Robot Chicken has been an important part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim line-up for over a decade. The success the series has found over the past ten year has certainly helped pave the way for many other adult animation shows to receive the green light.
Tonight, Adult Swim is gearing up to air the biggest episode of Robot Chicken yet: episode 200! We recently shared our exclusive chat with co-creator Seth Green (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and now we're thrilled to bring you exclusive comments from the other half of the Robot Chicken braintrust, Matthew Senreich.
Since the show's inception, Senreich has been responsible for helping produce, write, and direct the stop-motion masterpiece, carving out his own little corner of the adult animation world and leaving his particular creative fingerprint on the genre. We learned a lot about how the show came about and how things have evolved for the series over the years.
If you're interested in listening to the audio component of the interview with Matthew Senreich, it begins at 13:35. Otherwise, be sure to share your thoughts on the actor's comments in the usual spot!
Literary Joe: Obviously Robot Chicken is a mainstay in adult animation and has been for the last decade. What's it like to create something like that which takes on a life of its own?
Matthew Senreich: It's still very surreal, to be honest. (Laughs) I'm still uncomfortable with the way that it has taken off -- in a good way, I guess.
I'm glad that I have someone like Seth Green to be the face so that I can still kind of hide in the background playing with my toys, which makes me very happy. Yeah, it's really been an amazing experience and I love the fact that I can tell people that I go to work just to play with toys.
Literary Joe: There has been a crazy amount of celebrity guest stars and voice actors on the show. Do you feel like it has become easier to lock in talent over the years with the rise in success of the show?
Matthew Senreich: (Laughs) I would say yes and no. It's this weird scenario where there are people that we love and we want to get and we reach for the stars and sometimes we get them and sometimes we don't. And then there are those people that you kind of pass occasionally and they say they want to do the show which is a little bit more exciting - when people ask me why they haven't done the show yet. But yeah, we're all over the place.
We get excited about bringing people on that we've never met before. If we're seeing a television show that we just saw we say "oh I like these people, I wonder if we can get them." I love that aspect to the show. It's a little like SNL where you try to get those guest stars that just make you smile.
Literary Joe: Now, I read that Robot Chicken is actually based on a web series called Sweet J Presents. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Matthew Senreich: (Laughs) Sure, Sweet J Presents was something Seth and I did by accident. How the show started is Seth had called me up because we were friends back in the day when I was working at Wizard Magazine. He said he was going on Conan O'Brien and he had nothing to talk about but he had this action figure from -- I can't remember if it was Buffy or Austin Powers. And Conan O'Brien had this Barbie doll figure that Mattel had made for him.
And he said "what if our action figures went on an adventure -- would you like to make something like that?" and I said "sure, let's figure this out!" So we started trying to put that together and in the process of putting together that short SONY Digital had a company called ScreenBlast, and they heard we were making this one little short and they said said "don't make one, make twelve of these things."
It was basically Youtube before Youtube existed, but it was all dial-up. The problem was it existed but no one could see it because, you know, back in New York where I was living at the time it would take me probably fifteen hours to download a three minute short.
*This interview has been edited for clarity.*
What do you guys make of Senreich's comments? Let us know your thoughts and be sure to tune in to episode 200 of Robot Chicken tonight!
Taken to a futuristic laboratory, the Robot Chicken is taken out of suspended animation by a masked scientist, revealed to be a descendant of the mad scientist who first reanimated the Robot Chicken.
Robot Chicken airs on Adult Swim on Sundays at 12 AM EST (Sunday into Monday) and fans can catch up with a free 24-7 marathon here!