Robot Chicken DC Comics Special Review

The Robot Chicken DC Comics Special is full of awesome stoner humor about the DC super-heroes, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love this show for its predictably unpredictable wit and for it’s smartly funny takes on favorite characters. Honestly, I go crazy for how the Robot Chicken people use action figures to have their absurdly wacky adventures – just like my friends and I might have done when I was a kid if we had the coolest toys, great senses of humor and all the pot our parents could buy. (Don’t worry, my parents were very boring people) And it’s also a lot like my old Nickelodeon favorite Action League Now!, which always makes me very happy.

This Robot Chicken Special is ridiculously fast paced, full of clever jokes about DC super-heroes, about the absurdity of people in general and the overall nature of making funny TV shows. There are hilarious bits about second-rate members of the Green Lantern Corps, about Bane breaking Batman’s back (“law of threes, asshole!”), and… umm… passing wind. When you get tired of one bit – the silly joke about Aquaman squeezing the Legion of Doom into a Trojan Horse to invade the Hall of Justice went on far too long and was uncomfortable – there’s no reason to worry because the next joke is right around the corner.

Some of the scenes are actually fairly thought-provoking in a geeky super-hero way. For example, if Superman’s kiss can make Lois Lane forget his secret identity in Superman II, what’s the logical implication of that power? And if Captain Carrot died and super-heroes traveled to the funeral, could they stay serious among all the wacky shenanigans? I bet Roy Thomas never wondered about that question.

For us major comic fans, this DVD is worth getting because despite all the outlandish silliness, it’s obvious that Seth Green thoroughly loves the DC Universe. Why else would he mock the old Super Friends cartoon, do an extended take on Firestorm, and even have an astute little story arc about Aquaman being treated with respect? And to make sure that Green does take the DCU seriously, Geoff Johns is also on hand as a co-writer. He makes sure that the skits are always slightly on the side of being respectable – if you’re the kind of person who cares about things like that. The voice cast boasts such names as Nathan Fillion, Megan Fox, Alfred Molina, Aaron Paul and Paul Reubens along with the regular RC voice actors.

There are two hours of extras on this DVD along with the initial 22-minute Special, but almost all of it is dispensable. The producers include about a dozen animatics for skits that were cut from the special – the joke about Etrigan the Demon painting his rhyming self into a corner by using the word orange was the funniest, albeit most predictable, joke – while the rest are various commentaries and behind the scenes bits that fall flat for me.

This was an entertaining DVD. It’s pretty short for the amount of money that you’ll spend on it, and chances are that Adult Swim will rerun it the next time a DC movie comes out, but there are worse ways to spend 22 minutes, dude, than to have an awesomely good time with Robot Chicken, dude.