the people they get back, there are a number of folks, both live-action and animated. All but two The Venture Bros. characters reprise their roles in this, including the ones voiced by Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick (honestly a surprise given how the way that series ending went down). It seems like a result of being on good terms with Seth Green and the Robot Chicken crew, seeing as how both series lasted close to the same amount of time.
The jokes that work depend on the actual actors being there, but there are few neat cases where the special is an unintentional self-reflection for the whole network. I found it very amusing to see Henchman 24 reciting the quite common take that Adult Swim should be for adult-targeted cartoons and that “they should keep the live-action stuff on Comedy Central” (coincidentally, I watched some of the network’s live-action projects for the first time in prepare for this event, like Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell and Joe Pera Talks With You). The ensuing event that puts everyone in danger is a tsunami (pronounced by some characters as Toonami) filled with characters from various anime; a clear reference not to just the anime block that comes on before Adult Swim in scheduling, but also has a history of being favored more than [as] by those looking to only watch Japanese animated series. The character of the Nerd even stands in a black room to hold up cue cards in place of the iconic bumpers, one of which apologized to the audience if their favorite show didn’t show up and that not everything was good (sorry fellow Ballmastrz 9009 fans).
Despite its reputation of being cynical and juvenile (and there is an amount of that in here), this special was clearly made with love. Characters from shows made YEARS ago meeting characters from fairly recent series is a nice marriage of the old and new. Adult Swim has always been a brand-first TV block, which is why it’s impressive that the programming block itself has survived this long, even after the runaway international success of Rick and Morty (whose favoritism by the Warner Bros. company is poked fun at this special as well). What got me the most is a part that is pretty relevant to what I’ve been thinking about recently regarding art.
At one point a pro-AI character in the special proclaims that all Adult Swim produces is just a bunch of “random, cheap crap” and that AI can produce the same thing 50 times over. It’s followed by the Nerd crashing in (after taking a detour in what is probably the best joke in the special), refuting this claim, saying that “Adult Swim was never cheap and crappy. The creators poured their hearts and souls into every show”. On the surface, it’s a very easy take,right? Shit on AI because it’s the popular thing to do if you’re a creative or even a regular viewer. But I’ve been thinking about how AI is probably the biggest litmus test for our relationship with art and artists. It’s very easy to go “as long as it’s not AI” but a stance like that doesn’t automatically push someone to go outside their comfort zone regarding media.
People critique AI now for being too clean and interchangeable, but not too long ago, what the technology produced was criticized for being too weird and off-putting, which perfectly describes folks general feels on plenty of Adult Swim programming (they produced a LOT more than one would assume, even more than what appears in this special). It’s very easy to look at the type of shows they approve of and the style of humor and write it off as something not worth losing. Personal tastes aside, it misses the forest for the trees in what Adult Swim offers culturally.
Certainly it’s part of the “stupid-but-secretly-smart” crowd, but they’ve managed to hold onto all these series and keep them in a way where they’ve obtained cult status all these years later. Home Movies got cancelled by UPN (a Paramount-owned network) after five episodes. Adult Swim bought the rights, aired the remaining episodes that didn’t air, and had the show go on for three more season all of which is now available to stream on HBO MAX. Duckman was a success for the USA Network (owned by Paramount) and got 72 episodes (WAY more than Home Movies) and a tie-in point-and-click game, and you can’t find that show streaming-wise anywhere legally.
This, of course, extends to the world of online fandom, seeing a cult following for so many series that some cancelled shows would only dream of. That one detailed Metalocalypse fan art you saw one time was probably drawn by someone who was an infant when the show first started airing. I saw a teenager online who was ecstatic that Babycakes from China, IL (not voiced by Brad Neely) made it into the special.
Who knows if Adult Swim will still exist as a programming block for another 25 years, if at all. Anything can happen.
Every Adult Swim show is someone’s favorite show, or at least the favorite that the network has put out. Also, animators deserve residuals, even if what they are putting out isn’t intellectual or whatever; because one thing is evident: people obviously really enjoy it and the amount of money that companies make from this should be properly evenly distributed. We can’t just tell ourselves it’s okay for folks to be mistreated just because they aren’t putting out high-quality art.
The “Dedicated to our Buddy George Lowe” at the beginning of the credits was nice.
