Seth Green’s ‘Robot Chicken’ kicks off 3rd season with ‘Star Wars’ parody

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This article was published 28/02/2008 (6470 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Use the force, Seth.”

It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as “Use the force, Luke,” but it applies to Seth Green’s latest hilarious “Robot Chicken” undertaking: a 30-minute goof on the fabled “Star Wars” franchise. It premieres Friday night on Teletoon.

For the uninitiated, “Robot Chicken,” which anchors Teletoon’s adult-oriented Detour block each night, is a series of 10-to 12-minute-long pop culture comedies involving Green, co-executive producer and creator Matthew Senreich and a brat pack contingent of Green’s Hollywood pals. They can be heard lending voice to a twisted series of stop-motion sketches involving a bunch of modified Barbie and Ken, G.I. Joe and other character dolls, contorted way past what Mattel and other toy manufacturers originally had in mind for them.

If you were wondering, there really aren’t any robot chickens in the series, just one in the opening titles, where a mad scientist brings a road-kill chicken back to life and then forces it to watch the twisted sketches that follow.

Green, who was contacted on the phone in Los Angeles, spends an entire year writing, voicing and producing 20 short episodes of the very labour-intensive stop-motion comedy. His animators can usually muster 10 or 12 seconds of action a day, which is crazy fast for this kind of show, he says.

The “Star Wars” parody, which opens the third season, finds Darth Vader, Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker and the others tossed into the “Robot Chicken” blender. Listen for many of the original movie voices, including Mark Hamill (Skywalker) and creator George Lucas.

Green and his friends are lifelong “Star Wars” fans.

“I think the brand itself is just timeless,” he says. He credits “persistence and good luck” with getting Lucas to voice himself in the special.

Green and company had previously done a skit showing the evil Emperor Palpatine reaming Lord Vadar on the phone after the destruction of the Death Star. Lucasfilm saw the sketch and wanted to post it on the company’s site.

“We were thrilled, obviously,” says Green. “We thought we were going to get in trouble, and instead we got some support.”

Green says he was like a kid in a candy store going up to Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch to record the producer’s voice for the “Robot Chicken” sketches. Green describes Lucas as a normal guy who’s had an abnormal level of success.

“He has a great perspective on his place in the world and ‘Star Wars” place in the world, and as a result he has a very wicked sense of humour about it all.”

A wicked sense of humour is what “Robot Chicken” is all about. Some of the sharpest sketches goof on video games, including “Fidel Castro’s Dance Dance Counter Revolution” and the time when Nintendo’s Super Mario and Luigi stumble into a super violent “Grand Theft Auto” video game.

Green has packed a lot of pop culture touchstones into his 34 years.

As a child star, the Philadelphia-native acted opposite Woody Allen in “Radio Days.” He’s probably best known for his role as Dr. Evil’s son in all three “Austin Powers” movies, but, as an actor, he’s also had a memorable role in the remake of “The Italian Job.”

Green also showed up in the “Scooby-Doo” sequel, was a regular on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and stars now on “Family Guy” where he voices chubby misfit Chris Griffin. He’s also had recurring roles on everything from “The Wonder Years” to “That ’70s Show” and even pops up in Weird Al Yankovic’s “White & Nerdy” music video.

Green’s acting connections run deep, and he’s called on all of them to be guest voices on “Robot Chicken.” The entire cast of “That ’70s Show” has done the “Chicken,” with Ashton Kutcher a frequent guest voice. Everyone from David Hasselhoff to Hulk Hogan, Don Knotts to Burt Reynolds, Snoop Dogg to Phyllis Diller have been heard on the series.

Some even show up to spoof themselves, perhaps because Green aims for “silly” over mean-spirited. He cites the episode featuring the two Coreys – ’80s flash-in-the-pans Corey Feldman and Corey Haim – who spoofed themselves in a stop-motion bar fight that could have come straight out of one of their films.

“I’ve known these guys for a really long time,” says Green. “There’s something indomitable about them and that’s what’s charming. We just wanted to see them on this rescue mission.”

Not everybody Green approaches to be a voice on the show says yes.

“We get a lot of passes but we take big swings. I put offers out to both Julia Roberts and George Clooney, and they both passed.”

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Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.