ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke with Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich about the new Self-Discovery Special. Green and Senreich discussed poking fun at reality television shows like 90 Day Fiancé in the new special, what comes next for Robot Chicken, and more.
“From co-creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, the fan-favorite parody series delivers a half-hour of rapid-fire sketches that spotlight Discovery, Food Network, and TLC. In Robot Chicken: Self-Discovery Special, the ever-awkward Robot Chicken Nerd embarks on a journey of self-discovery the American way—by going on reality TV,” a description of the special reads. “Will he find a 90 Day Fiancé… or end up as Shark Week chum?”
The Robot Chicken: Self-Discovery Special will debut on Adult Swim on July 20, 2025, and will be available to stream the next day on HBO Max.
Brandon Schreur: I want to start just by asking the two of you how this project came about. How long have you been working on and developing this Self-Discovery special? What did the process of bringing it to life look like?
Seth Green: It definitely was a while in the cooker. Getting to the point where everybody agreed that we could do it took the longest amount of time. Once we knew what we were doing, we just jumped into the production the way we always do — hired the writers, got all the staff on, started recording, started drawing, started animating, building everything, and editing.
Matthew Senreich: The usual process, yeah. But, like Seth said, we’re pushing the buttons a little bit on our owners, which makes it a lot of fun.
Green: Oh, yeah! I don’t know if you heard, but Discovery Media Global bought Warner Bros. Global Media, which owns all these subsidiaries, including all of the Turner assets, like the Cartoon Network and its late-night subsidiary, Adult Swim.
Senreich: But there’s always something fun about playing with the people that you know. And, like, that’s how it worked with Star Wars, that’s how it worked with DC — we’ve known these people. So, it’s being able to work with these people that we’ve known.
Green: Yeah, this was reaching out to our new corporate stepdad and saying, ‘What’s up, dude? You want to have fun? You want to play around with us?’ And they did!
Sure, and I love that they were up for that. That’s such a fun dynamic when you can poke fun like that. I want to ask about some of the specific things that you’re looking at here — I’ll be honest, I’ve been a 90 Day Fiancé fan for a long time now.
Green: You are going to love this! This whole throughline, oh my gosh. We even have Big Ed in the special!
No way. That’s awesome. I love the idea for this project, and I’m wondering, when you came up with this idea, was there a lot of research required? Were you fans of this stuff before, or did you have to go binge all of 90 Day Fiancé to prepare?
Green: It’s the latter. Well, I mean…
Senreich: It’s a mix.
Green: Yeah, there were definitely a couple of premises that we were familiar with from shows that we’ve seen before. But when we got the writers together to figure out what this whole thing was going to be, we watched everything. We watched everything. Just to really understand the totality of the space that we could address.
Senreich: I think everybody had seen different types of these shows, and that’s what brought it all together. There was one person in the room, I can say, who is a diehard fan of all of it. They definitely helped guide us. That was great.
That’s awesome. This feels like such a cool new chapter, too; Robot Chicken has been around for forever, but going after reality television shows — I love that idea because it seems like there’s so much to mine there. I love the scope of it.
Green: Reality is complicated, too. Its genres in it of itself, right? Just reality as a genre doesn’t quite define all of the types of programs that it encompasses.
Senreich: There are competition shows, there are cooking shows, there are doctor shows. It’s hard to find those little niches and make sure that you can go broad with them.
Sure. And, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like there’s been such a rise in popularity for these, and everyone is watching these shows. A Robot Chicken episode about it makes so much sense — this is the kind of stuff we consume when we’re like, ‘I don’t know what else to watch’ and then we put on 90 Day Fiancé. It makes it perfect for Robot Chicken.
Senreich: I love it.
It’s also really cool that you’re doing this on the 20th anniversary of Robot Chicken, right? It’s been out in the world for a long time. I’m curious what it’s like looking back at that legacy. Does it feel like it’s been 20 years, or is it like time moves so fast and you’re like, ‘Oh, shit, it’s been 20 years?’
Green: Kind of, yeah.
Senreich: Yeah, time moves very fast on this show. And, again, I always say that it feels like you’re still playing with the same people who you started with. You go to work every day, and you’re seeing these friends of yours and you’re just goofing around with them, playing with these literal toys to make these projects. I think that’s the excitement that you get. It doesn’t feel like work when you’re doing these kinds of projects. So, 20 years — it’s weird to think that way. It really does feel weird.
Green: Yeah, it doesn’t track.
That makes sense. I’m kind of curious, too, from your guys’ perspective, has the job evolved or changed since then? Like, I think how much pop culture has changed — for example, 90 Day Fiancé wasn’t a thing 20 years ago. Or the Star Wars franchise looked completely different back then than it does now. Is it harder or easier to work on the show with how fast things move?
Green: I think it’s the same, truly. Our relationship with pop has stayed the same, no matter what the pop is. Especially, the audiences — human beings relationship with pop culture, that’s what’s evolved. We’ve got a larger audience than we’ve ever had because more people are open to appreciating these kinds of things. When we were coming up, when we first started this show, people didn’t go to Comic Con unless you really liked that shit. We met at Comic Con — we didn’t meet there, but we met up there in, like, 1995?
Senreich: 1996, yeah.
Green: 96. It’s like, it’s a very different thing. So it’s grown exponentially. You’re no longer going to school and getting your ass kicked for liking Spider-Man. You’re almost getting your ass kicked if you don’t like Spider-Man. I think that’s changed, the kind of pop that kids are watching. The fact that all the stuff we fought to be able to love has become so mainstream that it’s almost punk rock to hate it, that’s what shifted.
Senreich: And, going a little further with it, when we started Robot Chicken, we were making fun of all these things that nobody thought they were allowed to make fun of. The fact that we were pushing these buttons, it was scary. Now, it’s commonplace where people are putting this stuff on YouTube every day. It’s almost beneficial when people are making fun of your stuff.
That jumps into what I wanted to ask you next. Was there ever a moment during those 20 years when you remember first feeling like, ‘We’ve got it?’ I don’t know if it was when you were first coming up with the show, pitching it for the first time, or years later when fans started really responding to a season. Was there ever a moment where you were like, ‘We really got something here?’
Green: Yeah, it was during the first season. We started getting the numbers back, and it was insane, getting the numbers that we were getting. The late-night broadcast of the Cartoon Network ran from 11:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Sunday. 11:30 to 6 a.m. on Sunday. That’s like a graveyard to send programming in 2002. It was almost a joke. The fact that the show got a million viewers in that time slot…And, then, when we first went to Comic Con and had a room full of people that were like, ‘I remember! I watched that! That sketch made me think of that same commercial!’ That was where we were like, ‘Alright, guys, we have something. This is something.’
Senreich: For me — I agree with all of that, but, for me, the moment where I was like, ‘Oh, this is bigger than we thought’ is when we got that Star Wars special. It was validation by the person creating a brand, and he was saying, ‘I want you to make fun of my brand more.’ That, for me, was the moment of, ‘Oh my god, we have something I didn’t expect, here.’ And so, yeah, that turned things on its side for me.
That’s got to feel good. I feel like, like you said, Robot Chicken has just gotten more and more popular over the years, so it’s so exciting to see people rallying around it and wanting more. In regard to this new special, is there an aspect of it you’re most excited for Robot Chicken fans to see? Whether it be the Food Network stuff or the TLC stuff, were you ever like, ‘Oh, this is gold, people are going to love this?’
Green: I love this special. I think it works so well. I’ve been so excited — as soon as we got our first script lock, I was like, ‘This is gonna f—ing work.’ It’s all the same alchemy, right? You get a sketch in the booth, somebody’s recording it, and something you thought was terrible is suddenly amazing. Something you thought was amazing is suddenly terrible. Like, we go through the whole process. The one thing I’ve got at this point is faith in the process. We started with a very loose idea, then we cast the right writers — we get the right writers together to help us make this thing. I know that, by the time the writing is done, we’ve got an idea. I know that we’ll have it. That’s what it is, it’s just confidence in the process.
Sure, totally. Just one last question for the two of you, I’d love to know if there’s anything regarding the future of Robot Chicken that you can tease. I know it’s been on forever, and we got this special. Is there anything more that fans can get excited about that’s coming up?
Green: Yeah, we’re going to do this. This really works well; it makes sense for everybody. It doesn’t make the same sense to focus on 20 quarter-hour seasons anymore. The landscape of television and all the streaming stuff — it makes a lot more sense for us to dedicate our best assets to half-hours that are around a single subject, and then get to promote them in a marketing quarter. This is what we’re going to do. It’s finding the big brands that want this kind of collaboration.
Thanks to Seth Green and Matthew Senreich for taking the time to discuss Robot Chicken: Self-Discovery Special.
