“Robot Chicken: Season 2, Uncensored” DVD Review
Robot Chicken is a slightly bewildering show. Toys beating the crap out of each other, cursing and causing generic mayhem in outrageous storylines are simply flay-out hilarious, through and through the series. I will freely admit that Robot Chicken is probably one of the more over-hyped shows that is airing on Adult Swim, due to its seeming ever-growing popularity (especially after the Star Wars special) and there are certainly moments when the skits in Robot Chicken falls flat on its face. However, forever fallen sketch there are a ton of others in its place that are downright hilarious.
From the brains of Seth Green and Matthew Senreich comes Robot Chicken a show not necessarily about anything, but one that covers everything. Ranging from current pop culture all the way back to 60s and 70s classics, Robot Chicken takes toys and puts them in interesting and horribly disturbing situations that makes you laugh, cringe and want to look away as the metal robot starts humping the washing machine again.
All twenty episodes of the second season contain their fair share of laughs, ranging from a whiney Darth Vader calling Palpatine to one of the most disturbing episodes of the season (and one that is on every episodes audio commentary selection menu) was the Apocalypse Pony episode, which is awesomely disturbing. The show moves at such a fast pace that it’s hard to pick out all of the favorites, but there are plenty of great episodes to be seen and enjoyed. Not everyone can get into the show, but those that can, like myself, religiously watch it and enjoy the gross-out humor that Green, Senreich and the other writers on the show continue to belt out.
One disappointment about this DVD release is the omission of the “Archies” sketch from the episode “Veggies for Sloth.” Omitting sketches isn’t a new thing for the DVD releases, the Beavis and Butthead/Teen Titans sketch from the first season was not on the first season set, nor was it on this second season set like it was rumored, but every time something’s cut it kind of sucks for the viewer who only catches this series on DVD. What really sucks about the omissions, both the “Archies” and Beavis/Titans sketch is that they were both hilarious and entertaining, so not getting to see them again on DVD is kind of a downer.
Still, even with the omitted sketch the second season is well worth owning for just the episodes alone. The season comes Highly Recommended and the DVD…well, let’s see how that holds, shall we?
The DVD
Arriving in packaging similar to the first seasons, Robot Chicken Season Two Uncensored comes with an all black cover with the white outline of a chicken printed on it. The lettering has a dark red tint, while the chicken’s eye is a reflective foil red. Simple cover, but very pleasing to the eye; interior art is a magical rainbow land with tons of characters from the show on across the grass fields and hills. Menus are non-animated, though all of them have some form of music or audio over them.
Video and audio on this release isn’t the greatest; there is interlacing and the audio transfer is relatively tame, but it’s passable for a show such as Robot Chicken. Despite the packaging saying that the set is “uncensored”, it still features a fair amount of censored dialogue—likely kept because, as with South Park, the dialogue is sometimes funnier if it’s merely a loud bleep. Or maybe there wasn’t any dialogue originally under those bleeps—who knows?
For the special features we have a healthy load spread across the two discs. Retaining the every-episode policy from last season, there is commentary on all episodes (one or two episodes even having an additional commentary on top of that) by the writers and cast of the show. Like the last set, the commentaries are often a riot to listen to, although listening to them in large clumps can sometimes get tiresome. Regardless, they’re a welcome addition—the episodes are short and the commentaries are great to listen to if you’ve seen the series previously.
Next up is a series of deleted scenes, audio and animatics from the show. Ranging from fully animated deleted scenes to some very strange body-less audio (I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with the Michael Ian Black audio—some of these extras seem entirely too random at times) segments, they’re fun to watch for the most part, but they’re certainly only a one-viewing type deal.
Animation meetings, slide show, video blogs and the making of a sketch are all included as well and, as with the other extras, are fun, one-time viewings. There’s a lot of cool things to see here, but after the first seasons featurettes that took you behind the scenes of the puppet department and the actual dioramas where the shows are shot, this sets extras really just feel like a “well, what else can we show them?” bit. Not a bad thing, mind you, but it can sometimes make the extras dull to watch.
A few promos from Adult Swim, as well as the PS3 contest promo, are included as well and an easter egg can be found on the first disc. The easter egg is interesting and shows how silly things can get around the Robot Chicken offices. Seth Green playing coy in the puppet department as he awaits the writers attack with the Nerf guns was hilarious to watch.
Overall, while the language is a bit saltier in the extras and shows due to the “uncensored” nature of this DVD release, it’s nothing worse than what you originally saw on the show itself, unless you can’t handle actually hearing what’s under some of those audio bleeps. The set and series is a lot of fun to watch and easily comes Recommended.
Robot Chicken: Season 2, Uncensored is now available on DVD.