How George Lucas Felt About Robot Chicken's Star Wars Sketches On Adult Swim

Adult Swim was founded on the tenet of delivering transgressive animated and live-action media to fill the void on Cartoon Network after kids went to sleep. If you were to compile a handful of shows that serve as a pillar of the late night programming block, "Robot Chicken" would undoubtedly be one of them. The stop-motion animated sketch show would present over 11 minutes of pure, unfiltered chaos using action figurines, dolls and an assortment of toys to lampoon all manner of pop culture. Very little was off limits after 11:30pm.

As someone who initially caught the show by accident after staying up late to watch episodes of "Family Guy," it's crazy to see the kind of legacy it's had across 11 seasons. There are a plethora of memorable sketches that have become mainstays of pop culture, such as a gummy bear getting caught in a bear trap, "Beavis and Butthead" joining the "Teen Titans," and the "Peanuts" gang versus a satanic Great Pumpkin. But if there was ever an IP that was a huge target for jokes on behalf of co-creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich, it was "Star Wars."

"Star Wars" parodies nowadays are a dime a dozen. Every possible joke regarding those original six films has been squeezed dry 10 times over. But in 2005, there was still some novelty to poking fun at the small details of a galaxy far, far away. When "Robot Chicken" started, however, they were only able to squeeze in a few gags here and there on account of being afraid of Lucasfilm bringing down the lawsuit hammer. Series creative Tom Root knew he had to be careful of this possibility (via Inverse). But everything changed when one "Robot Chicken" sketch led to an unexpected phone call.

One of the best "Robot Chicken" gags came in the show's second season, when an annoyed and confused Emperor Palpatine (Seth MacFarlane) receives a phone call from Darth Vader informing him about the Death Star being blown up by an "aluminum falcon." According to Senreich, it wasn't too long after the episode aired that a representative from Lucasfilm ended up being on the other line with kind words (via Inverse):

"I got a call on my phone, and it said Lucasfilm on the Caller ID. I looked at Seth and he was like, 'Oh my God.' So I pick up the phone and say, 'Hi, you've reached Matthew Senreich and Seth Green's office. How can I help you?' pretending to be an assistant. After some confusion, he was like, 'I love the sketch that you guys did.'"

Not only was "Star Wars" creator George Lucas not upset with their jabs at his multi-billion dollar franchise, but according to Green, it became a constant fixture around the office (via Inverse):

"He'd showed it at a board meeting as an example of the type of thing he liked because it wasn't cannibalizing the sincere value of the brand. Instead, it was expanding on their sense of humor and helping an audience find a different access point.

Learning that you're not about to be sued for lampooning a powerful filmmaker's IP is a great place to take a breath, but the "Robot Chicken" crew was about to be treated to something even sweeter: a full-on tour of Lucasfilm headquarters, They may not have directly met with Lucas at that time, but Senreich took a leap of faith with the publicity departments and courted them to co-produce a "Star Wars" project. The rest, we say, is history.

The first of three specials aired in 2007 with "Robot Chicken: Star Wars," which featured sketches like President George W. Bush as a Force user, the awkward aftermath of the Skywalker siblings engaging in "twincest," and a running gag about a janitor who has to clean up all of the bodies constantly being tossed from high places. Even Lucas got in on the action, voicing a version of himself being surrounded by rabid fans at a convention and ultimately being rescued by the show's evergreen nerd character (Seth Green).

All of this shows that Lucas had a really good sense of humor and wasn't a curmudgeon about someone besmirching the integrity of his franchise with a joke. It was right around this time too that he gave the go-ahead to "Family Guy," which also featured Green, to do half-hour parodies of the original trilogy.

Lucas seemed to have such a good time watching other comedic talent take jabs at the events of the galaxy far, far away that he decided to do his own take under the Lucasfilm umbrella, with Green and Senreich in tow. Enter "Star Wars: Detours," an animated comedy series that took place between "Revenge of the Sith" and "A New Hope." There were over 39 finished episodes ready to go at a moment's notice, but the acquisition from Disney led to all of them being shelved by the mouse. It didn't exactly look great, but it's a shame you can only really find bits and pieces online of a very different kind of "Star Wars" experience. They might as well put it on Disney+ for curiosity sake.

All 11 seasons of "Robot Chicken," in addition to the "Star Wars" specials, are currently streaming on Max.