The Show
G.I. Joe. The Flintstones. Jay-Z. Saving Private Ryan. Santa Claus. Superman. Jesus. These are but a few of the targets of Robot Chicken Season Five, the most recent batch of episodes skewering all manner of pop culture and beyond, typically in the form of stop-motion-animated toys.
The show broke out of many of its own conventions this year, incorporating cartoon animation and live action into the comedy sketches, as well as poking some fun at their own opening credits and their growing stable of original characters. (Bitch Puddin' anyone?) It can also be rather shocking at times, tackling taboos such as religion and un-blurring the plastic nudity for the home entertainment market.
At about eleven minutes per, each week's dose of mayhem has to be fast-paced, which is one of the secrets to the show's success, and its growing popularity. This disc marks the first time that an entire season of Robot Chicken has been be released on Blu-ray, and it actually contains nine episodes that have not yet aired on [adult swim], the more risqué late night programming block on Cartoon Network.
The Picture
The 16:9 image exhibits a remarkably high bitrate, often crossing over the 40 megabit-per-second mark. For the most part, the show is comprised of precisely focused little scenes photographed one painstaking frame at a time, and they look quite excellent at 1080i/60Hz. I did note very minor noise in some of the darker scenes, perhaps a very slight harshness in the brights or the blacks, and a tiny bit of moiré on the tight parallel weave of miniature jeans. Across the season the creators throw a variety of media at us and it all reproduces extremely well, including the bold, simplistic CGI lines of a Tron spoof.
The Sound
Brace yourself because the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack is definitely not bleeped this time, and the F-bombs are flying! The rears are exploited in different ways, some quite subtle. I detected a distinctive room tone for some scenes, as well as sustained resonance, chattering voices when groups are talking simultaneously, distant gunshots and other off-screen action, and terrific moments like a monkey throwing grenades, traffic all around us, and a sense of inescapability when all of the evil scientist's TVs are blaring at the captive cyber-bird of the title. Even the bass is solid, as when a giant, deadly Victorian doll "speaks" to a NASA technician. (It makes sense in context. Sort of.)
The Extras
Audio commentaries are provided for all 20 episodes, bringing together a wide variety of cast and crew including a wide cross-section of the stunning array of guest talent. There are also seven featurettes totaling about 24 minutes, mostly glimpses behind the scenes but some are just goofy fun.
"Chicken Nuggets" are optional sketch-by-sketch video commentaries for four episodes from Season Five. We can choose to sing along with the adults-only Avatar love song "Blue Rabbits," and memorable alternate voice recordings for seven sketches play over still images. This last bonus is exclusive to Blu-ray.
The collection of 21 on-air promos, including an extensive package for a Comedy Central New Zealand countdown, runs about 22 minutes total. There are also seven fully animated deleted scenes (Beavis and Butt-Head join the Teen Titans, with voices by Mike Judge!), eleven minutes in all, plus over an hour and a half of dropped bits in preliminary animatic form, with on-camera introductions. Like the main program, the video extras are in 1080i/60 quality.
Final Thoughts
Audacious and envelope-pushing, weird and wild, Robot Chicken Season Five is a perfect fit for Blu-ray, with remarkably strong audio and video and a vast trove of equally amusing extras. Any HD-ready [adult swim] fan needs to pick this one up.
Product Details
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