Summary: Rests on its pop-culture laurels.
"Robot Chicken" is the kind of show that the protagonists of Clerks would have created -- and that entails both good and bad.
For those that have never heard of it, "Robot Chicken" is a show that runs on the Cartoon Network cable channel, in the block of post-10 pm programming for adults called "Adult Swim". The concept isn't much different from "Laugh-In" -- it's a 15-minute sketch show (usually coming in at less than 15 minutes) with short sketches, some lasting only a few seconds, strung together.
"Laugh-In"'s theme was the 1960s counterculture. "Robot Chicken"'s theme is 1980s and 1990s youth television programming -- shows like "Masters of the Universe", "He-Man", superheroes, etc. What distinguishes "Robot Chicken" from anything else on Adult Swim is that the animation is stop-action animation not unlike the old Ray Harryhausen movies of the 1950s and 1960s. Everything from Mego Dolls to GI Joes to hand-made dolls to claymation figures are used to illustrate these sketches.
When one reviews any particular episode of "Robot Chicken" the review might as well stand for a review of the entire show -- the episodes are pretty much interchangable. Creators Seth Green, Matthew Senreich and their writing staff riff on what might be called the "Junk Culture" of the 1980s and 1990s. I'll give you a brief rundown of some of the sketches:
* The Maytag Man faces a moment of personal darkness as he comes to grip with his lack of a purpose.
* The scientist who declared Pluto not to be a planet goes mad with his power to "declare" things.
* A young man's plan to propose at the top of a ferris wheel turns into an awkward moment when his girfriend turns him down.
* Crystar the Crystal Warrior finds that choosing methheads as "Crystal Warriors" is a bad idea.
* Thelma and Louise have a lot of second thoughts after they plunge over that cliff.
* "Laff-a-Munich", where the Really Rottens of the Laff-a-Lympics murder the Yogi Yahooeys and the Scooby Doobies must bring them to justice, Steven-Spielberg style.
This mere list of sketches illuminates why "Robot Chicken" is so hit-or-miss and why you'll probably never see "Robot Chicken" make prime time. The first problem is that unless you invested a lot of time -- and I mean a lot of time -- in 80s/90s/00s pop culture, some of these sketches aren't going to make much sense, and frankly the payoff for many of those sketches comes from being in on the lingo. If you don't know who Crystarr is, you're just going to be left scratching your head, and frankly, the sketch wouldn't be that funny at all except for the fact that it's Crystarr! You know the Crystal Warrior guys! And he chooses methheads as his "crystal warriors"? Get it? Get it?
The problem being that most people didn't even care who Crystarr was when he was on the air. Which means that it's a very limited joke meant for only those for whom recognizing Crystarr was the end result of the process of junk culture immersion -- a process which most people aren't that proud of. It's a sort of geek humor which revels not in trivia, but in obscuria. I suspect that some of those making these sketches are patting themselves on the backs -- "see? we're in the know!", the same way the geeks in the Math Club feltknowing there wasn't a regular solution to a fifth-degree polynomial put them in an exclusive club -- but I hope these writers can move on to other things, because it's going to be pretty sad being surrounded by unwrapped collectibles when you're pushing forty.
When the sketches aren't that long -- the Crystarr sketch couldn't have been longer than a minute -- it's merely an annoyance. When the sketch takes up the biggest part of the show -- such as the crossover between "Laff-a-lympics" and the movie "Munich" -- it might leaving people scratching their heads and changing the channel, or feeling that the night's show was a bust if they don't know the cartoon or haven't seen the movie. I hadn't seen the movie and my wife hadn't seen either of the two, leaving each of us sort of bored. When the long sketches are combined with cultural phenomena more widespread, they can be very funny indeed, but when they rely on obscuria, you get "Laff-a-Munich".
The other problem with "Robot Chicken" is that it passes up making full use of the power of stop-motion animation for the easy geek gag. You will see an awful lot of violence in "Robot Chicken", because with stop-motion animation, you can...uh...kill the protagonists in a lot of twisted ways. But it seems that the favorite way for the writers to end a sketch is to shoot one of the characters, or just general murderous mayhem. You can't get through a "Robot Chicken" show without seeing some puppet get shot. And not creative shooting, just the straightforward "rat-a-tat-TAT". "Ha-ha! They really shot that guy!"
Some people say that a good kick in the crotch never loses its humor. To those people, I say, "watch about thirty episodes of "Robot Chicken" and see if you have the same opinion afterwards -- you'll be astonished at how boring it becomes". I suspect the problem is too much lazy writing caused by too many doobies smoked.
(Most of the Adult Swim programming, I suspect, is strongly related to amounts of THC intake. See "Assy McGee" and other examples too numerous to mention. Pot does not make you funny, my friends, it just makes you think you're funny, which is why programming executives should find better vices. Never smoke pot if you have the power to greenlight a series; it saves you tons of embarrassment down the line.)
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