If you’ve been up in the middle of the night, flipping through the channels, chances are you may have stumbled across the incredibly funny action figure show “Robot Chicken” on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” lineup.

                Powered by a witty team of writers and a knack for putting together parodies of events in entertainment and the news, “Robot Chicken,” is now airing in its fourth season. Co-creator Matthew Senreich called The Culture Shock November 21, 2008, while in New York City.

Hi, is Pat there?

This is Pat.

Pat, Hi, this is Matt Senreich from ‘Robot Chicken’ calling.

Hey, how’s it going?

Good, how are you doing?

Pretty good.

What’s going on today?

I’m in the midst of cold and flu season so if I happen to cough, I apologize.

If it makes you feel better, my nose is running, so I’ll be sniffling, so we’ll be sick together (laughs).

Where are you at today?

I am actually in New York. We had a bunch of meetings and I should be working, but I’m playing hookie today.

I’m in Montana.

Very nice.

First off, I absolutely loved the second ‘Star Wars’ spoof as I did the first one.

Thanks, man.

That’s coming from a guy who actually dresses up as a stormtrooper from time to time.

Please tell me you’re in the 501^st. (laughs)

I am in the 501^st. (laughs)

Nice. That’s awesome. I got inducted. I’m an honorary member. I can play my coin against you.

Nice. I’m one of only three people in Montana who are in the 501^st.

(laughs) That’s spectacular (laughs)

Not too popular around here.

Do you have monthly meetings with them? (laughs)

No, I go out and do maybe two or three events a year but there’s a bit of traveling involved. We meet up with guys in Idaho and Utah and, it’s pretty fun.

That’s awesome. Very cool.

I briefly interviewed Seth back when the first ‘Star Wars’ spoof aired and he talked about how much support you had from George Lucas in the first one, was there a feeling that he wanted more control of the show for this second run or was it basically the same?

He was just as easy going the second time around. They gave us so much support and we just did a cast and crew screening at Skywalker Ranch which he came out for and it was spectacular. Everybody got to interact with him and he laughed at it and it was fun to hear his thoughts the second time around. This was the second time he saw it and he just said watching it the second time was even better than the first, which was the ultimate compliment.

Is there a part of you that’s nervous when you present it to him?

Oh yeah. It’s funny when we first showed it to him, Seth and I were sitting like two feet away from him and it was like, it was beyond nerve-wracking. This is his creation and here we are having a silly time with it and twisting it to our side and all we can do is hope for the best and he was laughing through the whole thing, which for us is the greatest compliment. We talked to him afterward and the one thing we realized and whenever you’re just talking to him, is, he’s just a guy like us who likes the same things we do. You kind of have to shake off that geekdom when doing business. It’s that snap of the finger that we can fly out of that mode and just talk to him like ‘Hey, what’d you have for lunch today.’

The Bring Your Daughter to Work Day was awesome …

(laughs).

I have a special spot for stormtroopers ‘cause like I said, I am one. I like to see the troopers with personal lives because it adds a nice touch.

We love taking the absurd and making it mundane (laughs).

How much fun do you have with Seth trying to come up with ‘Star Wars’ skits that not only will appeal to regular folks, but also those who know a lot about the ‘Star Wars’ universe?

It’s great. I have to give a lot of credit to our writers. We have about six other guys in that room for just coming up with and generating material on a daily basis. There throwing things out. For me, one of the more obscure ones is that Mouse Droid where you watch people laugh at the cuteness of that mouse driving around and there’s that second laugh generated by people realizing ‘Oh, that’s called a mouse droid.’ It’s always fun to watch a group of people seeing it for the first time, react to that.

You guys get really detailed and point out obvious questions from the film that aren’t so obvious, I guess. For instance, how could Anakin just walk in and kill a bunch of kids …

(laughs)

Or, the two guys who are talking about why they have to quit fighting just because the Death Star is gone.

Yeah. For the Anakin one, those doors close and you kind of wanna see what happens. What went on? As far as the last thing, the books that take place after the ‘Star Wars’ movies kind of talk about how the Empire still does exist, but if you’re watching the movies and that’s where your knowledge ends, you’re wondering, is that it? All those people on all those ships, what are they doing?

Is there a satisfaction of sorts to be able to joke about things that are obvious but maybe people don’t really think about it too much?

Yeah. It’s a complete test. Everything we do with the property, it’s out of love. We love these movies just like everybody else who are fanatics like we are. It’s fun to just sit down and if you ever get into those conversations about, ‘I wonder what the logics of this is?’ There’s leaps of faith in every fantasy story that people have to take and for us, we like really investigating who these people are and who’s behind the curtain or just to the side of the scene that you just saw.

When you guys first started throwing around the idea for ‘Robot Chicken’ and began production, did you ever think that it would become as popular as it has and win Emmy’s and just be this massive monster?

(laughs) Never. Seth and I, when we started this thing, we were looking to just do a little animated short with our own money and the fact that it’s turned into the success that we have is unbelievable. We’re still in awe by it and we’re flattered that people even like it in the first place because for us, it’s something that makes us laugh and it’s great to know that there are other people out there that laugh at the same things we do.

Take me back to that original idea and how you guys thought it’d be fun to take inanimate action figures and make skits.

It started with … Seth was going on Conan O’Brien and he didn’t really have anything that he wanted to talk about and he thought it’d be kind of neat to create a short video. He’d seen people bring videos on and asked me if I wanted to create a little two-minute adventure story with his action figure that had been out from ‘Austin Powers’ and Conan O’Brien had an action figure that he had on his show that Hasbro had made for him. Like a GI Joe figure. We talked about what that could be. This was back in 2000 and as we were looking around at how to produce something like this, we ran into Sony Digital who was developing linear concept for the web back when it didn’t really exist. So we created 12 animated shorts for Sony Digital that nobody could ever see because you only had dial-up. It would take forever to actually get to see ‘em. It ended up working in our favor because it worked as a back-door pilot. We had 12 four-minute shorts that we could show around and try to sell the show and in 2004, Adult Swim bought it.

I’ve often wondered with this show and ‘Family Guy’ too, where you have so many obscure references to ‘80s pop culture, do you ever find that younger fans don’t get a lot of the jokes?

We always laugh that most people watching will get 75-percent of the jokes. There are jokes in there that sometimes I, in the writer’s room, will say ‘I don’t understand that.’ We had a Magic Garden joke and Seth was like ‘Nobody will understand what this is.’ And I’m like ‘For anybody who lives in New York, they’ll totally get this joke.’ That was a 30-second sketch for just those people. We like the fact that there are things that will go by and people might not understand but there are certain people who will think it’s the funniest thing out there. Our show is so ADD, that we can fly past something and on to the next thing before you know it.

I was just going to say that. It’s brilliant because you guys can have a skit that’s 15-seconds long and it goes by so fast that you’re like ‘What just happened?’

A lot of comedy shows have an hour and a half to fill or an hour to fill and it’s like, that’s a lot of content and they can’t go with the rapid fire we can go with such a short time span.

Is there an added complexity to it in writing a skit that’s supposed to be hilarious in just a few seconds?

(laughs) Yeah. It ends up being tough. For us, again it comes down to, as long as it makes us laugh. There’s a voting mechanism in our writing room where it’s myself and Seth and our two other head writers Tom and Doug and it has to be a 3-to-1 vote for it to get in. I would say 25-percent of the sketches, I’m probably the one lone vote that said ‘No.’

Has there ever been a time where you’ve set up a skit and just had trouble keeping your composure because it was so hilarious and got all of you laughing?

(laughs). That happens often. There’s a lot of times that we all laugh and you know immediately that it’s gonna be something funny. Again, to the credit of our writer’s, they come up with things where when they start pitching, you start laughing.

What’s the biggest challenge in creating these skits in terms of logistics as far as filming it and putting everything together?

This thing is a marathon. It takes us 11 months to produce 20 episodes and it’s just nonstop. The challenge is just the long days and nights of doing stop motion animation. It is a tedious process with 12 to 13 animators onstage moving puppets in little increments every day. People building all the toys and building all the sets. Everything’s practical and it’s a lot for such a short span of time on television. But, that said, everybody who’s in it, it’s like a family and a teamwork that I can’t really describe. It makes it worthwhile when we see the satisfaction of it being on air.

What’s the process like in getting the action figures produced that look identical to the people they represent?

(laughs). We try to use existing action figures as much as possible, but sadly we have to rewire, armature them because they won’t hold their poses. We have a puppet department that takes everything apart and rebuilds it. It’s our own toy factory in essence.

That explains a lot ‘cause I was noticing in the ‘Star Wars’ shows the differences. I have hundreds of ‘Star Wars’ toys so I know what they look like and sometimes I think ‘That looks exactly like the real toy,’ while other times I know that it’s different.

(laughs) We probably built a bunch of them.

How difficult has it been finding ideas as the episodes pile up? Do you guys ever really have a writer’s block or is there really just an infinite amount of stuff to work with?

It’s one of those things where we’re sketch comedy. Everything inspires us on a day-to-day basis depending on what we’re seeing on television or seeing on the world that’s around us. So far it hasn’t been too much of a problem.

What determines whether a skit will be accepted by the censors? How do you know how far you can take things, like the ‘Double Dare’ skit where you have Helen Keller rolling into the green slime?

We will push the envelope as much as we can and the S&P people will come back to us and tell us what we can and can’t do.

How great is it to have an avenue like Adult Swim where they’re a tweener between network television and pay television?

They are unbelievable. Adult Swim is the best partner we could ask for. They are overly supportive. There notes are always helpful. They stand behind us a hundred percent, which is phenomenal.

The really unique thing is finding the actual actors to portray themselves in a spoof. Are you guys at all surprised at how many people are willing to come in and make fun of themselves basically?

(laughs) You’d be surprised. A lot of people have a really good sense of humor. I think they like coming in and having this outlet because they get stereotyped as being too overdramatic or whatever it might be. I loved when Ryan Seacrest came in and played a silly version of himself. He had a great time doing it. He’s fully aware of the public perception of him and wants to have fun with it regardless. As we saw in ‘Knocked Up.’

What’s the process like of getting them to come in and record because I imagine that can be difficult with schedules?

Yeah. It’s just a matter of us calling people’s agents and coordinating times and seeing how it can work out. We go out to people and if their schedules don’t work, we look to get them another time and some people can’t do it and there’s no harm and no foul. It’s one of those things where we reach for the stars and we see what we can get.

How excited are you to have this upcoming season premiere around the corner?

Very, very excited. I think this season looks beautiful so far. I’m excited to see our fan reaction, so it’s gonna be good. For the season four stuff, Joss Whedon and Ron Moore and Seth MacFarlane will play themselves in it and have a good time.

Excellent. Matt, I appreciate the conversation and look forward to the new season.

Thank you very much and good luck with the 501^st. I’ll see you, I’m sure, somewhere out in the woods.

Ok. Talk to you later.

Ok. Take care. Bye.