The creative duo first met when Senreich, who was still an editor at ToyFare magazine, asked Green for an interview about his custom-made dolls he made for the cast of his show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." "The next thing you know we were buddy-buddy sending each other toys back and forth through the mail that we couldn't find," Senreich says. "And it was right around the time all the Star Wars prequels were coming out. The toy market was hitting big and we were geeking out."
The two forged a strong friendship and ended up brainstorming the idea of creating a TV show that would feature various action figures in comedic situations. Soon after "Robot Chicken" was hatched. Satirizing everything from G.I. Joe to Stretch Armstrong, the show uses impressive custom-built sets and special toy sculpts. However, toys aren't the only targets; celebs and political figures such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ryan Seacrest and Fidel Castro are often thrown in for a laugh. And while the show likes to parody popular franchises, both Senreich and Green have no intention of mocking any fan base. In fact, the two are avid movie and comic book fans, of Star Wars in particular.
Robot Chicken: Star Wars, which premieres on June 17, 2007 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, combines action figures in humorous situations, which Green and Senreich hope the fans enjoy. "We wanted to turn the Star Wars universe on its side and try to figure out a new take on it." Senreich says. "But we also try to make jokes that would appeal to people even if they'd never seen Star Wars."
The duo has already previously demonstrated their flair for injecting humor into otherwise touchy situations in their first Star Wars skit --"Spoilers" where Darth Vader reveals every plot point of the saga to a rather peeved Luke Skywalker. "What made that scene a little extra special and fun for us was the fact that Mark Hamill came in and reprised his role as Luke Skywalker," Senreich says. "It was a shot in the dark but we wanted to get him anyway."
The second spoof, "Emperor's Phone Call," depicts Darth Vader giving his boss some embarrassing news about the unexpected destruction of a high priority construction project. "Our head writer Doug Goldstein (with writer Breckin Meyer) came up with this idea of what happens when Darth Vader calls in and tells the Emperor, 'Hey, the Death Star kind of blew up,'" Senreich laughs.
"That's the bulk of our show -- taking the inherent irony of things just under the surface that you wouldn't think about, that's going on behind the scenes of a lot of these classic moments," Senreich continues.
Because of the viral popularity of the two skits, the clips eventually made their way to the marketing team at Lucasfilm who saw an opportunity to work together on a fun project for fans to enjoy. "To be blatantly honest, we were scared we were going to get sued right after that skit," Senreich confesses.
Adds Green, "When you do a parody show, there's always that chance that people are going to say, 'Hey, I don't like the way you pointed the inherent ironies and parody of our property.' And we know Lucasfilm is a big corporation and even though we love everything about Star Wars and the company, we didn't know if they would think we were funny. We were really just waiting for the suits to come in, and none of them did."
When the initial phone call from Lucasfilm came, the duo weren't exactly quick to pick up. "When the phone rang and it said 'Lucasfilm' on the Caller ID, my heart stopped for a moment," Senreich laughs. "I stood there and paced myself then answered the call sounding all business like and pretending it wasn't me at first. And they asked if there was any way to get a copy of the 'Emperor's Phone Call' skit for starwars.com? At that moment, we got excited."
"When we realized that Lucasfilm didn't want to sue us, that instead they saw potential collaborative possibilities, we were very excited to get that opportunity," Green adds.
