TV Review | Robot Chicken: “Tubba-Bubba’s Now Hubba-Hubba,” “Boo Cocky”

Teletoon recently aired six Robot Chicken episodes, officially the odds and sods of the show’s third season.  In America, the third season began in August 2007 and ended fifteen months later.

This tied in nicely with the release of the third-season Robot Chicken DVD, which I bet everyone bought before the economy started to eat itself.  Here now, some reviews of the frottingest show on television, not including Howie Do It.


“Tubba-Bubba’s Now Hubba-Hubba” | It’s nice that Robot Chicken references the Superpets.  To be fair, it’s the Legion of Super-Pets and Seth Green’s adaptation of the infrequently remembered superhero team is hardly faithful.  Seriously, Hissy the Super-Snake?  Is Proty II screwing with us?

Anyway, they forget to feed themselves, even though at least two of the Super-Pets have human-like intelligence and Krypto is shown drawing a ring around his left eye.  Hissy can type articles for The Daily Planet…oh, who cares?  Watch Streaky the Super-Cat smile at you while he’s taking a shit!  Believe it or not, this sketch is more intelligent than any Superman comic from the 1960s.

The running gag of a 24 parody features Dracula sleeping.  Eventually, Drac foils a terrorist plot and destroys Van Helsing in the process.

He also makes puns and follows them up with pregnant pauses while looking at the camera.  It’s hard not to like Drac’s style.  His puns have that certain bite.

As for other sketches, “Girls Gone Wild: Cenobitches” is great.  The Pac-Man/Matrix sketch has Pac-Man do his best Neo impression before dying.  The entire sketch is time filler and wouldn’t have been funny nine years ago.

Vehicle Force Voltron is made reference to in one sketch, which must have pleased a few Dairugger XV fans but relies on a “transforming robot takes too long to form” gag.  The repeating five-note fanfare is the best part of the sketch, which is sad.

Kevin Shinick has a sketch built around his hosting Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?, but it relies too much on Robot Chicken tropes like kids being yelled at and domestic disturbance as a plot device.  “Tubba-Bubba’s Now Hubba-Hubba” is a typical Robot Chicken episode.  Let’s move on.


“Boo Cocky” | The opening sketch, where the nerds from Revenge of the Nerds earn jail time for their shenanigans, is lost on me.  The sketch is a variation on the standard “what if reality intruded upon nostalgia” Robot Chicken trope.

The second-best sketch in “Boo Cocky” has Conan the Barbarian and friends make a musical production number out of the line “crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the women!”  Truly, Conan knows what is best in life.  It’s a simple idea, and it works.

The best sketch is where a giant anthropomorphic carrot jumps out of the ground and eats a bunny.  What the carrot says is Robot Chicken at its absurdist best.  Big surprise the best sketch airs right after the second-best sketch.  It’s best to skip the next seven minutes.

Those who plan to watch the next seven minutes will be rewarded with some hilarity.  The Star Trek Las Vegas Experience sketch has its moments, even though it blows its comedic load halfway through.

A PVR-based sketch reuses the “farting and retards” joke from earlier in the third season.  Robot Chicken fans know the show isn’t just about farting and retards – nut shots have been part of RC since the beginning.  At least the farting retards make for intellectually stimulating television.

The Saw/Saved by the Bell mashup outright sucks.  How the hell can the show waste Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, Dustin Diamond, Lark Voorhies and Dennis Haskins on such a lame sketch?  Robot Chicken has screwed the proverbial pooch while attempting to skewer the vast and magnificent world of Saved by the Bell.  Please GO TO HELL!

“Boo Cocky” is funnier than “Tubba-Bubba’s Now Hubba-Hubba,” but that’s not saying much.  “Boo Cocky” needed more monster carrot.

C. Archer
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