Seth Green on Robot Chicken Milestones, Directing His First Feature, and More

In the current television landscape, a production often times considers itself lucky when it manages to make it past two seasons. In the case of Robot Chicken, a tenth season launches this weekend, something many writers and showrunners are likely envious of — after all, it’s a pretty rare feat. Then, on top of everything else, the 200th episode of the series manages to sneak its way into the milestone season.

In preparation for the launch of the big anniversary season, we spoke with Robot Chicken co-creator Seth Green about the series and his new foray into filmmaking. Keep scrolling to see what Green had to say about Robot Chicken, his debut feature, and more!

Robot Chicken Milestones

ComicBook.com: The tenth season of Robot Chicken is coming up, so we might as well start there. When you started this — I mean it’s 15 years ago now, right? — did you have any idea how long you expected the show to go on?

Seth Green: To be honest, when we first started it as webisodes, I never thought of it beyond that short form material. We never planned for it to be its own show and we certainly never thought it would gain any kind of traction, or be something that went multiple seasons.

There was a point when we first got renewed and went into a second season where you had to gut check ourselves, just to be sure that it was something we even wanted to continue. But we were having a lot of fun and it seemed like there was still a lot of mileage, so we kept going. And then over the years, it’s given us incredible opportunities to make what I think is really fun and inclusive stuff. Our goal at this point is just to keep doing it as long as we can, whatever shape it takes, you know?

Awesome. You bring up the gut check bit. Do you have an exit strategy in mind or are you just willing to keep the show going on as long as Turner and Adult Swim keep buying episodes from you?

Well, I imagine my day-to-day responsibilities will continue to evolve. Just it becomes impossible for me as a single person to contribute in the same way that I did for the first several seasons. And I’ve gotten better at bringing on talented people and collaborating with other people to both handle some of my day-to-day responsibilities, and also give us a new perspective. I really enjoy the opportunity to let another artist or another writer or a different director put their own spin on it and keep it evolving so that it never gets old, or so that it doesn’t just rely entirely on me.

Coming up is not only the tenth season, but it’s also the 200th episode. Since this is a lot different than any other typical TV program, were you able to put an extra emphasis on episode 200 or was everything business as usual?

No, we always put a little extra attention on our season openers and our season closers. And because this was such a milestone, we wanted it to be something significant. We wanted it to at least have some sense of summary, or just to grow, to feel like something befitting of the milestone, so we worked really hard on it, I’m very excited about it.

While you were producing, while you’re writing this season, were there any bits that you really, really enjoyed that fans can look forward to?

We got a bunch of great guest stars this season, from D’Arcy Carden to David Lynch, and so there’s a lot of fantastic performances and amazing people that I’m excited for the audience to see.

Making Changeland

Let’s move over to Changeland really quick. This really nice, quick, tight…I mean it really did end up as a beautiful film. At what point, did you take a step back and think to yourself, “Man, I really want to jump off the cliff and make my first feature”?

It’s funny, I just didn’t think about it in those terms. I was really inspired to tell this story, and so I didn’t put that kind of emphasis on it, where I… I don’t know, I spent my whole life making movies, so for me it feels really organic to direct a movie, even though I learned a tremendous amount. But I didn’t put that pressure on myself of, “Oh my gosh, this is my first movie and what do I want to say? And how is this going to describe me or introduce me into this world of directors?” I don’t compare myself to any of the directors that inspired me. I really just wanted to tell this story well.

If you don’t mind me asking, kind of where does this inspiration for a story like this very deeply personal tale come from?

I got to take a a couple of days in Thailand with my buddy Dan, and everything that we did was incredibly cinematic. We did all of the things that the characters in the movie do, from staying at the Slate in Phuket, to going on a boat trip in a speed boat, kayaking around these sea caves in the middle of nowhere, and spending a night on Ko Phi Phi, and seeing our scuba instructor fight a stranger in a boxing ring in the middle of a bar on a four mile island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And all of those incidents were so inspiring, I kept telling my friend that we were living in a movie.

I didn’t know what the plot of the movie was or what the characters would be, but I knew that I had this incredible series of set pieces and a backdrop to tell a story. And because of the type of experience that we were having, I wanted the movie to be something small and personal, and to feel like just real life. Just something that was accessible to an audience. And as I started writing the script, which I rewrote completely six different times over the several years it took me before I got it financed, it just kept evolving and I thought about things that I had learned, and stuff that I had experienced.

I kept having friends of mine getting divorced or couples splitting up, or people sort of waking up in the middle of their adult life and realizing that they’ve made choices that they didn’t feel they could escape from. And I just wanted to tell something about that, about life, about friendship, about relationships, forgiveness, your own responsibility within your life to be the kind of person that you want to be friends with, and that it’s never too late to start over. That your life is yours and each of your choices are going to help strengthen your life or make you feel worse about it. You know?

I love that. I do have to ask, have you been boxing since?

[laughs] I mean I do some boxing with my trainer to maintain my cardio and my lack of fear of getting hit in the face, but I’ll never pursue it professionally. I’m not really that kind of athlete.

James Gunn Shout Out

Last but not least, being from ComicBook.com and all, I instantly recognized James Gunn’s name in the credits. Does this mean your career as Howard the Duck is far from over?

I don’t know how I could even tie those together. [laughs] Gunn’s a buddy of mine and that’s how I wound up getting cast as Howard the Duck, which is one of the great privileges of my career to get to play that character in several different mediums. But I thanked Gunn in the credits because I reached out to several friends of mine, filmmakers and producers to help me along the way, just with advice, with perspective. At every stage of this movie, I reached out to people who were more accomplished or more qualified and just asked for their advice or opinions or perspective.

*****

The tenth season of Robot Chicken debuts on Adult Swim September 29th.

Photo by Fox Joe Viles