Robot Chicken The Complete Season III   Starring (voice): Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, Chad Morgan and Tom Root Revolver Entertainment RRP: £19.99 REVD2474 Certificate: 15 Available 25 January 2010

Robot Chicken is ba-ba-baw-baaack. In season 3 of the toy murderin’, attention-span shatterin’ TV series no cow is too sacred, no star too celestial to escape the Robot Chicken treatment. Created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, Robot Chicken's third season delivers 20 fifteen-minute episodes of fast-paced sketches featuring an impressive list of vocal talent from creator Seth Green and an impressive cast of Hollywood names...

For those unfamiliar with Robot Chicken, it's the brain / love child of Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. I say "love child" only because between them the two do so much on the show (including writing, producing, directing and acting) that it really is a creation born from their mutual love of pop culture and '80s toys - something which Green openly admits to having an encyclopedic knowledge about.

The third season was originally broadcast on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] between 2007 and 2008. This DVD includes 19 episodes, each running for just over 10 minutes. Highlights (and there are so many to choose from) include:

Adam (of Adam & Eve fame) being tasked with naming all the animals in the Garden of Eden. All is going well until his gay friend suggests the names for the peacock and swallow; Planet of the Ape [sic]; Pac-Man Matrix; Battle of the Planets; Rainbow Bright's magical adventures begin; George Bush looking after a Mogwai; Stan Lee and Pamela Anderson discussing superheroes; He-Man; Cat in the Hat; Thundercats; George Bush explaining how the dinosaurs became extinct; Peanuts/Misery; Fonz: The Pursuit of Happy Days; Michael Moore examines what happened to '80s girls toys; What happened to Thelma & Louise after the movie finished; She-Ra having her period; Intensive Care Bears; LEGO Babel; Star Trek Experience; Fraggle Rock residents look for a new home; Dig Dug sketch; and a collection of movie trailers.

As with seasons one and two, there are a few gags that will make little or no sense to UK viewers, but these are so few and far between that this is not really a problem.

Extras include audio commentary for every episode; Chicken Nuggets (available on four episodes - when the chicken nugget symbol appears on screen you can access sketch video commentary); Gag Reel (47 sec worth of violent scenes from the series set to music - not really a gag reel); VFX Comparison (1 min, 14 sec worth of scenes which allow you to see the before and after effects sequences).

Extras on disc two include audio commentary for each episode; Alternate Audio (audio outtakes); Deleted Animations (animatics for sketches that never reached the animation stage. Each has an introduction); Deleted Scenes (8 min, 21 sec); Studio Tour (11 min, 33 sec video tour of the Robot Chicken offices with Seth Green); Video Blogs (18 min 43 sec look at various aspects of the production. Worth watching for the 'Buying Toys' segment alone); and trailers for other shows.

Yet another first rate collection of OTT gags and satirical sketches.

8

Darren Rea