“Robot Chicken: DC Comic Special” is another hilarious, crazy and fun special from the crew of “Robot Chicken”. For the DC Comics fans who grew up with these characters in the past, to the “Robot Chicken” fans who love the series no matter which characters they feature, “Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special” is worth checking out on Blu-ray!
TITLE: Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special
FILM RELEASE: 2012
DURATION: 23 Minutes
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, 16:9 Dolby TrueHD English 5.1, Subtitles: English SDH
COMPANY: Adult Swim
RATED: TV MA
Release Date: July 9, 2013
Directed by Seth Green
Written by Matthew Ireland Beans, Mike Fasolo, Douglas Goldstein, Seth Green, Geoff Johns, Breckin Meyer, Tom Root, Matthew Senreich, Kevin Shinick, Zeb Wells
Executive Produced by Seth Green, John Harvatine IV, Geoff Johns, Sam Register, Matthew Senreich, Eric Towner
Co-Producer: Ethan Marak
Music by Shawn Patterosn
Cinematography by Helder Sun
Edited by Jenny McKibben
Costume Design by Becky Van Cleve
Featuring the Voices of
Abraham Benrubi as Cyborg, Kilowog, Appa Ali Apsa, Icicle, Solomon Grundy
Alex Borstein as Wonder Woman, Giganta, Woman
Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern, Mr. Freeze
Megan Fox as Lois Lane
Clare Grant as Cheetah, Ice, Abby Holland
Seth Green as The Nerd, Batman, Robin, Aquaman, The Penguin, Martian Manhunter, Toyman, Scarecrow, Gorilla Grod, Cheese, Swamp Thing, Abin Surg, Ganthet, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Jimmy Olsen
Neil Patrick Harris as Two-Face, Black Manta
Breckin Meyer as Superman, Mirror Master
Alfred Molina as Lex Luthor, Firestorm
Aaron Paul as Mister Banjo, Glenn
Paul Reubens as The Riddler
Tom Root as Captain Cold
Kevin Shinick as Narrator
Matthew Senreich as The Flash, Chillblaine, Brainiac
Tara Strong as Harley Quinn, Selena Gomez
Zeb Wells as Sinestro, B’dg
Superman! Batman! Wonder Woman! For more than 75 years, the DC Comics Universe has been home to the world’s most iconic superheroes!
Robot chicken! It’s…a puppet show on basic cable.
Well, not every team-up can be a winner. Wait, this is supposed to be a sales pitch! So prepare to be thrilled by Robot Chicken’s twisted takes on all your favorite DC Comics heroes and villains! Watch as Aquaman faces his greatest crisis of all time! See the Green Lantern Corps welcome their newest member – The Robot Chicken Nerd! Witness the evil Sinestro commit murder on his own mustache!
In 2005, actor Seth Green (“Austin Powers” films, “Family Guy”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) and Matthew Senreich along with writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root created the stop-motion animated comedy “Robot Chicken”.
Featuring many celebrity guest voice talent and taking on a variety of well-known franchises and doing parodies for “Star Wars”, “Cat and the Hat”, “Law and Order”, “Voltron”, “Teen Titans”, “Beavis and Butthead” and more.
The series has won an Annie Award and three Emmy Awards and in 2013, with a total of six seasons and 120 episodes and five specials being made, the “Robot Chicken” staff will be releasing their new “DC Comics Special” on Blu-ray and DVD on July 9, 2013.
For those not familiar with Robot Chicken, the animated series uses action figures and shoots each frame until they put them together via animation. The series puts certain characters in hilarious and embarrassing situations and includes mouths on the action figures and are voice acted by the Robot Chicken staff or via celebrities.
In the DC Comics Special, the special focuses on the top members of the Justice League of America which include Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash and Aquaman.
While Superman learns he can make people forget with a kiss, he wonders if he can use that magic on his enemies. Batman unfortunately keeps getting his back broken by bane, Green Lantern can’t stop himself from laughing at a funeral held by Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew. But the special focuses on Aquaman, a hero that never gets any respect from his peers since his powers are only good in water.
Always being picked on by his fellow JLA members, Aquaman wonders if he should help out the Legion of Doom to get back at his former allies. Meanwhile, the Green Lantern Corps hires a new Green Lantern from Earth… the Robot Chicken nerd.
VIDEO:
“Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special ” is presented in 1080p High Definition. For the most part, the Mego dolls and action figures are quite detailed in HD, while the stage setups for the figures and the lighting was very well-done. For the most part, picture quality is well-done!
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special ” is presented in English Dolby True HD 5.1. The series is primarily dialogue driven and dialogue is crystal clear and center/front channel driven. Meanwhile, the audio commentaries are presented in English Dolby Digital 2.0.
Subtitles are in English SDH.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special ” come with the following special features:
- The Making of the Robot Chicken DC Special – (10:15) Featuring behind-the-scenes the making of “Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special”.
- Aquaman: His DC Special Origin Story – (1:27) The staff talk about how they came up with Aquaman being the focal point hero in the special.
- Chicken Nuggets – (22:52) While watching the “Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special”, an icon will show up on the screen and when you hit “Enter” on your remote, you can access a behind-the-scenes video commentary from the staff plus sketches.
- Writers Commentary – Featuring an audio commentary by Kevin Shinick, Zeb Wells, Tom Root, Matt Beans, Mike Fasolo and Geoff Johns.
- Actors Commentary – Featuring an audio commentary with Mathew Senreich, Abraham Benrubi, Fred Molina, Seth Green and Mike Fasolo.
- DC Entertainment Tour – (7:16) Geoff Johns takes the Robot Chicken staff on a tour at the DC Comics New York office.
- Stoopid Alter Egos – (3:46) The Robot Chicken staff cosplay as DC Comics characters.
- Outtakes – (2:01) Featuring outtakes from the studio recording of “Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special”.
- Cut Sketches – (15:15) Featuring a total of 13 studio sketches
- 5.2 Questions for Robot Chicken – (2:13) Robot Chicken staff answer questions.
If you are a “Robot Chicken” fan or a longtime fan of DC Comics, you can’t help but watch the “Robot Chicken: DC Comics” special and just laugh out loud!
Sure, the special captures the craziness that we have seen on the popular TV series and its “Star Wars” specials as a longtime reader of DC Comics titles, what I enjoyed about this special is that the characters are not something created from today’s comic books but for those who read DC back in the ’90s or even before then.
From the use of Mego characters, the fact that one of my favorite DC comic titles from the ’80s “Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew” are featured and just the crazy stories about Superman using his kissing spell on his enemies to make them forget about their evil plots, Bane continually breaking Batman’s back, a postal person at the Legion of Doom with bad body odor and of course, the jokes made about Aquaman.
Aquaman is always used as the but of all jokes among the JLA members and I’m sure that the staff couldn’t resist. But despite Aquaman getting a good amount of the dissing, not everyone is spared from the jokes (well, except the Flash and Wonder Woman) but because of the DC Comics jokes, you can’t help but laugh and be amused by them. Especially if you grew up in the ’70-90’s reading DC Comics.
It was a crazy special that would no doubt entertain “Robot Chicken” fans and of course, DC Comic fans. While the jokes will appeal to those familiar with the humor of “Robot Chicken”, unless you are sensitive to Aquaman jokes, for the most part, I think most people will find this special to be a lot of fun!
If there was any problem that I had with this special, it was too short at 23 minutes long.  I was hoping for more and possibly the crew may want to follow up with more DC Comics specials in the near future.  So, while this special episode is short, fortunately, there are many special features included with this Blu-ray release. It was great to listen to both audio commentaries.  From the writers about the inclusion of characters for the series to the actors on their thoughts of playing a character and both commentaries are hilarious and fun to listen to.
For those who enjoy learning about the tricks of stop-motion animation, you get to see a little of how this DC Special was made. You get a few sketches that were not used in the final product, a tour of DC Entertainment’s New York office and more.
Overall, “Robot Chicken: DC Comic Special” is another hilarious, crazy and fun special from the crew of “Robot Chicken”. For the DC Comics fans who grew up with these characters in the past, to the “Robot Chicken” fans who love the series no matter which characters they feature, “Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special” is worth checking out on Blu-ray!
