Robot Chicken interview with Seth Green, Matthew Senreich, and Geoff Johns!

Robot Chicken’s Season 7 premiered in April, with new episodes airing Sundays at 11:30pm ET/PT on Adult Swim. We had the opportunity to chat with co-creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, and Geoff Johns.

Nerd Reactor: What can we expect from Season 7?

Matthew Senreich: With Season 7, we are all over the map. You know I think we all were influenced by Game of Thrones this season, so we got a lot of the voice talent from Game of Thrones to come in and play with us. Maisie Williams came in, George R.R. Martin himself came in, and Sean Bean was in. It’s also an odd mix of us maybe going a little bit more ’90s even, as opposed to the ’80s fare that we usually go to. Although there is plenty of that as well.

There’s a resurgence of ’90s stuff going on.

Matthew: Again it’s that 20 year cycle.

What other specials do you hope to see?

Matthew: You know everybody seems to ask that. Again our specials have come so organically. Like with Lucas films they called us and were like, “Hey, we like your stuff! Wanna play?” With D.C I’ve known Geoff for…

Geoff Johns: Ever.

Matthew: I said 20 years. But it’s more like 17.

Geoff: 17 years.

Matthew: But yeah we go back a long way, and it was just as organic as us being like, as soon as he got this job, “We should do something like this.” And I was like, “Great!” And that’s how it happen. So with other specials, if other people are like, “Hey, we should do this.” Then I might be like, “Oh, that sounds cool.” It should be that casual in the interactions. That’s what we go for.

Geoff: Yeah it’s not this huge “businessy” thing. “Hey! You wanna have fun. Let’s hang out, write and have fun.” The only difference between this and us hanging out is that we are writing this down.

Matthew: Well said.

I remember at Comic-Con you said when you first used Lucasfilm you thought they were going to sue you.

Matthew: Yeah. That was in our regular season. We did a sketch and we thought they were going to come after us, but they ended up loving it. George showed it at a board meeting, and it turned into our three specials after that. So you know with Goeff, as soon as he got the DC job, it was like we should do that, and we were like, “Yes, we should.”

So you weren’t afraid of DC saying, “Hey you’re using our…”

Matthew: With Geoff ? No! Not at all.

Geoff: I worked on Robot Chicken Season Four or five.

Matthew: We have too much dirt on each other to do anything like that to each other.

So much blackmail.

Matthew: It really is.

Geoff: Not blackmail so much as stories.

Matthew: Yeah stories. Well said, but I’m sure there’s blackmail. There’s a few.

Thanks for joining, Seth Green. Like we were saying, are there any specials you are hoping to see?

Seth: No we’re not really thinking about that. Honestly, we had a lot of fun on DC, that’s why we made a second one. We’re already talking about whether we’ll make a third one. That’s kind of how it comes. We’re not like, “Robot Chicken’s gotta take on this universe.”

Matthew: But we are finding that fans are like that. There’s a rivalry that happens. You’ve done Star Wars and DC.

Seth: When are you going to do Lord of the Rings? Why haven’t you done Indie? Like what would you do with Indie exactly. There are like three characters you remember. You want me to keep doing Short Round sketches?

What are some of the voices you like doing over the past couple of seasons?

Seth: I like getting to play Batman. That’s about the only place on the planet I’ll ever get to play batman. I like doing our Nerd. Our Nerd is joyful and a fanboy with a sort of unrestricted passion. I like that. That’s fun.

Have you ever got to the studio to the voice-overs in costume?

Seth: No. I’m 5’4. Any costume I’m wearing is either a child’s costume or I’m going to be drowning in it. I don’t put myself through that too often. The best part about voice-overs is that you don’t have to be who you’re playing. You could be anything.

I could be He-Man.

Matthew: Exactly!

I do want to be She-Ra. I have a She-Ra problem.

Matthew: Doesn’t sound like a problem.

Seth: I thought I had a toy problem and then it became a business.

I also have a toy problem.

Seth: You should see if you can turn that into a TV show.

I’m trying. Well we asked the guys what fans can see in Season 7. Any clues? It was lots of Game of thrones. Are all of you Game of Thrones fans?

Seth: Well what makes it on the show is what’s funny, so where ever our writers heads are. It’s rare that we’re like, “Hey, make sure you do a sketch on this.” Every once in a while we’ll do a list of properties, a list of topics, and say, “Hey, explore this.” I really wanted an Iron Sheik sketch this last season, so I put a ten dollar bet on the board. I’m like, “Ten dollars to anyone who gets Iron Sheik sketch in the show.” So now we have a great Iron Sheik meets Laurence of Arabia sketch that the actual Iron Sheik did the voice for. You’re welcome.

It seems like you guys have a lot of fun doing the show, is it because you were all friends first?

Matthew: Yes. 100 percent. I always point to the fact that there were four of us that drove cross country from New York with Geoff to meet Seth in L.A. to make this show. Like it was literally that. That’s how it all started back in 2004. So it’s all about the friends in a room just laughing at stuff. And we don’t care what other people are thinking. We just make it for ourselves and hope people will laugh along with us.

We all get your private jokes now.

Matthew: Yes. Because it’s the private jokes that every geeks are making across the country. It’s the stuff you talk about when you see something.

Seth: And like Geoff said earlier, we’re just writing it down.

Well Sexx Luthor will be stuck in my head. It’s the greatest song ever.

Matthew: It really is. And Alfred sung it! It’s all him.

One thing I like about opening and closing of the seasons is that you guys joke with yourselves.

Seth: That started the first season.

You’ve been doing a good job continuing it.

Matthew: The writers hate that.

Seth: Yeah they hate it.

Matthew: They despise it. We do it now because it’s become this customary thing.

Seth: Well we just hedge our bets for when we are actually off the air.

Matthew: One day we’ll say we’re cancelled at the end of a season and we will be.

Seth: Although with this season…this season opens with us figuring out how to get back on the air. It’s an Eyes Wide Shut parody, and it closes with a little bit more mythology. In seven seasons we’ve delved so lightly into the mythology of the chicken and the scientist.

Matthew: And this has the epic conclusion.

Seth: This takes it far, man.

Matthew: You’ll see that relationship evolve.