Tastes Just Like: 'Robot Chicken,' Season Four DVD

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DURING THE 2000s, "Adult Swim," the block of edgy late-night animation on Cartoon Network, has emerged as a repository for half-forgotten pop culture references and twisted depictions of superheroes and sidekicks.

It's a brand of humor that has roots in "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and the heyday of "The Simpsons," which blended high- and low-brow jokes with little distinction between them. But the trend has reached its peak with shows like "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" and "Sealab 2021" as well as with the mysteriously popular "Family Guy," but on those shows just speaking the language of pop culture is more than enough to get whatever jokes might be there.

On Adult Swim at least, "Robot Chicken," the stop-motion sketch series created by Seth Green ("Austin Powers," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Matthew Senreich, is the exception.

At its best — which is most of the fourth season, new to DVD — the series uncovers the secret life of old television shows, recasting superheroes in mundane roles, tossing around what-ifs and why-nots like grenades, and exploring what you always wondered about but never thought to ask. Like: Where do G.I. Joe recruits get their nicknames? How did the natives construct the booby-trapped tomb in "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? What do the heroes of Eternia really think of Prince Adam? Do they put up with the goody-goody just because he's He-Man?

Of course, in deconstructing these shows, "Robot Chicken" renders them hilariously dark. Jokes about decapitation, masturbation, farting, gore and even rape abound throughout season four. When violence is the punchline, the sketches fall flat. An attempt to create a sexually deviant "Harry & the Hendersons" seems particularly pointless, and the Lindsay Lohan spoofs — a favorite for several seasons now — are becoming increasingly tedious.

But when the show recasts its source material in a glaring new light, "Robot Chicken" can be ingenious, even masterful. The formerly huggable Monchichis (the Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 1980s) are blown to bits when one of their ranks goes full Rambo, and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is rewritten as an opera — and a good one at that. The Creature from the Black Lagoon is shocked that Franken Berry and Count Chocula get their own cereals, so he tries to sell his own, called The Creature with the Black Macaroons. The results are sad and silly.

Each episode features an impressive voice cast that includes Mila Kunis, Hulk Hogan, Breckin Meyer, Christian Slater, Katee Sakhoff, Joss Whedon and Ron Perlman. Best are those celebrities willing to poke a little fun at themselves: Tila Tequila plays herself as a alien cyborg who destroys the earth, and Billy Dee Williams likewise plays himself defending Lando Calrissian. Those are two of the most anarchic and endearing sketches, respectively.

But what truly distinguishes "Robot Chicken" from its Adult Swim peers is the quality of its writing, which is imaginative, sly and often oh-no-they-didn't transgressive. The writers adhere to the adage about brevity being the soul of wit, and they keep the show moving briskly and manically. That means the show is best doled out in small doses, so the DVD, overflowing deleted animatics and so-called "Chicken nuggets," is an embarrassment of pop culture riches.

Written by Stephen M. Deusner
Photo courtesy Cartoon Network