Adult Swim has been home to several iconic TV series over the years, but when it comes to riffing on pop culture, nothing compares to Robot Chicken. The legendary stop-motion animated series has been around for 20 years now, and soon all 11 seasons of the show will be available in a new DVD box set, Robot Chicken: The Complete Series, launching on October 21. Preorders for the collection are available for $105 at Amazon.
Robot Chicken: The Complete Series (DVD)
$100 | Releases October 21
Developed by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, Robot Chicken was essentially an animated version of the Twisted Toyfare Theater comics seen in the monthly Toyfair magazine published by Wizard Entertainment. Senreich had worked as Wizard’s editorial director, and after collaborating with Green on the web-series Sweet J Presents, the pair started work on Robot Chicken for Adult Swim. If you’ve never seen it, the show primarily lampoons movies, TV series, and comic books, using various action figures that have been brought to life via stop-motion animation.
What set it apart from other parodies was that the show pushed its sketches to the extreme, with early examples being Optimus Prime getting his prostate checked or the disembodied head of Walt Disney going on a rampage–via a mechanized body–to satiate his hunger for the flesh of Cuban children. Each episode was around 12 minutes long and crammed with sketches, many of which featured celebrity voice-actors.
While special features haven’t been revealed yet, we do know that all 223 episodes are included here, including the longer specials themed around Star Wars, DC, Christmas, The Walking Dead, and Archie Comics. While there will be more Robot Chicken in the future, the show is moving away from seasons and there will instead be quarterly specials.
Some of Adult Swim’s other fan-favorite series have received similar DVD box set collections over the years–including one of the network’s longest-running animated series, Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The show follows the surreal lives of sentient fast food products Master Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad across 12 seasons and two theatrical films. Fans can grab the giant 20-disc Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The Baffler Meal Complete Collection, which includes all 12 seasons of the show on DVD, as well as the first feature film, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters For DVD. The collection is available for $90 at Amazon. The second movie, Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm, is available separately on Blu-ray for $14 or 4K for $22.
Another standout series from Adult Swim’s roster is Metalocalypse. The series follows the world’s greatest death metal band, Dethklok, and the sinister forces watching over them. While the storyline begins as a lighthearted homage to heavy metal music and culture, it gradually evolves over its four seasons into a heavy metal-tinged epic about the end of the world, culminating in a two-part film finale. The Metalocalypse: The Complete Series DVD box set includes all the episodes of the TV series and the first feature film, The DoomStar Requiem, for $51.42 (was $125). To complete the saga, you can also grab the second film, Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar on Blu-ray for $14.25.