Robot Chicken short-circuits on special features

The scene is a regular arcade game of Pac-Man, when another circle-shaped character with sunglasses tells the beloved video game character that everything he has known is a lie, that he is just part of a computer program and that if he eats the red pellet he will fall further down the rabbit hole.

The Matrix spoof is just one of the skits from the third season of Robot Chicken, the Emmy-award winning show that plays on Generation Y’s nostalgia, which is available on DVD today.

The two-disc set features approximately 225 minutes of content, the majority of which is the season’s 20 episodes, leaving little in the way of special features.

The DVD collection includes the Christmas episode, which features a parody of the original stop-motion animation of the Rankin/Bass holiday television special. The spoofs are disturbing and hilarious — like the one about the elf who wants to be a dentist, but ends up being awful at dentistry and goes from job to job until he finally goes back to the North Pole. He gets his old job making toys back, but before long Santa has him “taken care of” because of his desertion.

The extras most worth watching are the video commentaries and the short VFX Comparison montage, which shows all of the special effects that go into making the episodes. The studio tour is also a fun look into the stop-motion world of Robot Chicken.

The other special features are, sadly, not special. They’re mostly clips, sometimes altered, taken from the episodes themselves and thrown into a slideshow. For example, the gag reel, rather than consisting of bloopers, is just an assortment of season three’s most violent clips set to music.

Some of the deleted scenes are interesting. The best is the extended version of the Star Wars skit, which shows a missing scene from the Empire Strikes Back where Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Han Solo and company have a very awkward dinner.

The saving grace of this set is the episodes. Only 11 minutes long and full of witty satire, they’re easy to watch over and over again.

Be warned, however: The DVDs are uncensored and contain content not suited for those under the age of 17. Not all of the nudity is claymation, and nothing is bleeped out.

Overall, the DVD is worth buying only for fans of the show. Yes, the episodes are excellent, but with the lacking special features it’s easier to just stay up and wait for late-night reruns on Adult Swim.