Adult Swim's Most Important Show Officially Goes on the Attack Against AI Animation

"We just wanted to make the basic case that Adult Swim was not about cheap and stupid animation," series co-creator Seth Green tells Polygon.

Robot Chicken wasn't part of that initial launch. The stop-motion sketch show from Seth Green and Matthew Senreich arrived four years later, giving Adult Swim its own twisted version of Saturday Night Live in the form of rapid-fire sketches that riffed on everything from Star Wars to the Libertarian Party. Robot Chicken has come to represent Adult Swim overall — even if it's sometimes overshadowed by viral hits like Rick and Morty and Smiling Friends — so it makes sense that the network turned to Green and Senreich to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

The result is a joke-per-second Robot Chicken special that takes every single Adult Swim character, comedian, and anthropomorphic object you can think of and smashes them all together. The first half of the 30-minute special follows the expansive cast as they set out on an Adult Swim cruise (led by Joe Pera) where mayhem quickly ensues. The second half shifts the action to a courtroom where the future of animation itself is put on trial and the threat of generative AI rears its ugly head, leading to a surprisingly passionate, full-throated defense of the unconventional network.

"We just wanted to make the basic case that Adult Swim was not about cheap and stupid animation," Green tells Polygon.

Ahead of the special episode's release, Polygon caught up with Green and Senreich to talk about how it all came together, their actual thoughts on AI, and the future of Robot Chicken.

Celebrating 25 years of Adult Swim

The concept of making an extra-long Robot Chicken featuring lots and lots of Adult Swim characters didn't materialize out of nowhere. And it wasn't a request from the studio either. It's actually a concept the duo have been stewing on for a very long time.

"Matt has been pitching this for years to Adult Swim, and we finally got to do it for this anniversary," Green explains.

For Senreich, the joy of making the special is a lot like the joy of watching an Avengers movie: smashing all your favorite toys together in one sandbox.

"it was the first time to overlap a lot of these characters that have never had those interactions," he says. "It was like Secret Wars. Bringing these characters from all these different aspects together made me smile."

Among those included is a mix of Adult Swim classics and newer additions to the canon. Pretty much anyone or anything you can think of that's had its own show on the network is featured in some way, but Senreich mentions a few favorites.

"For the Aqua Team folks, it was more a catch-up," he says, "whereas I didn't really know the Smiling Friends guys. Same with Common Side Effects a little bit. The newer people got me excited, because we haven't had as much interaction with them over the last 20-plus years that we've been doing Robot Chicken."

Green calls out one cameo in particular that he got a kick out of.

"I do love that we got to have Joe Perra as our narrator," he says.

An all-out attack on AI

In the second half of the special, the story transitions from a cruise ship to a courtroom, where it's revealed that an evil AI has taken over Adult Swim and plans to flood the network with cheap, generative animation. (Don't worry, the AI fails.)

The premise gives Green and Senreich the chance to go on the attack against a technology they don't seem to particularly like, while also refuting one of the harshest critiques Adult Swim has faced over the years.

"The creators of all of these shows poured their hearts and souls, blood, sweat, and tears into every bit of nonsense and silliness that we got to share with audiences over all these years," Green says.

As for the question of whether AI can replace human-made animation, Green isn't too worried yet, though he's also not afraid to call out the corporate executives who already seem eager to replace animators with ChatGPT and Grok.

"We don't imagine a world in which that's being replaced," he says, "but it's very easy to see the paranoia and also the willingness of these large companies to cut corners and exclude a human workforce wherever possible. Some of that is basic evolution, the same way it's not as valuable to be a coal miner as it once was. But that's also not a permission slip for the artists to be ignored and removed in favor of a machine. The tool is not the studio. The tool is the tool."

Similarly, Senreich isn't too concerned by anything he's seen AI do. At least not yet.

"When you look online, what captures your attention? It's cool to see some of this AI stuff, but there aren't heart and soul and stories that really pop out of digital space," he says. "I can't point to an AI thing that's like, Oh my god, I remember that, I want to see the rest of that storyline continue."

Green adds: "The thing that we love about Adult Swim is how consistently they've pushed the boundaries on what is cool, what is profitable, what is entertaining, what is something that can catalyze a community and make them feel like they all belong to something. I haven't seen AI do that yet, so I don't even think it's a real conversation."

The future of Robot Chicken

Robot Chicken hasn't aired a full season since 2022. More recently, the series has shifted into releasing a longer one-off episode every so often. According to Green, that's largely the plan moving forward. It's a shift in response to the way television has changed in recent years, but it also comes with some huge benefits for the duo behind Robot Chicken.

"Look at how television in general has changed," Green says. "All of these companies are more focused on the streaming numbers than on individual episodic broadcast airings, because the advertising money isn't worth the same as it was to them prior to the subscription money. So we simply don't need to make 22 quarter-hour episodes anymore. We can come in twice a year and make half hours, and really get the benefit of the quarterly marketing spends and promotional budgets of any of these companies. We can attract their best attention towards a single first airing that then is portaled on their streaming for infinite viewing."

In other words, you can expect more Robot Chicken 30-minute specials in the future, but the days of the 20-episode season are over. At least for now.

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The Robot Chicken Adult Swim special is streaming now on HBO Max.