Family Guy, Robot Chicken, and the Form/ Function of the Narrative: Part 3

And it is in the communication of this message that Robot Chicken exceeds its predecessor. Whereas Family Guy argues the amorphous nature of the spectators’ minds in an explicit fashion, Robot Chicken makes it both explicit and implicit. In the former, the references are made to the viewer, who is made aware of their ability to distinguish among various allusions when they are reintroduced to the ‘main’ storyline. The latter achieves the same effect by its exclusion of a primary narrative rather than its inclusion.

The television static motif noted previously serves as the transition between the multiple strands in the show, but also to delineate the fact that there is no principal storyline or characters for the viewer to compare and contrast with other cultural insinuations in the way that Family Guy does; thus, the explicit and the implicit are manifested. Instead of having two separate parts, such as ‘Family Guy’s main storyline’ and ‘a cultural allusion,’ one act of many in an episode of Chicken may intertwine two or more cultural references creating the equivalent of one strand.

In one particular act, a team of humans who command a giant robot named Voltron are challenged to execute elaborate dance moves in a contest against an equally gargantuan monster; when Voltron fails to dance well enough, the sketch ends with their defeat (not before they kill the monster as retribution for being humiliated though). The act is derived from two sources. The Voltron team is based off a show in which there is a giant robot that battles monsters, but such battles are usually conducted by swords and other traditional weapons of warfare. The ‘dance off’ is a product of the film You Got Served (Chris Stokes, 2004) in which black youth participate in a dancing competition to win literally and metaphorically [in life]. Separately, these two narratives are dramatic. Together, they are a basis of humor, as they have now formed a ridiculous story. Robot Chicken accomplishes the overt communication in a similar way Family Guy does [by its combination of various cultural intimations], but it also achieves the inherent by masking the observers’ capacity through the blending of its numerous acts.

This lack of discrimination results in the kind of seamless spectator analysis that Family Guy flirts with but never attains. If one were to turn on the television in the middle of an episode of Family Guy, for example, they would be momentarily disoriented; they would have missed the first half and would require some time to piece together the overall plot.

With Robot Chicken, it states by its very design that there is no need for that kind of viewer exercise. The divided acts have very little reasoning in their placement; the one that is introduced in the beginning has no influence on the others that transpire subsequently, and even if a previous act is revisited, it is only briefly, of no consequence, and rarely an occurrence. If one does not understand a certain act, the television static will most likely appear soon and whisk the observer to the next sketch. No time to comprehend if you are too slow to get the joke; it would not be any different if you were the one switching channels, would it?

End Part 3