SCI FI PI

SCI FI PI SPEAKS WITH SETH GREEN AND MATT SENREICH - CREATORS OF ROBOT CHICKEN, AND STAR WARS ROBOT CHICKEN!

Star Wars is a sacred object. Since 1977 its influence has been felt across the known universe in ever-expanding waves of joy. The current crop of young Hollywood's finest owe their careers to it's inspirational original May screenings. When it comes to pop culture, the Star Wars reference is the one that first makes it into any TV show - and now it's got to the point that the pop culture reference has evolved into entire plotline and playbook, with The Family Guy entertaining with Blue Harvest (and working on the sequel - "Something, Something, Darkside". Seth Green plays Chris Griffin on The Family Guy, and if you've seen Blue Harvest you would have noticed an odd exchange at the end - about who brought their Star Wars special to TV first - and apparently, it was Chris.

This of course is a reference to Seth Green's day job - as writer, producer and voice actor on Robot Chicken. And his Robot Chicken Star Wars.





Robot Chicken is an Adult Swim animation - stop-motion animation of figurines being the primary mode of entertainment in a series of blindingly fast sketches and 'channel flips', moments of TV that last for no more than two or three seconds. With so much going on, each normal Robot Chicken show lasts only 15 minutes. It's writing is filled with pop culture references, raised up by the very figurines used, from GI Joe, to Care Bears, to He-Man and of course, to Star Wars - if you were playing with a toy figurine based on a TV show in the '80's, you're pretty well guaranteed to see it on Robot Chicken - and to see those happy memories perverted by something so sick and horrible, you have to laugh.





With Star Wars sketches ever popular on the show, Seth Green and Matt Senreich decided to see if they could do an entire show based on the material - and much to their surprise, George Lucas agreed. Fans of the popular YouTube video, 'Emperor Palpatine Gets A Phone Call' will know the quality of the early Robot Chicken Star Wars material.

Well, as of today, you can buy the whole Robot Chicken Star Wars DVD in Australian retail outlets. At 22 minutes, it's an epic! It does come with some cool extras though. We got a chance to speak with creators of the show, Seth Green (yes, he was on Buffy) and Matt Senreich.





Q:Hi guys! I believe you play with dolls for a living?
Seth: Yeah man, don't you wish you could? (laughs)
Matt: Would you believe they actually pays us for that.

Q:But it's not so much the fact that you guys do it, but the fact that you employ a hundred people to help you do it.
S:(laughs) It's an amazing exercise in psychological make-up.

Q:Does it ever strike you as extremely odd?
M: My parents still don't understand what I'm doing with my life.
S:For me, it's the path that I was on in the first place!





Q:Is it true that you spoke to George Lucas and realised you knew more about Star Wars than he did?
S:There was in fact a moment. It was actually after we had aired the special and we were asked to participate in a trivia contest, it was an internal Lucasfilm competition, we're they'll battle for cash for different charities. And George was on one team. We actually made a video where Matt asked the question "What were the very first words spoken in Star Wars: A New Hope?" And George supposedly got it wrong, and argued that we had got it wrong and that a droid spoke first, that R2, technically made a noise first, but in terms of dialogue, it's C-3PO saying 'did you hear that? They just shut down the main reactor!"

Q:He's obviously harking back to the very first draft when R2 spoke!
M:Very possibly! I mean, how can he be wrong?
S:I'm not going to call him wrong - but we're totally right!
M:Trumped him! (laughs)





Q: There seems to be a level of chaos on Robot Chicken that translates into some pretty way out stuff, combining incredible stretches of pop-culture references and questionable taste. Is there ever any filter, anyone who says 'oh, we can't do that! That's insane!'
S:Oh yeah! We do that all the time! We have writer's meetings where we go through general outlines and all kinds of takes where we voice our level of interest or disgust. The stuff that shouldn't be on the air really does get shot down, and if something made it on air that really is objectionable, chances are it was a 3 to 1 vote.

Q: Who tends to be the most revolting out of all the writers?
S: There are degrees of revolting! There are all different categories. Whether it's violence, violence against women, female violence against men, violence against kids, inappropriate sexual situations between family members - people just throw out all kinds of shit that's disgusting.





Q: Speaking of which, has anyone ever discussed doing 'The Aristocrats' on Robot Chicken?
M: Nobody has actually done that.
S: Well, when the movie came out, and I think South Park did it, and they did such a great version. I guess we just haven't had a burning interest to throw our hat in that ring.

Q: You've gone through life so far with an ineffable 'cool' image, but it seems obvious to us now that you're actually a geek. How have you hidden your geekiness? Lots of geeks want to know - 'How can we be like Oz'?
S:Right out there in plain sight. It's the best way to conceal things! I really make no effort to hide myself at all.





Q:What about at Science Fiction Conventions? You must get mobbed.
S: I've got hits in like 17 different directions at conventions like Comic Con, everybody there knows something I did. Which is awesome. It's fantastic, and I'm blown away by it, but it's a very strange thing to have happen to you in your real life.

Q: Do you see yourselves expanding the Robot Chicken empire into feature films?
S: We talked about a movie, and what it would be. We're going to experiment this upcoming season in terms of format, and if they work it may help us know better what to do in terms of a movie, but we may just come up with a storyline that's like nothing that you've already seen.
M: We're hoping that someone will call us up wanting to do a Robot Chicken Star Wars movie!
S: Wouldn't that be cool?





Q: Was there a moment working on Star Wars Robot Chicken where you said 'this is why I got into showbusiness!'
S: Pretty much every day working on that project. It was really incredible. The mood was amazing - 'we're making f**en' Star Wars!' It was undebatable. A unique and incredible experience.

Q: Who came up with the 'picking up the power converters at Toshi Station' sketch?
S: That was...
M: I can't remember who came up with that... okay, hang on - Doug Goldstein thinks Breckin Meyer wrote the Toshi Station channel flip.





Q: It's interesting though that you didn't get into the gay subtext of the relationship between Han and Luke.
M: With that we did have something that was cut, between Luke and Han. The whole line.
S: You don't even need to know the scenario! - "Let's blow this thing and go home!" (laughs)
M: But we ended up not putting it in.

Q: Apparently they have gigantic warehouses of cool props and models at Skywalker Ranch. Did you have trouble not taking stuff home?
S: I did not have trouble with that because I tend not to steal stuff from other people's houses (laughs). Although, I did try some things on. Maybe we can leave it at that. (Matt laughs.)





Q: So we'll never look at the Slave Leia outfit in the same way again?
S: You're going in the wrong direction, dude!
M: He's not, because I have the pictures!

Q: Seth, a lot of people know you as the voice of Chris Griffin in The Family Guy, but there is a rumour that you based the voice of Chris Griffin on Jaime Gumm, or 'Buffalo Bill' in The Silence of the Lambs. Is this true?
S: Yes. That's actually accurate. My friend Charlie Korsmo were hanging out and talking about Ted Levine and his brilliant job in that movie and that voice and what if he were doing other jobs. The stupid musings of two idiots, but we put him at the drive through at Burger King " deeyaaw wannnarr orrner zome frenshfrize withaa?" And it was just all week, doing that, and then I read the script to Family Guy and it was one of the funniest scripts I'd ever read and I just wanted that job so bad, and Charlie dared me to do that voice at the audition, because I didn't know what to do. So I went in, and did like a teenager, but (Seth) McFarlane said that's what everybody else was trying to do, surfer dude voices, so I just laughed at myself and said 'can I try something? - my friend dared me to do this, so I'm gonna' - so I read the whole thing as Buffalo Bill. Over time we younged it up, but I can't believe I got that job.





Q: So when it comes to writing the show is it just you guys with dolls saying 'what if what if what if'? and everyone else going no, no, no, that sucks, maybe, okay, no? No!
S:It's like that. (laughs) A hair more professional.
M: Our writers tend to be quite vicious. I'd say 99% of everything gets shot down. It's not unusual for someone to spend three four hours on something and then for us to go 'no'. You can see their heart break every time.


Robot Chicken Star Wars DVD is out now.