Last night's broadcast of Adult Swim's "Robot Chicken" presented a pretty good homage/parody of the original series using, naturally, the mid 70s Mego figures. The set-up is the old cliche of Kirk bedding ladies across the galaxy and STDs. In a slight twist, he already has the infection and his goal is to warn and apologize to the women he may have infected. What makes this one rather interesting are the new sets and figures RC constructed. In one scene Kirk speaks to an Orion "slave" closely resembling Yvonne Craig's Marta. The bedroom interior captures the Matt Jefferies design ethic rather well. When he leaves, a slave master comes in to berate the situation (I won't ruin the gag). Amazingly, he resembles the oily, overweight fellow depicted in Pike's Orion illusion. Kirk then visits a woman who looks and is dressed very much like Andrea from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" The interior even depicts the android creation console. Then Kirk meets with the Gorn (the "new" Mego version that actually looks like the Wah Chang creature rather than SpiderMan's Lizard dressed in the Mego Klingon armor). The set looks like the (in)famous Vasquez Rocks, quite accurate. Why is he addressing the Gorn? Uh, don't ask! Oh, yeah, I seem to remember seeing a very accurate Janice Rand figure with her distinctive weaved basket hairdo. (But i may have just dreamed that after I fell asleep.) After he's made his rounds, Kirk wonders where he caught the STD. I won't ruin the punchline. True, sophmoric humor, but a lot of new sculpts, both figures and sets for this schtick. That's what impressed me. Sincerely, Bill
No, you didn't dream seeing the Janice Rand figure. I saw it too. One thing I noticed was that the figures seemed to have a raised insignia on their shirt uniforms, rather than the decals Mego figures had. A little customizing touch Robot Chicken did, I guess.
Here's the clip from the Adult Swim site. Robot Chicken even composed a pastiche of the comedic scores often heard during the second season. http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/the-prime-directive.html I aplogize to anyone who is blocked from the site (probably most members outside of the U.S.). Sincerely, Bill
Not just that, but the chevrons had the division insignia as well. The Mego dolls just had tissue thin silver foil with no detail pasted upon vinyl plastic chevrons. Seth Green and his troop actually "screen accurately" enhanced them. (That's an odd phrase.) But since "day one" they have left the simple sleeve braids "as is", probably to keep some of that vinatge Mego feel. Robot Chicken has done a few other "bits" set during the TOS, a short clip with the turbolift slamming shut on Kirk's family jewels, one I call "revenge of the Redshirt" and a fairly recent one when systems aboard ship fail, so the characters must perform their own sound effects and incidental music. Debatably the most inventive was a less than 2 minute retelling of "The Wrath of Khan" performed as a stage opera. Custom figures were sculpted for that one, including a Kirk with the appropriately aged faetures dressed in the burgundy jacket and a Khan in his Ceti Alpha V attire. On a tangent note, Patrick Stewart himself performed the voice of a dune buggy driving Gurny Halleck in a spoof of "Dune" last week. Sincerely, Bill
I had it recorded and just watched it. Hilarious and nice attention to detail. Although the PADD looked like the TNG version.
I suspect Seth Green and the other production personnel purposely slipped in that just to "rattle" us more pedantic fans. Sincerely, Bill