How do you commemorate something as monumental as the 25th anniversary of Adult Swim? The Cartoon Network programming block almost singlehandedly defined what we now consider “alternative comedy” when it launched in September 2001. It began as a home for adult animation with absurdist shows like “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” and “Sealab 2021,” then gradually expanded into live-action and claymation programming. A quarter century later, the network’s eclectic roster of shows is the stuff of legend, with serialized cartoons like “Rick and Morty” coexisting seamlessly with the likes of “The Eric Andre Show” in a canon of series united by distinct voices that cater to insomniacs.
To wade through its own chapter of TV history, the network turned to its own in-house parody artists. Seth Green and Matthew Senreich’s “Robot Chicken” has been lampooning every IP under the sun since it debuted on Adult Swim in 2005, often using action figures to create crass stop-motion mashups of beloved characters. Everything from Superman to “Sesame Street” has been the butt of a “Robot Chicken” joke at one point or another, so bringing old Adult Swim characters into the fold feels like a canonization of their place in pop culture.
The “Robot Chicken Adult Swim Special,” which airs tonight, August 30, takes that responsibility seriously. The half-hour special follows the hilarious (and often tragic) events of a cruise that features every Adult Swim character you can imagine. Three-dimensional “Smiling Friends” interact with a claymation Tim Heidecker in one scene, while the cast of “Morel Orel” gets drunk with villains from “The Venture Bros.” in the next. It’s a glorious collage that captures the feeling of mystery that viewers used to get in the pre-streaming era, when turning on Adult Swim after dark meant that you never knew what irreverent thing you would see next.
During a conversation with IndieWire, Green and Senreich explained how they approached the most important assignment of their “Robot Chicken” career.
“We threw out everything, from a deep retrospective to some multiverse-jumping Marvel parody,” Green said of the initial writing process. “Then as soon as the cruise got pitched, everybody was like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is how it’ll work.’ And so we had a board that had all the names that we wanted and tried to pitch sketches for how would any of these people work on a cruise, and that was it. Then it just became about judiciously determining what was and was not going to be in the episode.”
The special uses a “Harvey Birdman” trial to frame all of the action — a fitting choice, given that the series famously used fictional court cases as a way to place everyone from Fred Flintstone to Scooby-Doo in uncomfortably adult situations. Mike Tyson serves as judge (a tribute to his “Mike Tyson Mysteries” cartoon that aired on the network) while also being a plaintiff in the trial. Between courtroom scenes and cruise ship flashbacks, everyone gets their moment in the spotlight.
“There was just too much about having all these Adult Swim characters who have never interacted now connecting to each other,” Senreich said. “And that made it as fun as it is to see these characters that have existed for 20 years and have never actually had crossovers.”
Green explained that the special was partially inspired by one of the more ridiculous chapters in network TV history, “Circus of the Stars.” The CBS specials, which aired annually throughout the 1970s and ’80s, featured actors from all of the network’s biggest shows coming together to perform circus tricks that they were utterly unqualified to do. The “Robot Chicken” crew riffed on that all-star format, but fused it with dark humor in a way that evokes the tragedies of “Titanic.”
“There used to be ‘Circus of the Stars,’ where all of the actors on any CBS show would, like, suddenly learn to do, like, circus tricks, and Dana Plato got really big shoulders for a couple weeks by working at the trapeze,” Green said with a laugh. “And we were like, is that it? Is there some way to do like, a tournament thing? I don’t know. The second it became everybody trapped on a very dangerous and sinkable boat, we had it.”
Crafting the episode was not without its challenges. Hundreds of puppets had to be created, and fitting characters like the Smiling Friends that were clearly designed for 2D animation into 3D spaces required some fabrication miracles. But the work afforded them a chance to host a mini Adult Swim class reunion, bringing together actors and show creators from one of comedy’s most tightly knit clubs. The creators say that everyone they asked was game to lend their voice, from Heidecker and Andre to the casts of “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” and “Sealab 2021,” who first worked together 30 years ago.
“It was really nice to bring in the people that we did,” Senreich said. “Every one of them was game. The best part of Adult Swim, as we always say, is all the creators know each other, all the actors tend to know each other. Adult Swim does so many things internally to get to know the people from the other shows that it just felt like reunions every time they came in to do voices.”
Any attempt to distill 25 years of TV history into 22 minutes is bound to leave something on the cutting room floor, and a playful title card in the middle of the special points out that not every show was worth remembering. But what the special undeniably captures is the spirit of unbridled creativity that has kept Adult Swim on the air for 25 years and counting.
“Adult Swim is always great at nurturing rare and potentially misfit voices, and also corralling an audience that felt similarly misfit, into a very well-shaped community,” Green said. “That’s what we really wanted from this special. We wanted to just honor and celebrate that.”
The “Robot Chicken Adult Swim Special” airs at midnight ET/PT before streaming on HBO Max.
