Robot Chicken - Opening Sequence

Opening Sequence

A mute mad scientist finds a road-killed chicken, which he takes back to his laboratory to re-fashion into a cyborg. Midway through the opening sequence, the titular chicken turns his laser eye towards the camera (a la Locutus), and the title appears amidst the 'laser effects' as Les Claypool of Primus can be heard screaming "It's alive!" in typical Frankenstein fashion. Claypool also composed and performed the show's theme song. The mad scientist then straps the re-animated Robot Chicken into a chair, uses calipers to hold his eyes open, and forces him to watch a bank of television monitors (an allusion to A Clockwork Orange); this scene segues into the body of the show.

In the episode "1987", Michael Ian Black claims that this sequence tells the viewer that they (the audience) are the robot chicken(s), being forced to watch the skits. As a result, the show does not actually focus on the robot chicken until the 100th episode when he finally makes his escape and later kills the mad scientist when he kidnap a hen who is the chicken's girlfriend. Beginning in the sixth season, the role of chicken and mad scientist are reversed in this opening sequence: The chicken turns the mad scientist into a cyborg and then subjects him to watch the television sets.

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