You may or may not be familiar with Adult Swim. It’s a late-night cable channel that runs from about midnight to five a.m. and shows stuff like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Perfect Hair Forever, Metalocalypse and Sealab 2021.
Feeling lost? You are not alone. Across the pond, this shit is sort of cool. Layabout students hang around smoking trees and watching alt-animation into the early hours. They rock their Stussy shirts, talk about Mumblecore movies and listen to The Further Adventures of Lord Quas on limited edition vinyl in the ad breaks.
Over here it’s a slightly different story. Adult Swim isn’t actually broadcast on British TV any more. It used to be on Bravo but got axed in July 2008, and now only operates via the Adult Swim UK website. This has had quite a dramatic effect on audience make-up. No longer a sanctuary for too-cool-for-school twentysomethings, statistics now show that 100% of Adult Swim’s UK viewers are 13 year old Black Eyed Peas fans who like the idea of watching something ‘RLI RANDM L0L’ and spend their leisure time quoting American Dad to their like-minded friends.
Not that I’ve got a problem with that. But I’m not sure I want to be a part of it, which provokes a dilemna when this arrives on my doorstep:
Don’t get me wrong, Robot Chicken is funny… sometimes. But it’s also one of the worst offenders for lazy, intentionally-quotable sight jokes that are aimed at exactly the sort of group I’m trying to distance myself from.
Therefore, in the interest of impartiality, I will be reviewing Season 2 of Robot Chicken in the most detached, clinical way possible. I’ll be watching a 10 minute episode and recording the percentage of the runtime when I actively derived enjoyment from the experience.
I reckon about 60% enjoyment would be a decent score.
10 MINUTES LATER…
Here are the results:
Not great. Not bad… but not great.
EXTRA BIT: Is everyone else sick of rollover banner ads that pop up even when you haven’t rolled over them? Thank you and good night.