Until now, the one connection I could make between Robot Chicken and 90 Day Fiancé is that they're both available to stream with a Max subscription. Now, they'll soon have more in common this summer as the long-running Adult Swim series will celebrate its 20th anniversary on the 2025 TV schedule in a pretty unique way. The 90 Day shows will get some love alongside other Discovery-owned favorites for a wild stop-motion special.

In the Robot Chicken Self-Discovery Special that'll debut over the summer, the series will go meta with its parody sketches in ways that few fans probably expected to ever see. The installment will highlight 90 Day Fiancé and other television mainstays like Shark Week, Food Network shows like Guy's Grocery Games, and we might see an ice road trucker or two. I didn't expect this when I originally wrote a list of Robot Chicken specials that need to happen, but I'm still very excited to see it.

Robot Chicken Calls On "The Nerd" To Explore Reality TV

The Nerd, the bespectacled recurring character in Robot Chicken, is trying to find himself in this latest special. As WBD revealed, he'll do so by appearing on reality television shows and likely having a bunch of misfortune along the way. Given that Naked And Afraid once showcased contestants eating elephant poop, it'll be a challenge for the Adult Swim series to top some of the legitmate wackiness these reality shows have already shown us.

There's a lot of potential here, especially when it comes to 90 Day Fiancé. I would love to see The Nerd appear on every spinoff in a whirlwind romance and become one of the married 90 Day couples who split up. Not to judge him too harshly, but I see him as the type that might get taken advantage of by a foreigner looking to start a new life in the United States.

Which Reality Stars Will Lend Their Voices To Robot Chicken?

Given the brand synergy here, it wouldn't be surprising to me to learn Robot Chicken enlisted the help of 90 Day Fiancé stars and others to bring this special to life. I know cast members like Big Ed Brown hoped to get on Saturday Night Live with their reality fame, so I could definitely see him signing up to lend his voice to Robot Chicken as one of the more prominent stars of the brand.

Then again, he's hinted he might be done with 90 Day Fiancé in recent months, so perhaps they found someone else to lend their voice.

Beyond 90 Day Fiancé, I also have some high hopes for some Food Network stars to lend their voices to the reality-themed special. Guy Fieri is undoubtedly someone on my shortlist, and I think maybe Ree Drummond would be my second choice.

Also, I'd love to see Dr. Pimple Popper star Sandra Lee in the special, though I shudder to think just how gruesome a scene Robot Chicken could make with that premise. More splatter than the show's horror parodies.

There's no shortage of avenues Robot Chicken can go with the bulk of WBD reality shows. While its dedicated viewers may be more used to specials that skew toward fandoms like The Walking Dead, Star Wars, and other major franchises, this feels like a good opportunity for the show to spread its wings and possibly capture a new audience.

Look out for more updates on the Robot Chicken Self-Discovery Special as we move closer to its summer premiere on Adult Swim. I can't be the only one shocked that this parody series is already 20 years old, and I wonder if I should start looking into my investments more closely to prepare for my imminent retirement.

While he is best known as the maestro of some of the funniest musical parodies of all time, there are also many great "Weird Al" Yankovic appearances in movies and TV shows that any fan of the artist should know about. In fact, a great deal of them happen to be in animated features and series. Take a look back on some of the many notable times "Weird Al" lent his voice to a fun cartoon role.

American Dad (2005-Present)

While "Weird Al" never actually appears in a role on American Dad, he does perform a song written exclusively for a Season 15 episode of co-creator Seth McFarlane's political comedy. When Stan (McFarlane) and a rabbit costume-clad Roger (also McFarlane) plan to sabotage a farm, they come up with an idea for a parody of the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" called "Rabbitage." While the artist himself formally rejects the request for the song, they discover he wrote and recorded it himself anyway.

Bojack Horseman (2014-2020)

One of the most famous examples of "Weird Al" voicing an original animated character is Captain Peanutbutter, the brother of Paul F. Thompkins’ Mr. Peanutbutter, on one of the all-time best-animated TV shows, Netflix’s BoJack Horseman. He was asked to play the recurring character by executive producer and series regular Aaron Paul who had previously portrayed the musician in a fake trailer for his biopic that would later be made into his "real" biopic.

Johnny Bravo (1997-2004)

"Weird Al's" appearance on Cartoon Network's Johnny Bravo was not at all what you would expect, but that is essentially what makes it so perfect. He teams up with none other than comedy legend Don Knotts and a superhero named Blue Falcon to host a Queer Eye-esque TV show called Cartoon Makeover, and their latest client is the titular, bumbling "mimbo" (voiced by Jeff Bennett).

Scooby-Doo And Guess Who? (2019-2021)

Mystery Inc. has crossed paths with multiple celebrities on Scooby-Doo & Guess Who?, including "Weird Al." In the 2019 episode, "Attack of the Weird Al-osaurus," he meets Scooby and the gang when they come to investigate rumors that a dinosaur is terrorizing his camp for teaching children the accordion.

Milo Murphy's Law (2016-2019)

One of "Weird Al's" most underrated animated characters is not a cameo or guest appearance, nor even a recurring stint, but a starring role as the lead in a series. For 40 episodes, Yankovic voiced the clumsy titular teen of the Disney XD original series, Milo Murphy's Law, from Phineas and Ferb creators Jeff "Swampy" Marsh and Dan Povenmire.

Teen Titans GO! (2013-Present)

Yankovic would go wildly against type to play one of the most notorious villains in DC Comics history, Darkseid, for four episodes of Teen Titans Go! In one of those episodes, Cyborg (Phil LaMarr) actually points out how the tyrannical New God sounds strangely like the musical comedian and even sets off an epic standoff when he quips that Darkseid could not be as evil as someone who makes "songwriters look like fools."

Robot Chicken (2001-2022)

"Weird Al" has shown up on Adult Swim's Emmy-winning stop-motion satire, Robot Chicken, a few different times. One sketch actually served as the official music video from his 2006 song, "Weasel Stomping Day," and a later appearance saw him take the place of the Doof Warrior in a send-up of the 2015 action movie favorite, Mad Max: Fury Road.

Voltron: Legendary Defender (2016-2018)

"Weird Al" is part of the Voltron universe, having lent his voice to Netflix and DreamWorks' reboot, Voltron: Legendary Defender. In a Season 2 episode called, "The Depths," he voices an alien named Blumfump, who hides his face behind a jellyfish he wears as a mask and enlists the help of Lance (Jeremy Shada) to stop a brainwashing plot on his planet.

Adventure Time (2010-2018)

Pendleton Ward enlisted the vocal talents of "Weird Al" for three episodes of his hit fantasy series, Adventure Time, as Banana Man. The mechanically handy recurring character gets his name for his resemblance to the yellow fruit.

Gravity Falls (2012-2016)

"Weird Al" has actually played a few interesting animated villains, such as on Disney XD's cult favorite supernatural adventure comedy, Gravity Falls, from creator Alex Hirsch. He voices Probabilitor the Annoying, who is a powerful wizard, but with a crushing weakness of "prime statistical anomalies over 37 but not exceeding 51."

The Simpsons (1989-Present)

One of the few celebrity guests to voice themselves on The Simpsons more than once is “Weird Al” Yankovic — the first being a Season 14 episode in which Marge has Al craft a parody of John Mellencamp’s “Jack & Diane” called “Homer & Marge” to see their marriage. In Season 19, he parodied a song by Homer’s band, Sandgasm (already a parody of Nirvana), and later performed the series' theme song on the accordion for a Season 34 opening couch gag.

Batman Vs. Robin (2015)

The main conflict of Batman vs. Robin is between Bruce Wayne (Jason O'Mara) and his son, Damian (Stuart Allen), but one of the first, most exciting, and also unsettling sequences in the 2015 DC animated film sees the duo facing off against The Dollmaker. "Weird Al" dons an eerie and unrecognizable voice to portray the villain, who turns kidnapped children into his own army of rabid mutants wearing porcelain faces like masks, just as he does.

Sabrina: The Animated Series (1999-2000)

"Weird Al" would appear in three episodes of Sabrina: The Animated Series, which saw the famous teenage witch from the Archie Comics return to cartoon form. The artist's first appearance saw him perform a song called "Electric Shaver."

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023)

"Weird Al" briefly lends his voice alongside the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World cast to star in Netflix's anime-style adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. The majority of the fifth episode, "Lights. Camera. Sparks?!" is framed as a documentary about the making of a failed movie based on Scott's life and the opening narration is provided by Al.

The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy (2003-2007)

The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy poked fun at Hogwarts' Sorting Hat from the Harry Potter movies by introducing the character, Squidhat. In three episodes, "Weird Al" voices the pink squid who works at Toadblatt's Summer School of Sorcery assigning students to different houses, but also moonlights as a musician. 

Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003-2006)

In one episode of the series spun-off from the hit Disney animated movie, Lilo & Stitch, Lilo (Daveigh Chase), Stitch (Chris Sanders), and others go to the Elizabethan Fair, where one of Stitch's cousins, Tank, happens to be. Throughout the day, a minstrel (voiced by "Weird Al") randomly appears to narrate what takes place in a song, much to the characters' chagrin.

Eek! The Cat (1992-1997)

The Season 5 episode of Eek! The Cat called “The FugEektive” boasts two major cameos, one being America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh, who partners with the titular feline (Bill Kopp) for a crime-chasing program. The second major cameo is “Weird Al,” who appears on John and Eek!’s show with a tip to help their search for Sharky the Shark Dog.

Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil (2012-2019)

“Weird Al” is the type of person who can make any situation more fun with his presence alone, which is why casting him as the opposite in an episode of Star vs. the Forces of Evil was a stroke of genius. His character, Preston Change-O, is a seemingly average magician who is revealed to have the ability to, literally, suck the fun out of the room, which is the only way he can create any joy for himself.

Transformers: Earthspark (2022-Present) 

"Weird Al" is also a part of the Transformers franchise, having lent his voice to Nickelodeon's animated series, Transformers: Earthspark. He plays Cosmos — an Autobot who disguises himself as a carnival ride inspired by great sci-fi movies called Cosmic Thunder and can also make himself into a real flying saucer.

Batman: The Brave And The Bold (2008-2011)

"Weird Al" crossed paths with both Batman and Scooby-Doo in the same episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, in which Mystery Inc. shows up at his concert, which is soon hijacked by The Joker and The Penguin. He also lends his voice to another segment from Season 2's "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!" as jewelry show organizer Mr. Star.

Firebuds (2022-Present) 

Firebuds is a preschool-level Disney Channel series that combines the heroism of Paw Patrol with the fantasy elements of Cars, following the adventures of children who team up with sentient rescue vehicles. "Weird Al" guest stars as a minivan named Latch, who gets a much-needed boost in confidence from a sing-along session with a musician named Laura (voiced by Lisa Loeb).

Little Big Awesome (2016-2018)

"Weird Al" provides both his voice and his face to the role of Mr. Sun in six episodes of Amazon Prime's children's program, Little Big Awesome. His first appearance as the personification of the center of the Solar System sees him performing a duet with fellow singer-songwriter Aimee Mann as The Moon.

The 7D (2014-2016)

Disney Channel's The 7D is a reimagining of Snow White's Seven Dwarves as the protectors of the land called Jollywood. In an episode called "Shapeshifter," "Weird Al" guest stars as the dastardly villain of the same name.

Wander Over Yonder (2013-2016)

One of "Weird Al's" most bizarre roles (which is really saying something) is Dr. Screwball Jones, whom he voices in two episodes of Disney's Wander Over Yonder. The sentient banana with clownish rainbow hair has the same goal as the titular hero, Wander, to spread joy, but has more maniacal and borderline villainous ways of doing it.

Uncle Grandpa (2010-2017)

No one is better suited to play a polka-playing robot than "Weird Al," just as he does in a Season 2 episode of Cartoon Network's Uncle Grandpa called "Pal.0." However, before the RV's titular computer system busts out the accordion and grows a wavy hairdo, it goes rogue and tries to make the gang "normal."

Wallykazam! (2014-2017)

Nickelodeon’s Wallykazam! follows the adventures of a troll named Wally (Thomas Langston) and his pet dragon, Norville (Dan Bittner), who discover the biggest treat in the world while trick-or-treating in an episode called “Mustache Day.” However, in order to get it, they must complete three challenges invented by their neighbor, Wizard Jeff, voiced by “Weird Al,” who also sings a song about underpants in the episode.

We Bare Bears (2014-2019)

One of "Weird Al's" most despicable villain roles comes from Cartoon Network's We Bare Bears, in which he voices Lewis, who runs a Milk Bottle Knockdown game at a carnival which the bears volunteer to be prizes for. However, when they learn that the game is rigged, meaning no customers will be able to win and adopt them, Grizzly (Eric Edelstein) tries to win their freedom.

Close Enough (2020-2022)

In "Weird Al's" cameo on the Max original animated series, Close Enough, he reveals the secret behind his creative process. It involves sharpening a narwhal tusk, which he then uses to puncture his left foot and use the blood to summon a demon song god named Nishquantazi.

The Brak Show (2000-2007)

On Adult Swim's The Brak Show, in which the eponymous Space Ghost villain becomes the star of his own family sitcom, Brak's father (John Lowe) and Thundercleese (Carey Means) become swallowed by a giant worm. There, they meet Petroleum Joe ("Weird Al"), who is a lonely, perverted six-foot-tall monster supposedly made of oil.

Back At The Barnyard (2007-2011)

In one episode of Nickelodeon's series spin-off from Barnyard, Back at the Barnyard, the farm animals plan a heist. Their target turns out to be "Weird Al," who catches them in the act and attacks them with his gold records.

Mad (2012-2022)

"Weird Al" appears in the 100th episode of Cartoon Network's Mad — an animated adaptation of the classic comedy magazine — as Superman. He specifically voices Henry Cavill's version of the legendary DC Comics character in a spoof of 2013's Man of Steel.

Where's Waldo (2019-2021)

Twice "Weird Al" appears on Peacock's animated series adaptation of the Where's Waldo? books as Wizard Artbeard. The character lives up to his name by bearing a long set of whiskers that look as if it has been dipped in every corner of an artist's palette.

Animation is one of the earlier moving art forms, and has provided countless artists the means to bring their stories to life, be it through the black-and-white hues of Bosco the Talk-Ink Kid or the multicolored bliss of Fantasia. Toons can be as simple as the Oscar-winning “The Dot and the Line” from legends Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble, or they can be as endlessly complex as Wallace and Gromit’s stop-motion universe. Television has provided audiences with 80 years of memorable projects –- including some forgotten Saturday morning gems — with new shows debuting at a rapid pace, and we’re here to celebrate the very best animated series of all time.

From classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Fred Flintstone to modern favorites like Monkey D. Luffy and the Belcher family, CinemaBlend’s staff is saluting them all. So join us in paying tribute to the funniest, coolest, smartest, and most moving animated series that have graced our TV screens over the decades.

75. The Jetsons

Despite being the first show ABC ever broadcast in color, The Jetsons was canceled after a single season and only 24 total episodes. It just couldn’t find the right audience, at least until the reruns started airing on Saturday mornings and an entire generation of kids fell in love with the futuristic setting and zany plotlines. George, Jane, Judy, Elroy, Astro and Rosey eventually became so popular in syndication that more than 20 years after its cancellation, a further fifty-one episodes were produced, as well as a movie. It’s an unconventional success story but perhaps one fitting for a show filled with futuristic tech that hilariously never works as intended.

74. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

When Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block premiered in September 2001, Aqua Teen Hunger Force was one of its surreal cornerstones, and it’s pretty much stayed that way ever since. The long-running series follows three anthropomorphic fast food items – Master Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad – who get into all kinds of trouble with their neighbor(s), locals, and interdimensional beings. ATHF helped usher in a new era for adult animation at the turn of the century, and it's remained just as hilarious and timeless during that historic run. But for as wild and nonsensical as it gets, there’s a certain charm that makes it not just one of the funniest shows on Adult Swim, but in all of TV animation.

73. Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

Though not lauded quite as high as animation giants such as Walt Disney or Hanna-Barbera, Jay Ward delivered many of the medium’s most lasting creations, with The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle at the center of his zany, intelligent, and meta-before-meta-was-cool storytelling skills. The titular moose and squirrel’s serialized rivalry with the devious Boris and Natasha can never be forgotten, while the history-adoring side characters Sherman and his pup Mr. Peabody became a pop culture magnet unto themselves over the years. Now if only we could get a Fractured Fairy Tales spinoff for the 21st century…

72. What If...?

Upon its launch, part of the reason why a Disney+ subscription was so appealing involved the streaming service's new content directly connected to major IPs like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And while we’ve been treated to a number of live-action shows, the studio also took a major risk with the multiversal animated series What If…? The comic book anthology series offers alternate realities to the MCU characters and events we know and love, and shows how the entire franchise could be radically altered if just one character's arc differed. Additionally, the voice cast of What…If? features many Marvel favorites reprising their roles to tell these ambitious stories that could never be produced in live-action.

71. The Proud Family

The Proud Family was all about Penny Proud and her wild, yet relatable, journey through high school. While the premise was simple, this show’s fabulous crew of characters is what made it iconic, and its depiction of the day-to-day lives of an African American family is what made it groundbreaking. From our lead Penny to her father Oscar, her besties Dijonay, Zoey, LaCienega and Sticky Webb — and of course Sugar Mama — this family is the best, and we’ll adore them forever.

70. Beavis and Butt-Head

Besides The Simpsons, arguably no animated series from the 1990s sparked a bigger array of multi-generational reactions around the country than Beavis and Butthead. As soon as it premiered on MTV in March 1993, Mike Judge’s groundbreaking, edgy, and unsavory cartoon became a national sensation while following two objectively moronic teenagers barely navigating school, life, nachos, and a carousel of music video commentary. Video games, movies, tons of merchandising (both official and bootleg) flooded the market in the years that followed, and there's a reason revivals keep happening: it's a great show, dammit. Mm-heh-heh.

69. Schoolhouse Rock!

Schoolhouse Rock! is an animated gem that has been passed down from generation to generation for all the right reasons. Originally debuting on TV back in 1973, the show's approach to combining educational programming with toon-filled songs cemented it as a true classic with more lasting value than most. From grammar-focused tunes like “Conjunction Junction" to the iconic intro-to-governmental-processes track “I’m Just a Bill” to even its Preamble song, Schoolhouse Rock! has had a lasting cultural impact, influencing many other shows, and even inspiring some spoofs along the way to its permanent place within pop culture.

68. Static Shock

The DC Animated Universe got a true shock to its system when Denys Cowan's Static Shock zapped onto TV screens in the early 2000s as a Saturday morning offering on Kids’ WB. Viewers were treated to some truly exciting, funny and heartfelt episodes that tracked the heroic exploits of teenager Virgil Hawkins in Dakota City. Thanks to late series creator Dwayne McDuffie and his talented team, Static Shock remains a dynamic piece of comic book fun, serving up some serious action mixed in with thoughtful social commentary on occasion. In short, this is a super-powered gem that’s rightfully still revered to this day.

67. Dexter's Laboratory

What child hasn't wished they had a secret location in their house that provided the means to do the most fantastic things their heart desires? Dexter’s Laboratory helped many youngins live vicariously through its titular brainiac, and the general hilarity of his meddling sister Dee Dee derailing it all helped make this one a definitive Cartoon Network classic. From the brain of the similarly brainy Genndy Tartakovsky, Dexter also boasted other animated shorts like Dial M For Monkey and The Justice Friends, which were all equally as enjoyable. To this day, I bet there are many who owe their ability to say “cheese omelet” in French to this wonderful series.

66. Kim Possible

“Call me, beep me, if you want to reach me,” because it’s time to talk about Kim Possible. Mixing a high-stakes spy drama with high school shenanigans appropriate for Disney Channel-aged audiences, this show is an action-packed good time. Largely centered on Kim’s missions to take down Dr. Drakken and Shego with the help (or more like attempted help) of her bestie Ron Stoppable and his naked molerat Rufus, Kim Possible defined many childhoods and taught generations of kids, and specifically girls, that anything is possible with the right mindset and gadgets.

65. Muppet Babies (1984)

How amazing are Jim Henson’s Muppets? The list goes on, but one key factor would be that Kermit and the gang brought to life what remains one of pop culture’s only genuinely great examples of “Your favorite characters, but they’re babies.” Trading TV studios and New York City exteriors for a Nanny-run nursery where the power of make-believe knows no bounds, Muppet Babies showed viewers of all ages that imagination is powered best when one is surrounded by friends to the end. Unfortunately for avid fans, the show’s abundant use of licensed TV, film, and music clips will likely keep it from ever hitting home media.

64. Family Guy

For one reason or 69 others — get it, Peter? — certain TV shows are able to get away with wildly edgy content without getting “canceled," either literally or figuratively. Granted, Seth MacFarlane's long-running fave Family Guy actually did actually get canceled by Fox back in 2002, but the '80s-adoring comedy was able to return from its shallow grave just two years later due to extraordinary DVD sales, a hit syndicated run, and the embrace of Adult Swim. and high ratings from reruns in syndication. Ever since that 2004 revival, viewers have followed the antics of Peter, Lois, Chris, Meg, Stewie and Brian along with all the ridiculous and often offensive cutaway flashbacks that fill their lives.

63. Robot Chicken 

Watching Robot Chicken calls to mind many chldhood memories of inventing scenarios with action figures modeled after classic movie and TV characters. That's essentially what Seth Green and Matthew Senreich’s stop-motion animated Adult Swim hit is: people playing with their toys. But with a bigger budget and more talented voice actors than any kids I ever played with. With boundary-pushing and insightful humor in the mix, the Emmy-winning Robot Chicken is sketch comedy at its most refreshingly unique, rebelliously raw, and deliciously nostalgic, and is not bogged down by the limitations that might come with a live-action production.

62. The Flintstones

For many people, The Flintstones is one of the first cartoons we remember watching on TV. This classic Hanna-Barbera series about a lovable caveman and his family navigating a prehistoric world field with outrageous stone-age variations of modern-day appliances and tools, is just as funny and attention-grabbing as it was upon its release more than 60 years ago, which is really saying something about its quality. On top of such indelible characters like Fred Flinstone, Barney Rubble, and the Great Gazoo, the show also has one of the most iconic opening themes of all time.

61. Freakazoid!

Though not the most marquee-ready superhero, Freakazoid!’s titular protagonist is the creation of Batman: The Animated Series legends Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, with Steven Spielberg and Tiny Toons vet Paul Ruegger leading the charge. So yeah, it’s a perfectly bonkers mix of comic book mythos mixed with slapstick and fourth-wall-breaking comedy, complete with a mini-universe of B-tier heroes and villains such as Candle Jack (but don’t say his name). Lasting two seasons from 1995-1997, Freakazoid! ss a joy for viewers of all ages, anchored by the stellar voice work of stars Paul Rugg and Ed Asner.

60. Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers

Long before the series was reimagined as a hilarious Disney+ movie starring John Mulaney and Andy Sandberg, Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers started out as a tremendous and timeless action-adventure toon about a pair of chipmunks fronting a crew of anthropomorphic animals. Thanks in part to that earworm theme, it never gets old watching Chip, Dale, Gadget Hackwrench, Monterey Jack, and Zipper solve all manner of crimes (both big and small, really small) and save the day before the end of each episode, and the show can still hold the attention of our kids all these years later.

59. Teen Titans

Some viewers probably weren’t sure what to make of Teen Titans upon its debut, but the series eventually became a hit – and for good reason. The quirky superhero romp is the definition of cartoon greatness, as it skillfully blends action and comedy, ultimately using both to great effect. Yet, most importantly, so much heart is on display amidst the explosions and sheer wackiness as well. Because of that, Robin, Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Boy and Raven remain not only one of DC’s best TV super teams, but also one of its greatest familial units. And, yes, that theme song still slaps.

58. Gargoyles

The oft-underrated Saturday morning toon Gargoyles is one of those shows that manages to deliver more than the kind of action you’d expect from Disney's weekly animated fare. It’s a dark and complex drama series with dynamic characters, beautiful animation and stories that sometimes border on Greek tragedy. Many viewers understandably still have such reverence for the tales that EP Greg Weisman and his team told about the mighty Goliath and his clan of night guardians. It’s ironic that a group of beings that turn cold as stone are among some of the warmest heroes to ever grace a TV screen.

57. DuckTales

Having quite possibly the catchiest theme song on this list that's chock-full of them is probably enough reason to include DuckTales on this list, but of course, the show has so much more going for it. Scrooge McDuck and his nephews, previously only bit players in Disney cartoons, earned the star spotlight for a show that was about as close to an action/adventure cartoon as Disney had delivered at the time, making it something fresh new, and exciting. But it was still “Disney” and thus more accessible to younger viewers than other ‘80s cartoons looking to sell action figures, drawing from Carl Banks' timeless comic run.

56. Hey Arnold!

Amidst all of Nickelodeon's best chracters, perhaps no greater role model for younger viewers exists than the football-headed protagonist of Hey Arnold! In fact, Craig Bartlett’s series offered something very few animated programs have (then or since): a diverse ensemble whom kids could potentially relate to or aspire to be like. With a stunningly grounded urban aesthetic, even in its most peculiar momens, and a hefty set of valuable life lessons that often came out of dark situations, admittedly — not to mention an absolute banger of a jazz score — Hey Arnold! is a masterstroke for the medium.

55. The Real Ghostbusters

1984's Ghostbusters inspired an immediate sequel, but when live-action follow-ups stalled, Sony did the next best thing: created this magnificent riff on the beloved property. No, they couldn’t get BIll Murray and Dan Aykroyd together every three years, but they could animate Peter, Ray, Winston and Egon for a series of animated adventures around New York City, the world, and even realms beyond. The best part about The Real Ghostbusters is that it understood the irreverent tone of Ivan Reitman’s two movies, but split the difference to also appeal directly to kids who just wanted to see Slimer. When we really need a hit of that nostalgic rush, these are the Ghostbusters stories that most deserve revisiting.

54. Teen Titans Go

DC Comics adaptations often get knocked for being too serious, but that's not the case with Teen Titans Go, an effervescent, energetic, and rapid-fire funny series centered on Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven, and Starfire. The show embraced irreverent humor, leaning hard into its heroes' stereotypical behaviors, from Robin’s crippling need to be a leader to Raven’s broody Goth Girl energy and beyond. Without hinging on continuity or major cameos from A-list DC heroes (at least, not until Teen Titans Go! To The Movies, which was equally excellent), this slap-happy toon basically gave young kids a comic book portal where they could enjoy “waffles, waffles, waffles” without having to brood over anyone's parents getting gunned down in an alley.

53. The Powerpuff Girls

Sugar, spice, and everything nice wasn’t even half of what we got with The Powerpuff Girls. Like many other animated classics, it was a show made for kids that adults could easily also enjoy. The superpowered Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup deal with typical childhood troubles like sibling rivalry and bed wetting while also saving their town from a truly ingenious rogue’s gallery. These endearing kindergartners, their friends and foes (like arch nemesis Mojo Jojo, and Powerpuff wanna-be Princess Morbucks) provide us with laughs, lessons and intrigue, all wrapped in a parody and pop-culture focused package that doles out plenty of surprises.

52. Tiny Toon Adventures

Following in the footsteps of the iconic Looney Tunes squad was always going to be a tall order, but the Stephen Spielbeg-produced Tiny Toon Adventures understood the assignment. While the characters may have been inspired by those that came before, each one from Babs and Buster to Plucky and Hampton, was given just as much freedom to be entirely new characters, not simply the “new versions” of the classics. The humor was always on point, with plenty of gags for younger viewers, alongside references only the older “kids” watching would get.

51. Courage the Cowardly Dog

Making a cartoon for children that's as creepy as it is funny is no easy task, but Courage the Cowardly Dog found a way to execute that balance quite beautifully, relying mostly on overtly bizarre and/or paranormal villains. Courage protecting his owners, Eustace and Muriel, against everything from a cursed mummy to a duck with a mallet never gets old. It’s the most deserving Cartoon Network original that needs a revival, which could potentially still happen someday, considering Courage was part of a Scooby-Doo crossover movie released in 2021. Until that day comes, fans can revisit the entire series with a Max subscription.

50. Adventure Time

Most classic adventure cartoons engage in storytelling in a more earnest manner, but only a few effectively capture the joys of make-believe like Adventure Time — which for many is the absolute cream of the crop for Cartoon Network’s original programming. Creator Pendleton Ward’s fantasy-comedy follows Finn the Human (Jeremy Shada) and Jake the Dog (John DiMaggio) as they navigate the weird and wonderful, post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, having a mathematical time along the way. With its charming animation, ingenious creatures, clever world-building, and a lighthearted tone that never abandons spellbinding excitement, the fun truly never ends.

49. Big Mouth

It’s not every day that audiences get a hilariously offensive animated show that actually provides accurate representation of growing up LGBTQ+. On the surface, Netflix's Big Mouth, which rocks an all-star cast led by co-creator Nick Kroll and John Mulaney, simply shows the trouble and turmoil of puberty, sexuality, hormones, and the everyday struggle that we call “life.” Lucky for viewers, it is also much, much more than that. The show follows a group of young people who tend to be accompanied by “hormone monsters” (who now have their own wacky spinoff series) who help guide them through the changes and struggles that come with growing up.

48. Arthur

Kids owe PBS for so many great animated series, but Arthur might be its crown jewel. For over 20 years, Marc Brown’s storybook aardvark, along with his friends and family, endeared themselves to the public. The author and the show’s writing staff, through their efforts, taught youngsters firm lessons in responsibility, community, empathy and much more. What’s particularly impressive is that the grade-school comedy managed to remain consistent in conveying such morals during its lengthy run. Of course, when the program wasn’t dropping vital nuggets of knowledge, it was simply exuding pure, imaginative fun. What we have here is a truly timeless show, and one that’s sure to delight audiences for generations to come.

47. Pokémon

Part of the reason Pokémon remains one of the top franchises worldwide is because the series can have a different meaning for every generation that consumes it. The kids of 2024 can watch the same show O.G. viewers watched in the late '90s and appreciate those characters in new ways, given there have been plenty of successive projects that have come loaded with over a thousand different Pokémon for children to latch onto and make their favorite. The show's awesome battles haven't quite held up when it comes to the franchise's many video games, but perhaps someday, Game Freak will give the people what they want.

46. Spider-Man

Spider-Man fandom has been known to grow from many sources, including the comics and multiple generations of live-action blockbusters, but the Spider-Man animated series from 1994 holds a special place in the hearts of millennials – as it should, because it is amazing (pun totally intended). In retrospect, the content censorship is ridiculous (this is a show where Spidey wasn’t even allowed to punch people), but the filmmakers still found ways to deliver exciting adaptations of comic book stories, and some episodes are even better than the source material. We have yet to see a better version of the Venom origin story than what was created here.

45. Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Thanks in large part to the success of Tim Burton’s Batman from 1989, it was at one point decided that the best version of the Caped Crusader is the dark and brooding version. That has now been the go-to mode for the superhero for decades – but at the very least Batman: The Brave And The Bold reminded us for a time just how much fun the Dark Knight can be. The deep voice and silly sensibilities of Diedrich Bader make him one of the best to ever play the hero, and every episode delivers a fun team-up opportunity. Every DC character is represented with love, but there’s an argument to be made that John DiMaggio's Aquaman is the all-time best version of the Atlantean king.

44. Doug

The entire Nicktoons library was a big deal for '90s kids, and who was more relatable than Doug Funnie on Doug? Through his journal entries and soaring imagination, the preteen opened up about the seemingly everyday events of his life, from getting a haircut to trying liver and onions, and we totally felt that. We understood the middle school awkwardness, the anguish of his crush on Patti Mayonnaise and just how good it felt to rock out to your favorite band (The Beets, of course! “Aw-wee-oo! Killer tofuuuuu!”). We wanted Skeeter to be our best friend and a dog as cool as Porkchop. Not to mention, the opening credits and theme song are pretty iconic.

43. Pinky and the Brain

Let’s be honest here: Pinky and the Brain was repetitive. In every episode, the two main characters did “the same thing we do every night, Pinky… try to take over the world!” But it was the way that the odd couple mice played off of each other — with Pinky being the doofus assistant to the Orson Welles-inspired mastermind mouse that is The Brain — that allowed this Animaniacs episode segment to thrive as its own standalone series. It's one we still quote to this day, using many of the cast members’ favorite jokes. Like everything in Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain benefitted from an “anything goes” approach to humor, meaning that stories would involve Brain’s archnemesis (a hamster named Snowball) or a bit where Pinky gets elected President of the United States. And it all worked because the creators understood how to be intelligent while also being goofy.

42. X-Men: The Animated Series

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe revitalized how big and connected comic book adaptations could be, few film and TV examples truly brought to live what people loved about the medium. X-Men: The Animated Series was one of the first, giving audiences comic book-accurate versions of the beloved mutants that felt like they jumped right off the page. The show offered long-term serializing storytelling just like the source material, something that was essentially unheard of for a Saturday morning cartoon. But whether one was an avid reader or not, these were (and perhaps still are) the definitive versions of the X-Men. It’s no wonder that decades later, the series was revived as X-Men '97.

41. Infinity Train

Created by Regular Show writer/artist Owen Dennis, the Cartoon Network-turned-Max series Infinity Train is the crown jewel of overlooked and under-discussed animated series. A highly imaginative coming-of-age sci-fi fantasy,  not the most common sub-genre, the series centers on a different interconnected story and character set in each of its four seasons, with everything taking place on a mysterious and impossibly long train where most cars present challenges for the characters to figure out and overcome. It’s an emotionally gripping and exciting tale that never goes off the rails, with a stacked cast of familiar voices.

40. Futurama

The second mega-hit series created in part by Matt Groening, Futurama has always been far more than just The Future Simpsons, thanks to its unforgettable cast of meme-ready nutjobs, egomaniacs, and bending-proficient robots. From Fry’s dopey optimism to The Professor’s absent-minded genius to Hermes’ ability to drop everything if a limbo stick comes around, the series balances its strong personalities with tons of space-faring, paradox-thwarting, time-traveling mayhem that never stops being fun. Both one of the smartest and silliest animated series of all time, and filled with some of the nerdiest jokes possible, Futurama has remained a beloved small-screen entity in part because the Planet Express crew has managed to survive multiple cancellations at Fox and Comedy Central, reaching its third lifeform at Hulu, presumably because the Hypnotoad demanded it so.

39. Mickey Mouse (Classic Disney Shorts)

There are few animated characters more famous than Mickey Mouse, and it’s safe to say the House of Mouse wouldn’t be everything it is today without Disney’s classic Mickey Mouse animated shorts that debuted in the 1920s. Smartly written and brimming with slapstick comedy, these quick hits of quirky fun introduced us to the loveable mouse — who displayed courage and strength but in a way that was achievable for any of us — along with the equally iconic Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Pluto and Goofy. Included in this series is 1935’s “The Band Concert” — Disney’s first color cartoon, which quite literally paved the way for Disney animation for 100 years and counting. And while it may not be part of that exact era, give me Goofy bungling up ski lessons any day.

38. Dragon Ball Z

Though it wasn’t the first show in the franchise, Dragon Ball Z introduced countless kids and teenagers to iconic characters like Goku, Piccolo, Vegeta, and Gohan throughout the ‘90s, especially after the anime series became a mainstay in Cartoon Network’s Toonami afternoon block. This intense cartoon about a group known as the Z Fighters who attempt to protect Earth (and later, other planets) from diabolical forces was something many of us ran home from school or off the bus to catch each weekday. The introduction of increasingly dangerous and destructive villains like Frieza, Cell, and Boo (each had their own saga) continued to raise the bar as the series went on, and make this still a gem worth revisiting.

37. Rocko's Modern Life

Is there a classic Nickelodeon show from the ‘90s that captures the spirit of the era more than Rocko’s Modern Life? This zany, surreal, and extraordinary animated series debuted in 1993 and quickly found an audience thanks to its unique style of humor that appealed to both children and adults. With characters like the neurotic titular wallaby, his best friends Heffer Wolfe and Filburt, and the various members of the Bighead family, there was so much to love about the show. It pushed the envelope with its humor and art direction and had a lot to say about the modern world, hence its name. The mammalian gang even returned to fans in 2019 with the special Static Cling.

36. Animaniacs

We still have no idea how Animaniacs creator Tom Ruegger got the greenlight to make everyone's childhood better with this hilarious, clever, but extremely inside-baseball showbiz comedy aimed at mature kids. Yes, on the surface, the Animaniacs works as a variety show, an evolution off The Muppet Show during which the hosts – the Warner siblings, one with a Liverpool accent – would set up individual cartoons. But in between, the banter and humor offered up in Animaniacs consisted of some of the funniest, most outrageous, and unpredictable jokes that would spoof Dolly Parton, Marilyn Monroe, and the idea of fingering Prince, as it were. Sometimes the show managed to be educational, but mostly it was pure lunacy, and we loved every second of it.

35. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Mysteries are the most entertaining genre of storytelling. What’s more satisfying than a tidy reveal at the end of a whodunit, and a villain exclaiming how they would have gotten away with it, if not for those meddling kids? Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? followed a very popular “monster of the week” format, but wasn’t afraid to push the envelope to freak out little kids who tuned into a cartoon and were terrified by haunted suits of armor, killer clowns, and more. From its unforgettable theme song to the vocal contributions of radio icon Casey Kasem as Shaggy, Scooby-Doo Where Are You? walked so that Goosebumps and Gravity Falls could run.

34. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated

Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated is a breath of fresh air within the long-running franchise birthed by Hanna-Barbera. For this particular production, the typical case-of-the-week format isn’t in play, as serialized storytelling is utilized. It’s a great approach that really fleshes out the meddling kids and the titular canine in a way that past incarnations don’t. The humor associated with this entertainment property is definitely employed in this iteration. However, what’s also exciting is how the writers and artists aim to deliver some truly scary monsters, all seemingly tied to the antagonist Mr. E. While it’s admirable that the show sticks to its predecessors’ roots in many ways, its goal to shake up the classic formula results in an overarching mystery that’s both compelling and creepy.

33. Archer

Creator Adam Reed’s singular vision and undying creativity turned Archer from a ribald spin on James Bond into one of the most well-rounded pieces of spy fiction in existence. H. Jon Benjamin’s unmistakable voice gives life to the booze-swilling agent’s snappy insults and TV-MA euphemisms alongside a downright stellar cast that also includes Aisha Tyler, Judy Greer, Jessica Walter, Chris Parnell and more. The series is a testament to the importance of characters compared to plot, with Archer’s core group shifting from years of traditional storytelling to multiple side-mission seasons such as the Miami-set Vice, the subconscious-set Dreamland, the jungle-filled Danger Island and others. On a jokes-per-minute basis, it stands next to comedy giants like The Simpsons and Airplane!, and can drink them both under the table.

32. Batman Beyond

Debuting in 1999, Batman Beyond jumps decades forward into the future and showcases the story of a now-retired Bruce Wayne who is acting as a mentor to the next generation Dark Knight, Terry McGinnis, as voiced by the legend himself, Kevin Conroy. The show earned multiple award nominations, winning two Daytime Emmy Awards. Bruce and Terry have just enough similarities and frustrating differences to keep their dynamic captivating while still wholesome, which makes this particular animated series one of the most enjoyable to watch in the franchise. Terry is forced to work twice as hard in order to balance out both his personal life and his crime-fighting side persona, as he both learns from and teaches his mentor as they both work to stand up for what they both clearly believe in.

31. Star Wars: The Clone Wars

While a lot is owed to Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars, the animated side of George Lucas’ sci-fi universe truly took off in 2008 with the launch of Cartoon Network's Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The series is, in large part, what it is due to franchise guru Dave Filoni, who thought his hiring was a prank. Filoni’s respect for Lucas’ work permeates the entire CGI show, but there are also some cool elements that he himself adds to the canon, including the now-beloved Jedi Ahsoka Tano. With incredible storylines, sweet animation and strong voice acting, this show works well on its own but also stands firmly alongside the films it builds upon.

30. Bob's Burgers

One of the many things to love about Bob’s Burgers is just how close, loving, and, well, lovingly strange the main characters at the center of the show are. The Belcher family is (mostly) committed to keeping their small, family-run burger shop up and running, but their kooky adventures usually take the whole family away from the restaurant. Exasperated pessimist Bob, his happy-go-lucky wife Linda and their kids, Tina, Gene and Louise get into a number of hilariously weird scrapes that, honestly, most of us only wish we could have to make life more intriguing. Add to that Louise’s near-constant scheming, Tina’s awkwardness, and how the whole family interacts with a town full of endearing oddballs, and you have yourself a wonderfully weird winner. Tell 'em Teddy sent ya.

29. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the perfect show for a perfect moment in time. It combined outrageous and over the top late 80s imagery with some of the first mainstream depictions of skater culture and added ninjas, an outrageous backstory and a steady stream of cheesy catchphrases. Deep in the sewer of our hearts, amidst roundhouse kicks and impossibly yellow April O’Neil jumpsuits, they carved out a place for themselves, and more than thirty years later, their ooze still remains in the form of reimagined shows, new movies and billions of dollars worth of merchandise. And despite all the success, they're still just heroes in a half-shell, and they're green. (Hey, get a grip.)

28. SpongeBob SquarePants (1999-Present)

In 1999, if you told someone a silly gap-toothed sponge would one day be as recognizable to the children of the world as Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny, they would’ve laughed. And yet, SpongeBob SquarePants continues to entertain the children of today, and has been lovingly embraced by the Millenials and Gen-Z who grew up with it as well. The internet is loaded with memes dedicated to the franchise, and there’s still plenty of debate as to what is in a Krabby Patty. With plenty of episodes and even some spinoffs, it feels like SpongeBob and friends will be entertaining children for many years to come.

27. Rugrats (1991)

Rugrats premiered in 1991 on Nickelodeon as one of the first three Nicktoons, aimed at a younger audience than Doug and The Ren & Stimpy Show. It was a staple for kids throughout the ‘90s and into the early 2000s, with nine seasons about the adventures of babies Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil, with regular appearances from characters like the parents, Angelica, and (eventually) Dil. The show could swing from silly to serious, with memorable episodes that ranged from covering the grief of losing a parent to the spectacular Reptar On Ice, with a dinosaur love song that still rings in the hearts of plenty of ‘90s kids. There’s a reason why this Nicktoon show went on to inspire Rugrats movies and a 2021 reboot.

26. Harley Quinn

What happens when you blend DC Comics mythology with the kind of crass adult comedy you find in shows like Family Guy and South Park? You get Harley Quinn, which follows Kaley Cuoco’s version of The Joker’s former squeeze going on adventures with Lake Bell’s Poison Ivy, her best-friend-turned-girlfriend, and getting into hijinks with fellow supervillains and superheroes alike. One doesn’t need to be a hardcore DC fan to appreciate Harley Quinn, although that definitely helps with catching the deep-cut references and Easter eggs. As long as you're in the mood for clever writing and all the edgy, not-safe-for-kids humor you could ask for, Harley Quinn is a must-[censored]-watch.

25. Gravity Falls

With hands on our bible of beasts, baubles and bafflement — Journal 3, naturally — we can solemnly swear that Gravity Falls is the weirdest, wildest and gobblewonkiest project that’s ever come out of Disney, bursting through the castle doors like rainbows from a gnome’s mouth. Created by Alex Hirsch, the mystery-hinged funfest centers on a pair of siblings, Jason Ritter’s Dipper and Kristen Schaal’s Mabel, living with their kooky and perhaps unstable great uncle, Grunkle Stan (voiced by Hirsch). And for anyone who loves codes, hidden messages, deep lore, crytozoology, conspiracies, and everything sharing that fringe space, Gravity Falls is the holy grail of animated shows. (And that grail is filled with Pitt Cola.)

Despite nearly universal love and acclaim, Disney cut Gravity Falls’ run short at just two seasons, although the actual supplementary Journal 3 (which Hirsch co-wrote) is expansive and unique enough of an experience to at least count as a one-off special. There’s still hope that fans will one day go on more adventures in the Mystery Shack with Soos, assuming Bill Cipher doesn’t muck anything up, but even if these 40 episodes are all that ever get produced, it was perfection.

24. The Boondocks

Aaron McGruder’s adaptation of his own comic strip, The Boondocks, is a must-watch for those trying to better understand racial relations, culture, and racism in the United States. With the help of some voice acting from Regina King, Riley and his brother Huey navigate the Black experience of living in a predominantly white suburb.

The Boondocks thrived on taking hot-button issues and forcing the viewer to think about not just the issue but their own reaction and perspective of that issue. The Boondocks deserves applause for how it pushed the envelope in its four seasons and offered thoughtful commentary in a way few other animated shows can.

23. Justice League

Superheroes joining forces in the DC Animated Universe wasn’t anything new prior to 2001 thanks to special pairings in Superman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond’s “The Call” two-parter, but Justice League placed teamwork front and center. Viewers watched Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl vanquish terrestrial, alien and magical threats together, and it was a blast.

Justice League continues to be appreciated for its crisp animation, mature storytelling and stellar character development, as well as for transforming John Stewart from a B-list character to the definitive Green Lantern for a generation. Justice League makes an effective crash course for those wanting to dive into DC lore without having read any of the comics.

22. Star Trek: Lower Decks

Being such a well known and praised franchise for decades, die-hard fans were quite surprised when it was announced back in 2019 that the Star Trek franchise would be taking a shot at an adult comedy with a brand new animated show, Star Trek: Lower Decks. Written by Rick and Morty’s Mike McMahan, the show takes place in the 24th century and instead of focusing on the high-ranking officers on the Bridge Crew, it gives viewers a glimpse into the “lower deck” officers with the more humble jobs that keep the ship running…smoothly? The show often references the rest of the Star Trek earlier entries and breaks down sci-fi tropes, often in a very NSFW way, and should delight both seasoned and new fans alike.

21. Sailor Moon

If you’re of a certain age, Sailor Moon may be the first anime you ever saw in your entire life. It’s one of those ‘90s anime that was sandwiched between Fist of the North Star in the ‘80s, and the explosion that was Dragon Ball Z, and Pokemon in the later ‘90s. Even so, Sailor Moon still managed to stand out, and it still stands out today. It may be because Serena (or Usagi, if you prefer sub over dub) is so dang loveable. As is her relationship with Darien (AKA, Tuxedo Mask).

And of course, we can’t forget the many other Sailor Scouts, as they all have their own unique personalities and inner worlds. In truth, Sailor Moon is the kind of cartoon that appeals to both young girls, but also grown men in their ‘30s and ‘40s, and really, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

20. One Piece

Shows like One Piece don’t come along often, and really, we’re not sure there is any other show on television that’s like it. It’s one thing to have an astronomically high episode count, but quite another for that story to be serialized and tell a great story of a pirate adventure that’s been wowing viewers for over two decades. The character development and growth of the Straw Hat Pirates and the world-building it boasts makes this an easy choice for top-tier anime, and it’s great that Netflix finally took notice and made an equally enjoyable live-action series.

It’s a modern-day epic story equatable to Gilgamesh or Beowulf, and feels like a lived-in universe more than any other anime out there. It’s totally worth the time investment for those who feel overwhelmed by tackling the 1000+ episodes of this ongoing series.

19. The Critic

The Critic, which revolves around New York film critic, Jay Sherman (voiced by A League of Their Own’s Jon Lovitz) sometimes hits way too close to home. What we mean is, with many of us being critics ourselves, a lot of Jay’s fussy qualms about movies seem super spot on, such as the eye roll he gave to the made-up movie, Beverly Hills RoboCanine Cop and a Half 2 (Starring Clint Eastwood!).

But that’s just the beauty of The Critic, because even though Jay was often fed up with having to review so many mediocre movies, he still loved his job, and stayed a movie fan to his core. Which, again, hits very close to home. Plus, it didn’t hurt that the series had The Simpsons writers, Al Jean and Mike Reiss as showrunners. It stinks!...that we don’t have any new episodes of The Critic to watch these days.

18. Daria

Daria once described herself to a therapist as actively working to make people dislike her. She’s not wrong. Daria's main character is, at times, deeply unlikeable. She speaks as if she’s a detached observer into her own life, making callous observations in a dry, dispassionate voice. She’s like a real life narrator, condescendingly commenting on the world around her as everyone else plays volleyball and talks about who they’re going to prom with.

Despite all her efforts, however, it’s impossible to hate Daria because she’s really funny and also not wrong most of the time. High school is often pretty stupid and populated with try-hards who don’t know themselves or have any idea where they’re going. Listening to Daria judge them feels like therapy, even if, deep down, we know she’s just as lost as they are.

17. Over The Garden Wall

What’s most impressive about Over The Garden Wall is just how effectively it slips under your skin and rattles you. The familiar sibling dynamic between Wirt (Elijah Wood) and his little brother Greg (Collin Dean) is disarming, as are the fantasy elements and talking animals… but never forgotten is the terror that comes from the show’s central premise: two boys getting lost in the woods and trying to find their way home. Each chapter starts with a light touch, but ends up gripping you by the throat and invading your nightmares.

The episodes brim with fantastic and horrific imagination - from the shadowy beasts that lead souls astray to the disturbing Auntie Whispers (voiced brilliantly by John Cleese). There are only 10 episodes and none of them run over 12 minutes, but Over The Wall leaves a deep impression, and it’s wonderful to revisit annually during Spooky Season.

16. King of the Hill

I tell you what, it’s hard to get better than King of the Hill. The long-running hit (which has a Mike Judge-led revival coming to Hulu soon), focused on Hank, Peggy and their son Bobby Hill, and their day to day life in the small town of Arlen, Texas. This slice-of-life animated show used something a lot of people probably take for granted - the absurdities of relationships, work, growing up, marriage and other aspects of daily life - turned them up to 11 and made every episode across 13 seasons feel like we were laughing at our own friends and family.

Don’t we all know at least one person obsessed with lawn care? Or one boy who ain’t right? If not, you’ll certainly wish you knew the residents of Rainey Street and could call them neighbors, because mundane, working class life has never looked like so much looney fun.

15. Mickey Mouse (2013 shorts)

Mickey Mouse is one of the most iconic characters in the history of animation. He’s been everywhere and done everything. What made the new series of shorts that began in 2013 and ended in 2023 special wasn’t that they did anything differently, (though certainly the visual style was completely new for the character) it was that they went back to the beginning and let Mickey be the Mickey he was always designed to be.

The modern run of shorts, simple called Mickey Mouse, let the big-eared protagonist be the hero, but they also let him be silly, angry, surprising, and ridiculous. They pack more gags into a five-minute short than would seem possible. The shorts were new, but also served as throwbacks to earlier Mickey eras when the character had more creative freedom before he became the icon we know. They were a breath of fresh air after decades of a stagnant and sterilized mouse.

14. The Legend Of Korra

There is sometimes debate on whether Avatar: The Last Airbender or its follow-up series, The Legend of Korra, is the better cartoon. But, when it comes to us, all we have to say is, why not both? Because honestly, you can’t lose with either series. That said, The Legend of Korra definitely is special in its own right. This is a more grown-up take on the world of Avatar, where each season introduces a new threat to our heroine, Korra (Voiced by the magnificent Janet Varney).

With each season, however, we see Korra adapt and change in ways that Aang never got to do, which is enhanced by Korra’s fantastic Team Avatar of Bolin, Mako, and of course, Asami. Oh, and speaking of Asami, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention how groundbreaking this show was, as Korrasami is still one of our favorite TV couples of all time.

13. South Park

Possibly the most controversial animated show of all time, South Park. With 26 seasons under their belt, Trey Parker and Matt Stones’ on Comedy Central follows the story of four young boys and the typically pop-culture chaos that surrounds them. The show’s intro blatantly states that the show “...should not be viewed by anyone.” South Park pulls no punches and gives no f’s. T

The creators have pulled some crazy stunts in the past, like attending the 2000 Oscars while being nominated, wearing dresses, and high on LSD. They have also attempted to get their own show canceled, been banned in China, as well as hitting a television milestone by going “bleep-free” with the use of the “f-bomb” live on air. It’s a show that could not be launched today, but since it has such huge weight in the zeitgeist, expect to see some more offensive Colorado antics for some time.

12. Star Wars Rebels

Star Wars Rebels picked up the action set in the galaxy far, far away after The Clone Wars ended, and the animated series ran from 2014-2018 on Disney XD to expand on the era ahead of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story with a found family of original characters. Not only did the show prove that Star Wars doesn’t need to rely on legacy characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker to tell a fantastic story and deliver arguably one of the best deaths in the franchise’s history, but it set up some stellar stories that are being expanded in live-action with Ahsoka.

There was no certainty that Rebels would succeed back in the beginning despite the popularity of The Clone Wars, but the story was solid during its original run and stands the test of time for first-time watchers and re-watchers alike. And its characters, ships and plots have remained core to the universe even beyond its conclusion.

11. Invincible

Invincible was released for those with an Amazon Prime subscription during the height of superhero mania. Despite concerns about superhero fatigue, the animated series carved stands out within the genre. Namely by being the animated answer to The Boys, and being an R-rated and wildly violent cartoon show. Invincible focuses on the title character aka Mark Grayson who is a young person coming into his own as a wildly popular hero who boasts the same powers, if not the same prowess, as his father Omni- Man, who is revealed to be something quite a bit more dangerous than anyone readily expected.

Adapted rather faithfully from Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker's comic book, the story is emotional, the action sequences are bloody and brutal, and Invincible’s voice cast is led by A-list talent like Steven Yeun, J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, and more. And the show is so popular that Omni-Man spawned a character in Mortal Kombat 1.

10. Justice League Unlimited

Everything that was great about Justice League got ratcheted up a notch with Justice League Unlimited. Thanks to the team’s founding heroes expanding its ranks — minus Hawkgirl, who returned later in Season 1 — this continuation allowed the DC Animated Universe to shine the spotlight on even lesser-known heroes, from Green Arrow and The Question to Booster Gold and Huntress. Like its predecessor, the show wholeheartedly embraced its printed page while also putting unique spins on its starring protagonists and antagonists.

Although there were various standalone episodes peppered throughout Justice League Unlimited, the show was at its best when delving into its serialized stories that built off plot threads from the previous DC Animated Universe shows, namely the Cadmus and Secret Society arcs. That makes Unlimited arguably feel like the most comic book-y entry in this shared continuity. While the DCAU would be revisited a handful of other times following the show’s conclusion, Unlimited definitely marked the end of an era, and it stuck the landing wonderfully.

9. Phineas and Ferb

The concept of two brothers spending their summer vacation trying to figure out a way to spend it comes with endless possibilities, and Phineas and Ferb explored them creatively and expertly. Following a formula where every episode the titular characters are always finding an over-the-top thing to do or build. Meanwhile, their sister Candace tries to bust them while their pet platypus Perry goes on a mission to stop his nemesis Dr. Doofenshmirtz and his latest -enator.

Over the years, Phineas and Ferb mastered its formula and had a blast with it. Watching the brothers build a roller-coaster, create a backyard beach, get their parents' favorite band back together and oh so much more was not only fun but creatively invigorating. Not to mention, many episodes also featured incredible original music – like the Emmy-nominated song “Ain’t Got Rhythm” – meaning you’ll be humming along and thinking about this show long after the episode ends.

8. Looney Tunes

To describe Looney Tunes as a classic is completely appropriate, and yet, somehow not quite enough. This collection of animated shorts (produced from 1930 to 1969 and then revived in the late 1970s) has provided generations of audiences with wacky adventures featuring some of the most recognizable and quotable cartoon characters ever created. Even if you’ve only seen a handful of the many, many cartoons made by Warner Bros., you likely know that Bugs Bunny usually outsmarts everyone, Sylvester and Tweety are hilarious adversaries, Daffy Duck is at his funniest when he’s angry or on the losing end of anything, and that Roadrunner is way more trouble than it’s worth to Wile E. Coyote.

Looney Tunes is yet another example of how something could, technically, be pleasantly silly enough for kids, but just mature enough to get and keep the attention of adults. (Who doesn’t know what it’s like to repeatedly miss your target like Elmer Fudd?) When you watch one of these belly-laugh inducing entries, the only thing stopping you from watching another (and another) will be a power outage… That’s a joke, son!

7. Rick and Morty

A decade ago, if you asked us to name our Top Five most thoroughly inventive, consistently thrilling, amusingly thought-provoking, and deeply moving science-fiction series, we would have never guessed an Adult Swim original comedy would make the cut. Nevertheless, Rick and Morty — co-created by the now-fired Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon — has risen above its crude animation, and even cruder humor, to be widely remembered as, not just one of the funniest sci-fi TV shows, but among the genre’s all-time finest.

It is no surprise the series was bred from a Back to the Future parody short, as the pairing of alcoholic scientist Rick Sanchez with his grandson, Morty Smith, feels like a more volatile Marty and Doc situation, which is also just one of the many ways the series brilliantly pokes fun at and pays homage to pop culture. However, the best Rick and Morty episodes — in addition to introducing eye-popping, otherworldly, and downright absurd concepts — honor the series’ more relatable themes, such as family and existential dread, which cleverly sneak up on you while you experience the duo's latest crazy adventure through time and space.

6. Attack On Titan

There’s a lot of great anime out there, from wholesome shows like Spy X Family to much more action-heavy series like Demon Slayer and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. But when it comes to anime that just generally rivals some of the greatest television shows of all-time, then look no further than Attack on Titan, which we once called the best under-the-radar show on television. Because no show swerved like Attack on Titan did, and it all falls upon its protagonist/antagonist, Eren Yeager, who the audience is firmly behind…until we aren’t.

That’s right, Attack on Titan initially seems very simple in premise — Titans bad, people good — but soon changes dramatically to the point where we wonder if we may have had it all wrong the entire time. Are the titans were the ones who were misunderstood, and the humans were the bad guys. Plus, this is the rare exception where the anime may be superior to the manga, and if you know anything about manga, that is no small feat. This is an anime for the ages.

5. Bluey

Bluey has simply become must-watch programming for families, and don’t be surprised when Mom and Dad find themselves just as entertained as the little ones. The infectious theme song ropes you in as it introduces Mum (Chilli), Dad (Bandit), little sister Bingo and big sister Bluey, but it’s the heart-filled interactions between the Blue Heelers that have kept people coming back. Some episodes are laugh-out-loud funny — “I slipped on my beans!” — and others will hit you right in the feels and cause tears to flow freely.

Parents have become endeared to Bluey because it inspires us to be better. It encourages us to play with our kids and gives us permission to act silly in public. Why care what strangers think if you can make your kids laugh, right? But Bluey also shows the harder moments. Sometimes Bandit and Chilli don’t have time to play. Sometimes they don’t know what to say or just need some peace and quiet after partying too hard on New Year’s Eve. We need permission to want those things in real life, too.

4. The Simpsons

The Simpsons is the most popular and successful animated show in history because it’s hilarious in so many different ways. No matter what your sense of humor is, there’s almost certainly a Simpsons character that’s funny in the exact way you’re looking for. From highbrow literary references thrown out as asides to people falling over and getting injured in embarrassing or gruesome ways, and everything in between, each episode is jam-packed with jokes intended to do very different things and to appeal to very different people.

If it happened in a lesser show, it might feel like pandering, but with The Simpsons, the "whatever sticks" approach always felt like layers and variance. That’s a testament to the quality of the writing. Most shows that try to do too much are overtly better at one of the things they’re trying to do, which makes the rest seem less than or out of place. Not The Simpsons. Thanks to fantastic, complicated leads and the funniest supporting network of side characters in TV history, the writers can be funny in so many unique, challenging, satirical, irreverent and sometimes prophetic ways, and they have for more than 750 delightful episodes.

3. Avatar: The Last Airbender

From scathing commentary about imperialism to discussions of spirituality, trauma and extinction, Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender packs deep philosophical meaning into its animated stories. This universe, centered around people boasting the ability to bend elements, follows Avatar Aang on his journey to master the elements and defeat the Fire Lord. This series from Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko is a masterful classic, filled with fun side-quests like the trio’s journey to Omashu, as well as complex politics surrounding the Royal Fire Nation family, sassy characters (we’re of course talking about Sokka and Toph), insanely well-developed story arcs like Zuko’s, and it's all taied together with mind-boggling action,

Like the Avatar, ATLA gets stronger with time, and as Aang mastered the elements, the series grew with him. No matter how old you are, this series hits hard, and the more you watch it the better it gets. Avatar: The Last Airbender seems destined to always feel timeless, and like the Avatar’s powers, this show will likely continue to be passed down through generations for years to come.

2. BoJack Horseman

It’s understandable if you watch the first episode of BoJack Horseman and don’t quite click with it. It’s a show that throws you headfirst into its world  – providing a deep inside look at Hollywood and celebrity in a reality where humans coexist with humanoid animals. That being said, as one of the first Netflix original creations, it’s a series that greatly benefited from the streamer’s binge model, as to dig deeper into the show is to fall in love with it and everything it has to say.

All six seasons of BoJack Horseman are witty, clever, and hilarious, with countless background gags that make it incredibly rewarding on rewatch – but what makes it special is just how real it is. The aesthetic may be silly, but the characters are all ultimately broken people and there is an unflinching and powerful examination of their individual damage over the course of the show. The penultimate episode of every season manages to be as emotionally devastating as anything that Hollywood has ever produced for the small screen, and each one is both shocking and mesmerizing.

1. Batman: The Animated Series

Unquestionably one of the best examples of any animated TV show appealing to both kids and adults, Batman: The Animated Series continues to stand as perhaps the greatest triumph in the media history of DC Comics’ Caped Crusader. BTAS, and by extension The New Batman Adventures, followed in the footsteps of the Tim Burton Batman movies by bringing the character back to his darker roots and inserting viewers into an anachronistic Gotham City dripping with noir flavor. Here we have a Batman who strikes fear into the hearts of criminals just as easily as he inspires the innocent.

Anchored by the late Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne, Batman: The Animated Series effectively walked the line of honoring the source material while also putting unique spins on characters like The Joker, Mr. Freeze and Two-Face, while also launching neo-icons like Harley Quinn, Renee Montoya and a handful of others who’ve become mythos mainstays. Even ignoring that BTAS launched the beloved DC Animated Universe, Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski's show serves for many as the gold(black) standard by which all other Batman adaptations are judged. 1992 may be a long time ago, but BTAS still feels wonderfully timeless.

Hopefully the next 80 years of animated series can stand up to the classic eras that have already come and gone, as well as everything happening currently. But for anyone who hasn't yet watched everything listed above, now you know the assignment, mmk?

The entertainment industry has lost another talent, as it was announced on July 31, 2023 that Paul Reubens died at the age of 70 following a six-year battle with cancer. Of course, in the wake of this bad news, a lot of people are bringing up how great he was as Pee-Wee Herman, and for good reason. The childlike protagonist is a pop culture icon, chiefly known for leading two movies, a TV series and a stage show, but having also made a variety of other big and small screen appearances. There's no question that Pee-Wee will always be Reubens’ best-known role, and I’m hopeful future generations will appreciate it just as much as we do now.

However, as someone who’s a massive DC Comics fan, after learning that Paul Reubens had passed away, I couldn’t help but think of the various ways he left his stamp on this corner of the superhero media landscape. From his time as Bat-Mite on Batman: The Brave and the Bold to playing a Chucky-inspired serial killer in the Arrowverse, the actor deserves a lot more attention for how he contributed to DC. So let’s spend some time going over this portion of his resume, starting with the aforementioned imp from the Fifth Dimension who’s been a Batman fan-favorite for decades.

Bat-Mite

Just like in the comics, Paul Reubens’ Bat-Mite was Batman’s biggest fan, but went about showing his enthusiasm in ways that annoyed the Caped Crusader and made his life a lot more complicated. But along with boasting his traditional reality-warping powers, this Bat-Mite also frequently broke the fourth wall, allowing him to poke fun at the Batman movies, past TV shows and DC Comics fans. He was even the catalyst for bringing Batman: The Brave and the Bold to an end in 2011 with the series, “Mitefall,” though that ironically led to his own erasure. Along with voicing Bat-Mite voiced Bat-Mite in four episodes of the animated TV series and the tie-in video game from 2010, Reubens later reprised the role in the unconnected animated movie Lego DC Comics: Batman Be-Leagured. He wasn’t the first actor to voice Bat-Mite, but I’ll always hear his voice when reading the character’s dialogue in a comic.

The Penguin’s Father

Paul Reubens first appeared as the father of Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. The Penguin, in the opening minutes of Batman Returns, with Diane Salinger by his side as Penguin’s mother. However, Reubens didn’t say any lines in this appearance, and it simply served as an opportunity for him to collaborate with director Tim Burton again after they’d worked together on Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. More than two decades though, Reubens played a different take on Penguin’s father in the TV show Gotham. This version, named Elijah Van Dahl, learned about his son’s existence not long after Oswald’s mother, Carol Kane’s Gertrud Kapelput, was murdered, and he didn’t waste time welcoming his son to his family. However, Elijah was poisoned by his wife Grace and her children when they learned that he’d decided to leave his fortune to Oswald, which pushed Robin Lord Taylor’s Penguin to exact revenge and return to a life of villainy.

The Riddler

In the mid-2010s, the Adult Swim series Robot Chicken released three DC Comics-focused specials, and Paul Reubens participated in all of them as Edward Nygma, a.k.a. The Riddler. This version of the longtime Batman foe was chiefly shown as a member of the Legion of Doom, the super villain team introduced in the 1970s animated series Challenge of the Super Friends. Needless to say that Robot Chicken’s Riddler wasn’t a complex role, but it did provide Reubens another platform to show off his comedic chops (side note, I’m a big proponent of Riddler’s dream The Punctuation Posse to be featured in the comics). I also find myself imagining what it would have been like if Reubens had gotten to play Riddler in live-action, specifically if he’d been hired for Batman Forever instead of Jin Carrey.

Mike The Spike

The events of Legends of Tomorrow Season 4 saw the protagonists hunting down magical fugitives dispersed throughout time, including serial killer Mike the Spike. Becoming a dybbuk following his death, Mike’s spirit inhabited a young girl’s doll in 1856 New Orleans and attempted to resume his murder spree, but was stopped by the Legends, with Mick Rory burning the doll. Once aboard the Waverider, Mike’s spirit transferred itself to the Martin Stein puppet and attempted to slice and dice its inhabitants, but they defeated him once more, and he remained in that puppet for the rest of his appearances. Mike the Spike wasn’t the most dangerous threat in this season of Legends of Tomorrow, but it was nice to have Reubens contribute to the Arrowverse show in this special way.

Paul Reubens’ appearances in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batman Returns, Gotham and Robot Chicken can all be streamed with a Max subscription, and Netflix subscribers have easy access to his Legends of Tomorrow episodes. Of course, these are just some of the great non-Pee-wee characters he played over his lifetime, so don’t hesitate those movies and TV shows a watch too if you’re interested in revisiting the man’s career following his passing. 

For those of you curious about what DC has coming up, our upcoming DC movies and upcoming DC TV shows guides are at your disposal. The company’s next big screen offering will be Blue Beetle in August, and animated shows like Harley Quinn and My Adventures with Superman are currently keeping things going on the small screen front.

Did you ever stop to really think about how prolific Nathan Fillion is as a TV actor? I mean, you most likely realized that already from his iconic starring roles on shows like Firefly as Capt. Mal Reynolds or as the title character of crime dramas Castle and The Rookie. Not to mention, he has countless recurring spots, like on Santa Clarita Diet, and voice acting appearances, such as on Big Mouth as himself, under his belt. Yet, how many of those credits do you actually remember?

Before becoming one of pop culture’s most celebrated geek gods, the 49-year-old Canadian-born actor (who will next appear in The Suicide Squad, written and directed by his friend James Gunn) was mostly a face without a name. For instance, you may not have initially recognized Nathan Fillion as the solider Tom Hanks mistook for Matt Damon’s character early on in Saving Private Ryan or the fact that he actually voiced a few one-off characters on Justice League Unlimited before becoming DC’s go-to Green Lantern in more recent animated projects.

It may be hard to imagine, but Nathan Fillion has made plenty more underrated appearances among his sizable small screen resume alone. I could probably even write a book on the subject, but I figured narrowing the list down to just eight notably unnoticed TV roles would suffice, starting with the very first of his many voice acting credits.

King Of The Hill (Frisbee Guy)

Nathan Fillion only has one line in a 2001, Season 5 episode of Mike Judge’s hit animated comedy King of the Hill, in which Luanne (voiced by the late Brittany Murphy) hopes to essentially “reverse” her sexual history by joining a church group. During her baptism, her wet, white-robed emergence from the local lake distracts a nearby denizen (Fillion) from catching his friend’s frisbee pass, which hits him square in the head. He then approaches Luanne asking if she’d “like to play some bee,” which Henry Hill hilariously mistakes for a threat to his niece’s newfound celibacy.

The Outer Limits (Michael Ryan)

Like many A-listers can claim, the mid-90s reboot of The Outer Limits was one of Nathan Fillion’s earliest TV appearances and first sci-fi role in a career practically defined by the genre. He plays a club owner in a neutral territory of an alien-occupied Earth, circa 2056, whose former lover (Angeline Ball) seeks his help in rebelling against the invaders in this dystopian take on Casablanca from the anthology series’ fifth season.

Gravity Falls (Preston Northwest)

Another example of Nathan Fillion’s definitively strange TV roles is Preston Northwest - a snobbish, wealthy descendant of the founder of the titular town in Gravity Falls, whose sinister agendas become more apparent overtime. While Fillion voices most of Preston's appearances on the popular Disney Channel series (which ran from 2012-2016, and many describe as The X-Files for kids), the character was actually originated by Chris Parnell of Rick and Morty and Saturday Night Live fame.

Miss Match (Adam Logan)

Of course, not all of Nathan Fillion’s recurring TV spots have been particularly "strange." Take, for example, his perfectly down-to-earth role on Miss Match, which starred fellow DC movie star Alicia Silverstone in a Golden Globe-nominated performance as Los Angeles divorce lawyer turned ironic matchmaker Kate Fox. Fillion was a major presence near the end of the short-lived NBC dramedy (even in episodes that never made it to air in 2003) as Adam Logan, the estranged friend of Kate’s on-and-off beau, and soon-to-be ex-husband of a divorce client, who later becomes her romantic foil in another awkward love triangle involving her friend Victoria (Lake Bell). Sounds like something right out of Desperate Housewives, does it not?

Desperate Housewives (Dr. Adam Mayfair)

Speaking of ABC’s hit primetime soap opera, Nathan Fillion would appear in several episodes of Desperate Housewives (mostly in Season 4, which aired from 2007-2008) and, once again, as a guy in an awkward love triangle named Adam - the biggest difference being his career in gynecology. Fillion would actually reprise the role of Dr. Mayfair (who apparently changed his practice) opposite his Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog co-star Neil Patrick Harris in the second episode of Harris’ webseries Neil’s Puppet Dreams.

Two Guys, A Girl And A Pizza Place (Johnny Donnelly)

Long before those recurring TV spots (yet another common theme in his career), Nathan Fillion landed his first starring role on Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place before the title was shortened to just Two Guys and a Girl. He joined the cast in Season 2 as Johnny Donelly, a jukebox repairman with feelings for Traylor Howard’s Sharon (the titular “girl”). The ABC sitcom was also a breakthrough for fellow Canadian Ryan Reynolds - who, coincidentally, would also go on to play Green Lantern, but not quite as successfully as Fillion’s voice role.

Robot Chicken (Various)

Speaking of Green Lantern, Nathan Fillion’s portrayal has become so popular since debuting in the 2011 animated film Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, he has been asked to voice the role for parodies on Robot Chicken on several occasions. Yet, Hal Jordan was not the first DC character the long-running Adult Swim series enlisted him for, nor was he the last. Fillion played The Flash in a 2007 sketch and voiced villains Mr. Freeze and Black Adam (in addition to Green Lantern) in some later DC-themed specials - meaning he can at least claim to have beaten Dwayne Johnson to the punch on a popular comic book role.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Caleb)

You have to imagine that Joss Whedon has cast Nathan Fillion in many of his projects partially to make up for how things ended with Firefly. He got to work on that apologist effort pretty quickly after the sci-fi/western hybrid’s premature cancellation in 2002, by giving the actor a recurring spot on Buffy the Vampire Slayer the following year. His role of Caleb was very against type, however, being a preacher whose sadistic behavior and misogynistic ideals led him to become defrocked by his church, but promoted as servant to the First Evil.

What do you think? Did Nathan Fillion’s brief stint on Buffy the Vampire Slayer convince you he should play more villains, or are you more interested in seeing him become the official live action Green Lantern for once? Let us know in the comments and be sure to check back for additional information and updates on the beloved actor, as well as even more inside looks at the lesser-known roles of your favorite celebrities, here on CinemaBlend.

As hard as it may be to believe, Robot Chicken has been parodying the best of pop culture for a decade and a half. While it'd be hard to find any past or present pop culture franchise that hasn't been mocked by the program, only a select few have gotten the full-blown special episode chock full of skits.

The Star Wars, The Walking Dead, and DC specials were great, but given that we're approaching three years since the last one, it's high time another one be made for audiences. In the freak chance that Adult Swim is taking suggestions for the next franchise that will get its own Robot Chicken special, here are some that I think would be fantastic to use.

Star Trek

Robot Chicken has managed to squeeze three specials out of Star Wars, and yet has not given the same honor to the Star Trek franchise. You could do an entire special dedicated to every classic Star Trek series alone, though I would probably prefer Robot Chicken do the scattershot of hitting all the shows in a special to make sure there's something for everyone.

To be quite honest, it's surprising Robot Chicken hasn't done this already. That the series has already done so many Star Trek bits that reference Star Trek: The Next Generation, the original series, and even the J.J. Abrams films may indicate that the show has some Trek fans on staff. There's a deep well of lore for the Adult Swim series to poke fun at, so it should hurry before Star Trek: Lower Decks steals all the good ideas.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Robot Chicken has done three specials on DC Comics, and while it can't be denied co-creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich are big fans of those heroes, DC has not been the dominant comic book media franchise of the past decade. That title belongs to the world of Marvel, more specifically the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given the sheer box office dominance Marvel has had, it's hard to believe a standalone special hasn't already happened.

With The Infinity Saga officially closed out, a Robot Chicken retrospective of all the movies that happened from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame would be the best. I'd also say it'd work to throw the Netflix Marvel shows like Daredevil in there, if only because I need to see more content from that universe no matter how it happens. Give us a skit where Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin is weirdly obsessed with white walls and keeps going psycho when they're stained. I'm sure there are better ideas than that, which is all the more reason this special needs to be greenlit.

Westworld

Of all the franchises mentioned so far on this list, I'm not sure any of them take themselves as seriously as HBO's Westworld. The plot doesn't allow for humor most the time, so I can't fault showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy for that. I can point a finger at the Robot Chicken team for not seeing the potential comedy is poking fun at Westworld's expansive and rapidly changing franchise.

A Westworld and Robot Chicken special could give fans more stories inside the park, which wasn't seen in the HBO drama nearly as much in Season 3. Plus, let's remember there are plenty of robot jokes to be made, and opportunities for other pop culture androids to make their way into the Delos family. Imagine how much faster William's journey would've ended had The Terminator been there by Dolores' side.

The Simpsons

The Simpsons may not be the most popular adult animated comedy on television anymore, but it's more than fair to say it paved the way for most adult animated comedy regardless of format. The Simpsons deserves the respect of all shows given the legacy it has built on television, so it's only right that Robot Chicken eviscerate it with a one-off special that leaves no stone unturned.

I think Robot Chicken would be the perfect show to parody The Simpsons, if only because its wheelhouse is the type of comedy the Fox series tends to stray away from. The biggest question I would like to see Robot Chicken figure out is how the people of Springfield cease to age even though Springfield continues to modernize with the times. I'd also just be fine with small skits that focus on lesser characters like Herman Hermann or Bumblebee Man. Out of all the entries on this list, this is certainly the one I see the most potential in.

Game Of Thrones

Season 8 of Game Of Thrones was a bummer and, in my opinion, so controversial that it helped the world forget how much the HBO show meant to them over the years. The fact of the matter in my book is that Game Of Thrones was a great show 90% of the way through, and while Robot Chicken has parodied it a fair amount, there's still plenty of ground left to tread in the main series alone.

With the whole series completed, there are some extra jokes to mine in events that in hindsight meant absolutely nothing. There's also an opportunity to make some elaborate and expensive sets for sketches, which is something I haven't seen in Robot Chicken often. We need something to remind the world why they loved Game of Thrones. Considering we can no longer rely on George R.R. Martin to deliver books promptly, this Adult Swim series may be our only hope.

Classic Adult Swim Shows

Adult Swim has become the home for many off-kilter live-action and animated comedies over the years, Robot Chicken being one of them. It would be great to see Robot Chicken honor the history of its home base, and run through sketches with the shows that served as the backbone of the network way back when.

Space Ghost: Coast To Coast, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, The Venture Bros. and so many others don't always get the credit they deserve, and a special via Robot Chicken could serve as the perfect roast of sorts to celebrate them all. Sure, Adult Swim would probably still bar Metalocalypse from being used in any way, but there are plenty of other shows that could be parodied in the best way.

Robot Chicken Season 10 is currently airing new episodes on Adult Swim Mondays at midnight ET. Continue to stick with CinemaBlend for more shows airing this summer, and for the latest headlines in television and movies.

Ever since its launch in 2001, Adult Swim and its shows have been a creative force in late-night comedy programming. Adult Swim shows have been highly influential over the years and have garnered acclaim and awards for creativity and influence in ways people may not immediately be aware of. Alas, that's the casualty of being a programming block that airs great shows with titles Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell and Assy McGee.

There's no denying there have been some great Adult Swim shows over the years, but which among them rank among the best? Given the variety of original programming and humor of its audience, it's unlikely there will be universal consensus, but here are 10 of the best Adult Swim has given the world that deserve recognition as the pinnacle of programming.

10. Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

A polarizing choice for some, to be sure, but Tim Heidecker and Eric Warheim's influence on modern comedy via Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! can't be denied. Since its premiere in 2007, advertisers and YouTubers alike have imitated the duo's odd brand of humor in addition to the unique editing the series became prolific for.

Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! also managed to wrangle a healthy amount of talented actors and comedians for its show, bringing everyone from Will Ferrell to Tommy Wiseau to late night on Adult Swim. It spawned a spinoff, Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule, and got its own feature, Tim And Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. The series officially said goodbye in 2010 (minus two specials in 2017), but Heidecker and Warheim's success in Hollywood continues today.

9. Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law

Much like Space Ghost Coast To Coast, Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law was an Adult Swim series that took classic Hanna-Barbera characters a generation grew up with, and parodied them to be the people an adult audience often expected them to be. As for Harvey Birdman, the hero-turned-lawyer was often tasked with defending these characters with whatever legal problems they faced.

The original run lasted from 2001 to 2007, although Harvey Birdman recently made a comeback with Harvey Birdman: Attorney General in 2018, and a spinoff Birdgirl was recently announced and ordered to series. With a legacy that's lasted that long and looking as though it's going to start back up yet again, it's no surprise this Adult Swim show made the list.

8. Home Movies

While Home Movies initially started life on UPN, it was cancelled after only five episodes and revived on Adult Swim and billed as its first original series in 2001. The tales of Brendon and his young friends resonated with audiences, as well as the more adult-oriented humor that was certainly more grounded than later Adult Swim shows. The series ended in 2004, but fans continue to celebrate it as one of the brand's cult classics.

The biggest justification for Home Movies on this list comes from who created it, Brendon Small and Loren Bouchard. Small went on to create the highly acclaimed and still-beloved Adult Swim series Metalocalypse, and Bouchard reunited with Home Movies voice actor H. Jon Benjamin for the Fox hit and Adult Swim-syndicated favorite Bob's Burgers. There's plenty to love about Home Movies beyond what their creators went onto afterward, of course, so be sure to check it out.

7. The Eric Andre Show

If ever there was an Adult Swim show that could be best described as a "fever dream," The Eric Andre Show is it. Eric Andre and Hannibal Buress' starred talk show parody went surreal right out the gate, often with unassuming celebrity guests that sometimes had no clue what they were getting into. This created awkward and hilarious humor that the series thrived on since its debut in 2012.

From "Legalize Ranch" to the "Let Me In" meme, The Eric Andre Show has solidified itself as one of the more popular Adult Swim shows amongst viewers. Season 5 is planned to happen, although a bulk of Season 4 aired in 2016, so there's no telling when the new season may arrive.

6. Aqua Teen Hunger Force

One of the surreal originals that put Adult Swim on the map, Aqua Teen Hunger Force likely needs no introduction to most fans of the programming block. The series started in 2002, and at the time of its cancellation in 2015, it was the longest running Adult Swim series. Who would've thought that a series that started from a Space Ghost Coast To Coast joke would have such legs?

Aqua Teen Hunger Force was another Adult Swim series to get a movie, and one of the few shows to have its characters live on in Adult Swim branding. Meatwad, Frylock, Master Shake and especially Carl have solidified their legacy as Adult Swim icons, and their misadventures will remain timeless mainly because of the series' premise. As a side note, the show's success is especially impressive given it abandoned the character's premise as crime fighters very early into the series.

5. Metalocalypse

Quick question, how many cartoons out there have spawned a respectable metal band with an album that's charted on the Billboard Top 200 list? Unless there's some obscure series we're unaware of, Metalocalypse is it, and Brendon Small's comedy series about a modern metal band was an instant hit among fans of the genre and many Adult Swim viewers both shocked and entertained by its overtly violent animation and irreverent humor.

The fictional band Dethklok was just as great as the series, and Small toured with other acclaimed metal acts Mastadon and High On Fire during the show's run. To this day, fans still frequently petition for its return, to the point that Adult Swim has actively trolled those hopefuls to the enjoyment of others. Fans can still binge the four seasons and special finale that aired between 2006 and 2013, but for now, that appears this series isn't coming back.

4. The Boondocks

Adult Swim has rarely balked at controversial subjects or topics in its other shows, but it wasn't until The Boondocks that it tackled big issues that weren't surreal. Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks already had a reputation as a socially conscious and controversial cartoon strip, and it didn't tone things down in the jump to television. In its run the series garnered criticism for, among other things, its frequent use of racial slurs and frequent political and social commentary.

The series also found critics in the form of Reverend Al Sharpton, Tyler Perry and the BET network for its various themes and parodies of individuals. Yet the Adult Swim series kept on, running four seasons between 2005 and 2014 and picking up a Peabody Award along the way. That's not something any other Adult Swim show can say (for now), which more than justifies its spot on this list.

3. The Venture Bros.

As previously mentioned, Aqua Teen Hunger Force was the longest running Adult Swim show at the time of its cancellation, but The Venture Bros. recently took its title. While that's certainly a bittersweet achievement, there are few shows that deserve the title more than Jackson Publick's riff on Johnny Quest that was sometimes subtle, and other times featured an actual drug-addict adult "Johnny" that looked shockingly similar.

There's so much to love about The Venture Bros., but perhaps the best is that the series has maintained an impressive level of continuity since its beginning in 2003 to the present day. The only real downside is that there's only been 7 seasons in that span, but rest assured, those 81 episodes to date are of the utmost quality, and make the large gap between seasons well worth it.

2. Robot Chicken

Very few shows can garner near universal acclaim in geek culture, yet Robot Chicken is one of those few shows that exists in that territory. That may be because it's notorious for its riffing on the best of geek pop culture, and has gained several Emmys since its beginning in 2005. The series has run seven seasons so far and has also done specials on Star Wars, DC Comics and The Walking Dead that were instant classics.

As an aside that casual fans may not know, Robot Chicken originated via a comic in the magazine ToyFare. Eventually a show was created, which several major shows passed on until Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane suggested Seth Green and crew pitch the show to Adult Swim. Suffice to say it was a match made in heaven, and Robot Chicken appears to have a home on Adult Swim for as long as it wants.

1. Rick and Morty

Rick and Morty may be the newest Adult Swim original on this list (it started in 2013), but there's little question that it isn't deserving of the top Adult Swim original ever. The series has garnered massive popularity in a relatively short amount of time thanks in no small part to the smart writing of creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, and their crew.

It may not have as many Emmys as Robot Chicken, but did the latter play a part in a massive PR disaster at McDonald's? It certainly did not, and while Rick and Morty still has a ways to go before being considered on the same level as The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy, it's certainly fast approaching that territory, and may ultimately become the show Adult Swim is most remembered for if, heaven forbid, it go away.

Adult Swim has had tons of shows over the years, and there's sure to be some folks upset about the exclusion of a show or two. Disgruntled readers can make their case for shows like Squidbillies, Loiter Squad and others in the comments, and also click around on CinemaBlend for more television analysis and the latest headlines in television and movies.

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As exciting as The Walking Dead is, fans are familiar with how goofy and over-the-top the show can get. Understandably, the folks at Robot Chicken are oh so aware, and they put together a bunch of pitch-perfect parodies for The Robot Chicken Walking Dead Special: Look Who's Walking. The zombie-filled special welcomed almost the full Walking Dead cast and more stars, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Harry Potter vet Daniel Radcliffe showing off their singing talents in humorous ways. In the exclusive clip below, taken from the special's upcoming DVD release, Robot Chicken creator Matthew Senreich talks about the musical moments, including a fun story about Negan's signature lean.

As you'll notice, the second half of the clip is about Negan's lean, notably his half-signature maneuver. Granted, it hasn't shown up as much in Season 8, where he's spent more time sitting down than usual, and one has to wonder if this special played a role in getting him to rethink his instincts. Not that Morgan is pissed or anything. As creator Matthew Senreich puts it below, the actor was totally game to make fun of himself in this moment.

I like to think that "leaned into it" was a pun on Senreich's part. Hey, Negan, give me a never-ending series of dips if you agree.

Thanks, Negan! The exclusive clip above also brings up the almost unbelievable involvement of Daniel Radcliffe as Terminus' sing-song leader Gareth. Radcliffe signed on for the special after Walking Dead vet Andrew J. West stated he wanted no part in the singing side of things. For my money, I think the Robot Chicken special lucked out with that substitution. But will West take the title role if the Adult Swim series ever does a Harry Potter special? Probably not.

Fans can find The Robot Chicken Walking Dead Special: Look Who's Walking when it hits retail and beyond on Tuesday, March 27. Outside of the special's 22 minutes of Grimes-joshing, star-studded hilarity, the special will also include the feature "Behind-the-Scenes Making of The Robot Chicken Walking Dead Special: Look Who's Walking" and deleted scenes, as well as a commentary track from Robot Chicken's Matthew Senreich, Seth Green and Tom Sheppard, who are joined by The Walking Dead's Scott Gimple and Robert Kirkman. And if you're wanting to listen to those stellar songs without a TV, you can find the official soundtrack hitting stores on Friday, March 23. The release includes the tracks "Welcome to Terminus," "Do the Negan," "Someplace" and "Dale Dale the RV King." (With Norman Reedus as Dale, interestingly.)

So remember to pick that DVD up on Tuesday, March 27, and keep an eye out for the release date for the second half of Robot Chicken Season 9. Also remember to tune into The Walking Dead every Sunday night on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET. And when there's nothing else to do, head to our midseason premiere schedule to see all the new and returning shows on the way.

Spoilers below for anyone who hasn't watched Robot Chicken's Walking Dead special yet.

For many fans of The Walking Dead, The Robot Chicken Walking Dead Special: Look Who's Walking got to the Merle-singing heart of what makes the franchise so ridiculous, while never quite being mean or insulting. One of the most ludicrous sequences, the Lucille-as-Superman segment, actually spawned from Robot Chicken creators Matthew Senreich and Seth Green wondering about one of The Walking Dead TV show's more inexplicably eyebrow-raising moments, which came during the episode with Rosita's attempted assassination. When Senreich and Green talked with CinemaBlend about the hilarious special, here's what they told me about that otherworldly scene:

If it's so easy to consider a humanoid entity being born and shipped over to Earth in order to do that whole world-saving thing, I suppose I'm on board with buying into a sentient baseball bat going through the same scenario, if for a purpose that's more ill-fitting for humanity at large. It was perhaps the most Robot Chicken way of answering how Negan actually survived that gunshot, since the Adult Swim series is pretty familiar with DC superheroes, but I mean, this is the zombie apocalypse, where nothing makes the most amount of logical sense. So if the bat is said to be an alien, I'm not necessarily the biggest skeptic.

Obviously, Lucille is not an alien. (And I'm not trying to tie this into the one-shot issue "The Alien," by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin.) But it's an interesting idea for how to explain this comic book-originated scenario, right? Lucille (before being attached to the name "Lucille" as far as the comic scenario goes) had parents that didn't want to give her up, which is kind of like how Bruce Wayne didn't want to give up his parents...even though both sets of birth parents died. Okay, but what if Rick's mother's name was Martha?

During the creation of the Walking Dead special, the Robot Chicken writers room was graced with the presence of the comic creator Robert Kirkman and the AMC series' showrunner Scott Gimple. And to be expected, Matthew Senreich and Seth Green hit them up for any answers that did not originate on a different planet.

Even if there's not some grandiose explanation for why Lucille was able to save Negan from a bullet, the reason why it happened is because Spencer's guts fell out, and I think we can all celebrate that, right?

Look Who's Walking, the Robot Chicken Walking Dead special, aired Sunday night on Adult Swim, and you can bet that it'll find its way online and On Demand post-haste, and in time for you to watch it a bunch of times before The Walking Dead Season 8 premieres on AMC on Sunday, October 22. Check out how important Robert Kirkman was in getting this special made, and to see when other shows are hitting primetime soon, head to our fall TV premiere schedule.

As one of the biggest shows on TV, The Walking Dead has been the subject of tons of parodies and spoofs, from Mad Magazine to Saturday Night Live to standalone features. But we've never seen anything like The Robot Chicken Walking Dead Special: Look Who's Walking, which brings together most of the AMC drama's actual cast members to voice their post-apocalyptic characters for a mash-up that's as gory and shockingly hilarious as it is faithful to its zombified source material. All guts, all glory.

In a similar fashion to how Robot Chicken has handled some of its episode-long pop culture spoofs in the past, Look Who's Walking brings the stop-motion madness to an abundance of The Walking Dead's most memorable moments, characters, locations, weapons and more. And the Robot Chicken special does all this in sequential order, more or less, so that we're getting to see the show's events play out largely as they did on the drama itself. It's like a greatest hits supercut, only with more musicals moments, more cringe-inducing jokes, and more Daniel Radcliffe. Or, if you will, think Cliffs Notes, but with perverse doodles all over the margins.

I won't get into the details of Robot Chicken's originally conceived wraparound story that ties the show together, but I'll say that it's a clever concept that allowed creators Matthew Senreich and Seth Green (as well as the rest of the creative team) to throw in even more well-crafted references and background details that are seen for split-seconds at a time. Plus, we get to see, er, hear actor Chandler Riggs giving a ridiculous performance that will make some viewers question if it's actually him or not.

Of course, going into specifics about any of the scenes themselves would also be hazardous to others' enjoyment of the sporadically bizarre sketches and gags. However, everyone should know that Robot Chicken's Walking Dead special does not hold back when it comes to poking fun at anything and everything in the show's history. As referenced just above, there are a few gags involving bug-eyed Glenn that seem like someone at AMC or elsewhere would have had a problem with them; and even Carol's most heartbreaking moment in The Walking Dead gets played for laughs in random ways. It's wonderful to know that everyone signed off on everything Robot Chicken delivered.

The cast was completely on board with everything that went on as well, with Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan and Melissa McBride all doing a splendid job in those titter-worthy scenes. No matter how wild, harsh and ludicrous the moments they're each in, the entire cast gave performances that carried most of the same intensity that they bring to The Walking Dead proper. It makes for such a weirdly enjoyable juxtaposition to hear Andrew Lincoln deliver a firm line like we're used to, and then cartoonishly run off the screen yelling, with his voice quickly fading away, as if he's falling off a cliff in Looney Tunes.

To talk more about the excellent cast, former star Sarah Wayne Callies reprised her role of Lori for it, and one can imagine this show has a hot take on Lori's distorted love triangle with Rick and Shane. The always stellar Michael Rooker returned to give voice to Merle Dixon once more, and what a voice it was, given that he gets to do a short musical part. Music also plays into appearances from Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan, who gets attention not for his foul mouth, but for his proud lean-back-holding-a-bat stance. Even Chris Hardwick, Robert Kirkman and Scott Gimple make appearances as themselves.

Robot Chicken, which will be back on a regular basis soon for Season 9, has delivered one of the funniest half-hours of TV in 2017 with Look Who's Walking. (That Lucille segment was so hilariously out there.) It's a special that should be watched by anyone who's seen even just one Walking Dead episode, regardless of if they've stopped paying attention at any point during the zombie drama's run. There's something for everyone here, but especially people who want to see weird jokes using Carl's empty eye socket.

The Robot Chicken Walking Dead Special: Look Who's Walking will make its big debut on Adult Swim on Sunday, October 8, at midnight, so those on the East Coast will be technically watching on early, early Monday morning. And if you can't get to sleep after it's over, check out when The Walking Dead and more shows will be back, using our fall TV premiere schedule.

While there is likely some fanbase crossover for The Walking Dead and Robot Chicken, they will come together like never before when Adult Swim debuts the half-hour mash-up special, dubbed Look Who's Walking. Robot Chicken's co-creators Matthew Senreich and Seth Green spoke with CinemaBlend about the Walking Dead special (as well as the upcoming Season 9), and they told me how the project came together, and perhaps unsurprisingly, that comic creator Robert Kirkman played a huge part in that process.

If only big jobs in my own life could have happened so smoothly. (And also with Robert Kirkman and Geoff Johns and Matthew Senreich being involved in any way.) Thankfully, Kirkman is one of the most self-aware and self-deprecating entertainers out there, and it wouldn't seem like he'd have had much of a problem with allowing Robot Chicken to send up The Walking Dead. But even as the comic creator, he can't exactly speak for everyone involved with the TV show at AMC, so it's pretty fantastic that he was able to pull whatever weight he needed to in order to secure all the proper rights and allowances. Because it is completely worth those efforts, I must say, as the special is hilarious.

Plus, it wasn't just the behind-the-scenes wheelings and dealings that Kirkman was responsible for locking down. Both he and Scott Gimple actually lent their talents when it came to getting the Walking Dead special put together from story and joke angles. Here's what else Matthew Senreich told me about Kirkman and Gimple's input.

In fact, Matthew Senreich said Scott Gimple was around for just about every day that they were in the writing process for the Walking Dead special, so that's some pretty solid dedication on his part to make sure the Robot Chicken team stayed as close to the truth of the source material as possible to inform the comedy. And considering the writing staff was penning jokes that would specifically be coming from the mouths of the actual Walking Dead cast members, from Andrew Lincoln to Steven Yeun to Melissa McBride, there are few people that would understand that process better than Gimple and Kirkman.

This will not be the first time that Robert Kirkman has shown up on Robot Chicken special, but he'll get to last a little big longer here. Since he helped so much, I jokingly asked Matthew Senreich and Seth Green if Kirkman forced them to make his character look cool on the show. Here's what Green said.

Walking Dead fanatics are going to love the Robot Chicken special, which takes a look at the entire run of the zombie drama, from Rick's post-coma days to Negan's latest efforts, and making sure to bring back some characters we haven't seen in years. (Merle!) And because of Kirkman and Gimple's assistance, it's just as winkingly reverential to the material as what we saw in the DC and Star Wars specials. You can check out the trailer for Look Who's Walking below.

Be sure to clear your calendars, because The Robot Chicken Walking Dead Special: Look Who's Walking will make its splatteriffic debut on October 8 at !2:00 a.m. ET on Adult Swim. (So it's technically October 9 for East Coast folks.) Meanwhile, the action-packed Season 8 premiere of The Walking Dead will air on Sunday, October 22, at 9:00 p.m. ET. And to see when everything else is hitting the small screen, head to our fall premiere schedule.

Robot Chicken has hand-crafted a reputation for expertly lampooning everything from pop culture, but none of its parodies have become more instantly iconic than the Star Wars episodes. The Adult Swim comedy takes a thoughtful approach to its various spoofs of the iconic saga, and it seems this somewhat respectful method garnered the approval of franchise creator George Lucas. Star Breckin Meyer and series co-creator Matthew Senreich spoke with CinemaBlend and other outlets at San Diego Comic-Con, and they explained that Lucas saw their work and actually reached out to establish a partnership with the Star Wars satirists. Senreich elaborated:

Robot Chicken's eps do not just make joke after joke about Lucas adding superfluous digital effects into the special edition re-releases; they poke tongue-in-cheek fun at precise concepts that real fans and Star Wars insiders can appreciate. George Lucas was apparently able to understand this distinction by watching the series on his own, and Robot Chicken's early Star Wars parodies presumably served as "proof of concept" skits that eventually paved the way for full-fledged episodes dedicated to the galaxy far, far away.

The reason why this ultimately works, according to the writing duo, is that the team behind Robot Chicken approaches everything the show spoofs with a sense of love. As Breckin Meyer explained, it is more about indulging in the feeling of playing with these worlds, rather than trying to snidely have fun at the expense of creators like Lucas. Meyer elaborated during our conversation, saying:

It does not matter if it is The Simpsons or Family Guy -- a show that has similarly been known to release entire episodes dedicated to Star Wars -- or some other show; virtually every major comedic pop culture institution has found a way to poke fun at Star Wars and its eccentric creator George Lucas in the years since A New Hope first debuted in theaters. (Dramas have done it too, but comedies get the tauntaun's share.) The thing that makes Robot Chicken different from most of the rest is that the jokes feel incredibly well-researched, as opposed to impulse gags, and they pay an appropriate amount of respect to the universe as a whole.

Check out an example of one of Robot Chicken's best Star Wars-inspired sketches below to get a sense of the writing's thoroughness. It's all about Darth Vader's call to Emperor Palpatine after the destruction of the first Death Star, and it's a pitch-perfect parody that never feels mean-spirited in its dissection of the franchise.

Now that Star Wars is in the hands of Disney, Matthew Senreich seems to think that getting more of these big episodes will become a bit more difficult -- as they now have to impress far more than one man. That's definitely a bummer, but Robot Chicken will bring a lot more non-Star Wars fun when it returns to Adult Swim for Season 9 this fall. Before then, make sure to take a look at our summer TV premiere guide for more information on the major TV debuts still to come before the fall season rolls around.

The Simpsons are going to South Park, or at least to some weird, non-copyrighted version of it, for an upcoming couch gag. After the family's living room painting goes "missing," Homer jumps out of the show's animation style to find the culprit, and what follows is a sequence of cameos that can be appreciated by all generations of animation junkies.

After an exchange that manages to spike in a reference to The Big Lebowski, we see Homer exit The Simpsons and jump into a crudely drawn animated world he likens to a "3rd-grade shoebox diorama." There, he's met with a flurry of swears and obscenities from none other than...some generic looking kids meant to resemble the kids from South Park. Ah, licensing.

Homer moves on, only to get into a death match with the California Raisins, who were possibly still popular when The Simpsons first debuted. Finally, Homer finds his painting in the home of another claymation character, Robot Chicken's "Nerd." But Homer's victory comes much to the dismay of the family, who is in the process of replacing the "art," with something better. Marge's reaction is something that would feel right at home on South Park, too.

This is not the first time The Simpsons has spoofed on South Park, and it's honestly not the best homage, either. In total, the series has made mention of their popular animation competitor 3 other times in the series, with my favorite nod appearing in "Oh Brother, Where Bart Thou." In that episode, Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph don the outfits of South Park Elementary students Stan, Kyle, Eric and Kenny. Ralph, dressed as Kenny, ends up getting hit by school bus driver Otto, who then shouts "Oh my God, I killed Kenny!" which is the classic tagline from the Comedy Central series.

While The Simpsons has poked some fun, South Park dedicated an entire episode to the Fox series. Fans will remember "The Simpsons Already Did It," in which Butters attempts to commit a villainous deed, only to accidentally keep paying homage to The Simpsons. The episode spurred from an inside joke in which writers were trying to come up with ideas for South Park but kept realizing The Simpsons had already done a lot of the ideas they were having. Another episodic reference came when a character resembling Bart Simpson helped Eric Cartman destroy Family Guy. Side note: it looks just as weird and out of place to see a Simpsons family member in South Park, Colorado as it is to see a knock-off South Park character in the Simpsons couch gag above.

For those already gearing up their arguments as to why The Simpsons is better than South Park or vice versa, it's unnecessary. Both shows' writers have a camaraderie between them and have exchanged pleasantries each time references are made. Both have paved the way for primetime animated television and continue to break new ground with each year they are on television.

The Simpsons is currently in Season 28, so catch the tail end of that every Sunday night on Fox, and then hit up our midseason premiere guide to find a new show until it comes back!

When it comes to a battle against Batman, you need two things: strength and cunning. Though if Robot Chicken's latest DC flavored sketch below is any indication, you're going to need one more key factor to survive said battle: patience, and loads of it.

You can thank the industrious folks at Robot Chicken for this profanity fueled tirade, as it was by their hand that this parody of Batman asking Superman if he bleeds came to life. In fact, it looks like Bats doesn't even care about anything at that point, except for going all the way to re-enforce the point that he just isn't concerned with whether Superman can bleed or not. To be fair, the lengths to which Batman goes to convey this one message shows that while he may not care about Superman's level of force, he does care about theatricality. Something that can't be said as fervently about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the film which this moment obviously originated from.

Of course the original moment from Zack Snyder's DC Comics adaptation was a much more dramatic affair, with Superman and Batman ultimately coming to blows over their opposing sides of battle. With Martha Kent's line in the balance, and Lex Luthor's chess pieces right where he wanted them, battle commenced and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice came to life for a brief, shining moment. So leave it to the folks at Robot Chicken to totally deflate that scene and turn it into a scene of absolute, expletive filled lunacy.

This isn't the first time that Robot Chicken has riffed on the DC Comics legacy, in fact there have been entire specials dedicated solely to the comic properties and heroes of the DC line. You can thank the good relationship between parent network Cartoon Network and Warner Bros for that level of access, as pretty much any DC animated venture can be found on their family of networks. It's because of this good fortune that a sketch like the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice parody above can exist. Though that's not even the best example of what Robot Chicken has done with the DC license. That honor goes to that time when Batman and The Joker parodied the events of The Shawshank Redemption, with Mark Hamill reprising his role as the Clown Prince of Crime!

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, much like any comic film for that matter, is a subject ripe for parody. But after watching this segment of Robot Chicken taking apart Zack Snyder's much derided comic book opus, we kind of want them to dedicate one of those DC Comics specials just to dissecting every inch of this most controversial film. That said, if you prefer your Batman v Superman action in its original, live-action form, you can purchase the Director's Cut Blu-ray on July 19th.

(NOTE: This episode was originally supposed to be online last week, but was delayed – which is why some of the time references are a bit off. Still, enjoy!)

The multiverse is a fascinating and incredibly in-depth idea that comic and science-fiction writers have been taking advantage of for decades. The theory postulates that there is actually an infinite number of parallel timelines that exist, with each one representing a plane of existence where one potentially microscopically minute thing is different from every other plane of existence. While you may have had a turkey sandwich for lunch today, there’s another world where you had ham, and yet another world where you had three slices instead of two, and yet another where you decided to use a little less mustard. The multiverse has found application in a variety of stories over the years, and now that it’s starting to permeate the larger pop culture sphere, I decided to dedicate an entire episode of Hero Blend to the subject.

In the last week, we have seen the multiverse get explored on two different fronts: first in the second episode of the second season of The Flash (which allowed audiences to peek in on Earth 2), and then again in Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken DC Special 3: Magical Friendship (which features a plot parodying the famed comic book event Crisis On Infinite Earths). With the extremely exciting yet also potentially confusing theory now in the public conversation, this episode of Hero Blend is meant to help those of you unfamiliar with the multiverse get more acquainted.

Joining me in this trip around parallel dimensions is my good friend Silas Lesnick from ComingSoon.net/SuperHeroHype/Most Craved, with whom I’ve previously had plenty of conversations about the multiverse… just not on camera. Enjoy the show!

In the climactic second half of the upcoming Robot Chicken DC Special 3: Magical Friendship, an argument between Batman and Superman leads to a “Crisis On A Couple Of Earths” – where Flash’s Cosmic Treadmill is used to tap into other dimensions and populate the world with heroes and villains from pretty much every existing strand of DC Comics continuity. It’s a great bit, with plenty of comedy gold milked out of having multiple iterations of different characters running around, but it’s also a great way to introduce audiences to a complex and fascinating theoretical concept that could ultimately have a huge effect on the superhero genre in both film and television: the multiverse.

A legitimate scientific concept in addition to being a fun narrative tool used by comic book writers for decades, the multiverse theory boils down to the idea that there are an infinite number of existences in which every single possibility plays out on its own separate timeline. This means that not only is there an infinite number of worlds where superheroes are real, but also an infinite number of worlds where you personally just held your breath for two seconds instead of breathing normally. From a fiction perspective, it’s an area ripe for exploration that has been made use of in just about every way imaginable - from multiple versions of the same character from separate timelines getting the opportunity to meet, to having it serve as an actually reasonable explanation for how time travel could work. Both DC and Marvel Comics are currently taking full advantage of the multiverse with their respective “Convergence” and “Secret Wars” events, but it may not be long until we start seeing it have a role in big blockbuster films and superhero television shows.

A few weeks ago, I sat down for an interview with DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns as well as Robot Chicken co-creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, and used the opportunity to talk at length about fascinating nature of the multiverse concept and the potential to see it start playing a much larger role in pop culture. Speaking to the elegance of the theory as well as the opportunities that it provides writers, Johns said,

While Johns wouldn’t speak to it specifically (despite me directly asking about it), one area in which we might eventually see the multiverse have a huge effect within the superhero genre is in the developing DC Cinematic Universe and the on-going DC Television Universe. It’s been firmly stated that the plan going forward is to keep the two continuities separate - with Henry Cavill’s Superman and Ben Affleck’s Batman existing in an entirely different world than Stephen Amell’s Arrow and Grant Gustin’s Flash – but just the idea of the multiverse means that the door is always open for some kind of crossover to happen somewhere down the line (Hell, Earth 2 being introduced on The Flash is a huge first step). After that, we just wait for the day when we can see every live-action version of Batman (from Adam West to Christian Bale) and every version of Superman (from Brandon Routh to a digitally recreated George Reeves) in their respective costumes and in the same room making a plan to take down evil.

In opening up the multiverse, storytellers are not only given the opportunity to smash down any and all creative barriers – with “continuity” being both specifically defined and vastly expanded at the same time – but also the chance to tap into the kind of creative energy we all had as kids. In describing what he really loves about the multiverse, Matthew Senreich noted that there is not only an opportunity to crossover different DC Comics-related continuities within the multiverse, but that there is also the possibility to crossover into other pop culture spheres as well:

Comic fans will remember a special event called “DC vs. Marvel” back in the mid-1990s that saw the heroes of the former face off against those of the latter, and readers have also seen everything from “Superman and Batman versus Aliens and Predator” to “Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness.” These kinds of crossovers seem impossible now, but who can say what the comic book movie and television landscape will look like a decade from now?

For now, fans will have to wait a little while before the multiverse concept is fully explored in a live-action capacity, but the good news is that you’ll be able to enjoy Robot Chicken DC Special 3: Magical Friendship on Adult Swim Sunday night (October 18th) at Midnight.

Netflix is getting a lot more fun with its latest crop of new additions.

Adventure Time! Come on and grab your friends…

As previously announced, the streaming video subscription service has secured deals with Turner's Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, which means Adventure Time, Robot Chicken, Regular Show and a number of other great animated and live-action series are now available to streaming subscribers. The announcement also included word that the first season of TNT's Dallas is now available streaming.

Pause for a second to do a little dance!

Effective April 1 - this is no April Fools' joke - Netflix has announced that they are now streaming past seasons of Adventure Time, Ben 10, Regular Show, Johnny Bravo and Warner Bros. Animation's Green Lantern. They've also added Adult Swim's Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sony Pictures Television's The Boondocks and WBTVG's Studio 2.0's Childrens Hospital.

Before you start panicking, trying to figure how how you're going to watch all of these shows at once, it looks like - for most of them - only the first seasons of each are available. Childrens Hospital's first two seasons are available. That's still hours of great new content for Netflix subscribers. I've personally wanted to check out Regular Show, which is frequently advertised during Adventure Time on Cartoon Network. And hopefully we'll see the service start rolling out later seasons of the series going forward.

This news is so exciting, it might make you want to puncha-yo-buns!

Netflix is always working to bring new streaming content to the table and on Monday, the home entertainment company announced it has worked out a deal for complete seasons of Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. Animation, and Adult Swim. Additionally, just to shake things up a bit, fans will also be treated to episodes of TNT’s Dallas.

The list of new shows headed to Netflix is fairly lengthy, and quite frankly, animated fans should rejoice. Cartoon Network fodder that is joining the lineup includes Adventure Time, Ben 10, Johnny Bravo, and the Regular Show. Plus, Warner Bros. Animation’s Green Lantern will also get a chance to shine on Netflix’s streaming service. Adult Swim will bring episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Boondocks, Children’s Hospital, and Robot Chicken to the table. In short, there will be plenty of animated fodder to watch.

The bad news is that licensing agreements are complicated, and we still have a while to wait before all of the new programs become part of the streaming service. All of the animated programming won’t hit Netflix until March 30, 2013. Additionally, Dallas might as well not have been announced at this juncture, since it won’t be available to view until January 2014. Luckily, when Dallas does show up, both Season 1 and Season 2 of the hit TNT drama will be available in full. “Complete past seasons” of the other series will be made available, but “complete seasons” doesn’t necessarily imply “most seasons,” although I’m hoping that the programs that have run for a shorter amount of time will be available in full. Stay tuned for more information.

It sounds like what's gone around for three seasons of The Walking Dead is about to come around for Robert Kirkman when he makes a cameo on Robot Chicken. A photo from the comic creator and TV executive producer's spot on the Adult Swim series has made its way online, along with a few spoilery details about his appearance.

E! Online shared the photo below, which gives us a look at Kirkman (kind of) on Robot Chicken and pretty much gives away his fate in the stop-motion animation sketch comedy show.

It looks like he's become the meal to a hungry hoard of zombies. And we can see some of his innards being pulled out. Kind of reminds me of that horse scene from the pilot, with maybe a little bit of Dale's awful Season 2 moment thrown in. As for what actually happens to Kirkman leading up to this gory moment:

Well, given the number of characters he's fed to zombies in his comic and in the TV series - (TWD vague spoiler alert!) the AMC drama lost two main characters during last Sunday's episode alone, though only one was eaten by zombies - Kirkman being devoured by dead people seems kind of fitting. Almost poetic, really.

E! says Kirkman did his own screaming for the part, which had to be fun. The episode will air November 18. Robot Chicken airs Wednesday at 12:00 a.m. ET on Adult Swim.

Robot Chicken has quite a premiere planned for its upcoming sixth season. The Emmy Award-winning, stop-motion-animated program on the Adult Swim network has tackled big franchises before, with their famous spoof of the Star Wars Saga (before Family Guy), and now they are once again entering sacred fanboy territory: the DC Comics catalogue. Teaming up with Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, the creators of Robot Chicken, are starting the new year off in style with their DC Comics Special. Here's the first trailer from Adult Swim:

Man, no matter where he goes, Aquaman just can't catch a break. I hope they give him a redemption scene where the rest of the Justice League are in the water and he can finally get back at them. Who am I kidding, like water's going to help Arthur do battle with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman. Joining Robot Chicken brainchild Seth Green (as Batman, Robin, and the aforementioned Aquaman) are regulars like Breckin Meyer (as Superman), Neil Patrick Harris (Two-Face), Abe Benrubi, Alex Borstein, Clare Grant, Tara Strong, Matt Senreich, Tom Root, and Zeb Wells, with Kevin Shinick narrating. Oh, and Alfred Molina as Lex Luthor, Megan Fox as Lois Lane, and Nathan Fillion fulfilling fanboy dreams in the role of Green Lantern.

Robot Chicken: DC Comics Special airs Sunday, September 9th at Midnight (12:00 a.m. ET/PT) on Adult Swim.

San Diego Comic Con is just weeks away, and it's evident by the growing frequency of the updates we're seeing that the TV networks are getting their ducks in a row in anticipation up the big event. Earlier today, we shared the panel line-up for Cartoon Network, which includes Adventure Time and Star Wars: Clone Wars. And now we have a look at what Adult Swim has to offer Comic Con goers this year.

Among the series set to be featured for Adult Swim at SDCC this year are live-action series NTSF: SD:SUV:: and Children's Hospital. Rob Corddry fans will want to attend both of those panels, as he'll be in attendance for the Childrens Hospital panel, and he's set to moderate NTSF:SD:SUV::, which will include appearances by Martin Starr, Rebecca Romijn, Diane Rphael and Rob Riggle.

Seth Green, Matthew Senreich and Tom Root will be among those featured in the Robot Chicken panel, as will Breckin Meyer and Matthew Beans. They'll also be discussing the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special. And Adult Swim's keeping it pretty simple for their fans, as all of their panels are set for Friday in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. Check out the line-up below, which includes the booth signings schedule.

More TV panel information for Comic Con can be found here.

Those crazy Robot Chicken guys are at it again. First they took on Star Wars, and now they will take on DC Comics’ superheroes for a new special to air on the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network. How will Superman, Batman, and their friends handle the invasion of Robot Chicken? Will the Super Friends every be the same?

I’m trying to picture the two worlds colliding, but clearly don’t have the imagination of the good people over at Stoopid Buddy Studios, which produces Robot Chicken. Deadline reports that the special will air in the fall, and co-creator Seth Green is pretty excited about it. Green says he was “raised on DC Comics” and looks forward to bringing the Robot Chicken world into the “awesome world” of the Super Friends and the Legion of Doom.

On board to do voices for the special are (of course) Seth Green as Batman, Robin, and Aquaman, Paul Reubens voicing The Riddler, Neil Patrick Harris for Two-Face, Alfred Molina as Lex Luthor, Megan Fox voicing Lois Lane, Nathan Fllion as the Green Lantern, and Breckin Meyer as Superman.

This is the second geek-friendly special put on by the Robot Chicken team; they’ve already gone to a galaxy far, far away with their Star Wars special. That one earned them three Emmy nominations. Adult Swim has come a long way, and Robot Chicken has certainly come a lot further than I ever thought it would the first time I saw it. With DC’s Green Lantern recently on the big screen, DC’s heroes are hot again, and this special is sure to put them in their place.

It seems that Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich just can’t get enough stop-motion tomfoolery. After five seasons of using toys to spoof everything from Star Wars to My Little Pony on Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken, Green and Senreich are adding another show to their docket. According to THR, the duo are teaming up for a new YouTube series called Stoopid Monkey.

If you’re a Robot Chicken fan, that probably sounds familiar. Green and Senreich’s production company is called Stoopid Monkey Productions, and anybody’s who’s stuck around to the end of an RC episode has heard Seth Green’s irritated delivery of the name. (It’s also a Futurama reference.) So, what’s Stoopid Monkey’s Stoopid Monkey all about?

From the sound of things, Robot Chicken fans will feel right at home. Stoopid Monkey will feature a blend of live-action and stop-motion footage, and will focus on the adventures of an actual stupid monkey named Stoopid Monkey (voiced by Senreich), as well as his friends Biggie (v. Green) and QT (v. Hillary Bergen). Apparently the three main characters will be performed by real actors, who will then be digitally swapped out for stop-motion versions, resulting in a bizarre hybrid of the two styles. So, sort of like a cross between The Nightmare Before Christmas and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I guess?

Two episodes of Stoopid Monkey will hit YouTube every Friday beginning this week and lasting for 10 weeks. You’ll be able to find the eps right here.

Robot Chicken and Family Guy have been engaged in a good-natured rivalry for several years over who can better parody the Star Wars franchise, and it's open to debate who's currently in the lead. Personally, I think Family Guy peaked early, whereas each of Robot Chicken's three Star Wars specials have offered at least several laughs at least as funny as the "Red Foxx standing by" montage. Granted, Robot Chicken is even more OCD than MacFarlane's shows, so they have an advantage simply because they throw so much stuff at the screen, some of it is bound to stick.

Either way, the latest volley in the war has received a home-video release date, with Warner Bros. slating Robot Chicken Star Wars III set to hit Blu-ray and DVD July 12th. It'll run you less than twenty bucks if you pay full price at $19.89, which ain't a bad deal at all. As usual, the set will have a ton of special features, with the Blu-ray receiving a few exclusives. You can check out the full specs and a clip from the show below

Robot Chicken Star Wars III Bonus Features

• Interview with George Lucas
• Chicken Nuggets (sketch-by-sketch video commentary)
• Behind the Scenes
• Voice Recording Featurette
• Star Wars Celebration V Robot Chicken Panel
• Skywalker Ranch Premiere Trip
• Writer’s Room Featurette
• Deleted Animatics w/video intros
• Audio Commentaries
• Time Lapses of Animation (Blu-Ray Exclusive)
• Seth Green Animation Reference (Blu-Ray Exclusive)

Later this month Adult Swim will premiere the third installment of the Robot Chicken: Star Wars Trilogy. Star Wars fans and those who love Robot Chicken won’t want to miss this hour-long special.

Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III airs Sunday, Dec. 19 at 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT) on Adult Swim. Much like any given episode of Robot Chicken, the special jumps all over the place, delivering a semi-random shuffle of jokes, except in this case, it’s all Star Wars, so fans of the franchise will definitely want to check it out. I took a peek at the special and there are some genuinely hilarious moments. It’s also my determination that a Robot Chicken special focused entirely on ridiculous storm trooper shenanigans would be fairly epic.

Below is Adult Swim’s description and further down are a few photos from the special.

During last Sunday’s episode of Family Guy, in which Stewie and Brian visited multiple universes, the baby and dog found themselves briefly visiting a Robot Chicken universe, Stewie made a remark to Chris (voiced by Seth Green), asking him, “How’s it feel to be on a major network for thirty seconds?” Fans of Robot Chicken surely chuckled at Chris/Green’s exclamation of “F--- you!” Well, the joke’s on you, Stewie because it looks as though Green and his fellow Robot Chicken creators could be getting more than thirty-seconds of primetime on a major network.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Fox has ordered a presentation and a script for an animated project from Seth Green, Matthew Senreich and Tom Root, who are the masterminds behind the clever stop-motion animated series Robot Chicken, which airs on The Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.

Of the project, the Reporter stated:

So while we won’t be seeing a full-length stop-motion animated series from these guys, Root did say the show will still have the “comedic sensibilities” of their other shows. So if you think Robot Chicken and Titun Maximum are funny, chances are this new show will also make you laugh. Now we just have to see whether or not the big-wigs at Fox deem it funny and clever enough to add to the lineup.

The friendly rivalry between Robot Chicken and Family Guy’s ongoing Star Wars spoofs will get taken up a notch this Christmas as Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment releases Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side on Blu-ray and DVD. Hitting shelves on December 22nd, SSSDS follows up on Family Guy’s previous ode to Lucas, Family Guy: Blue Harvest.

Parodying The Empire Strikes Back, SSSDS will presumably give us satirical takes on everything from Ugnaughts to “I know,” and will run you $22.98 for the DVD set and $29.99 for Blu-ray. The Blu-ray also comes with a digital copy, but both versions will include the following special features:

• Audio Commentary
• Deleted Scenes
• Behind-the-Scenes Featurette – “The Dark Side of Poster Art”
• Animatics
• Pop-Up Video

November 16th is the date for the premier of Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II. So, you’ve got roughly three months to go online and watch the first installment. Adult Swim has two options - you can watch the show online, or you can buy the recently released DVD.

I must admit that I had never heard of Robot Chicken: Star Wars until they were recently nominated for an Emmy for Best Animated Series. Okay, okay, I live in a cave. Actually, the only animated series I watch are geared towards preschoolers. And though my five year old loves Star Wars, I’m guessing it’s inappropriate.

For those of you who have no idea what this show is, here is a quote from Wikipedia, “The program is a sketch comedy that "parodies" a number of pop culture conventions using stop motion animation of toys, action figures, dolls, and claymation (usually for special effects) and various other objects, such as tongue depressors and The Game of Life pegs.” And, clearly, there is no bigger pop culture convention than Star Wars

The second installment of Robot Chicken: Star Wars will be just as entertaining and star-studded as the first... “Many members of the voice cast from the first special, including original "Star Wars" actors Carrie Fisher and Billy Dee Williams -- reprising their roles as Princess Leia and Lando Calrissian, respectively -- are back. Also returning are Seth MacFarlane as Emperor Palpatine, Conan O'Brien as Zuckuss, Breckin Meyer as Admiral Ackbar and Boba Fett, and Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks. Green will voice several characters, including Ponda Baba. Joining the voice cast this time around is Andy Richter."

So, catch up on the missed episodes while you can, or just re-watch them for fun. With a combo like Billy Dee Williams, Seth MacFarlane ( I love you!), and Seth Green, how can you go wrong?