Robot Chicken, often referred to as Chicken or RC, is the titular protagonist of the Adult Swim animated cartoon of the same name. Chicken is a stand-in for the audience, as confirmed by Michael Ian Black in the "Best Robot Chicken Ever" skit, part of the episode 1987, though his role would change following the series' 100th episode.
Biography[]
Except for its cybernetic components, Chicken is an otherwise normal rooster. He was found dead on the side of the road by a mad scientist by the name of Fritz Huhnmörder, who proceeded to revive Chicken, replacing several parts of his broken body with mechanical replacements. These include a laser replacing his right eye.
History[]
Chicken, for most of his life, lived on Old Man McLaughlin's farm, off of Highway 9W. Here, he lived a boring life similar to other chickens - clucking, pecking and scratching until his untimely demise. Fritz Huhnmörder would find the chicken's corpse on the side of the highway and would resurrect him, before locking him into a chair and forcing him to watch an endless stream of mindless, brain-numbing television. This would continue for five seasons of the show, though how long this would be in the show's timeline is unknown.
RC would eventually escape, during the series' 100th episode, returning to his home to find Huhnmörder had kidnapped his girlfriend, Cluckerella, subjecting her to the same televised torture he went through. Chicken would return to Huhnmörder's castle, fighting through several other characters from throughout the series, before eventually facing the scientist responsible for his torture. Chicken would win this fight when Huhnmörder's arm gets caught in one of the viewing chair's arm locks, by pushing the monitors onto his former captor, crushing and decapitating the mad scientist. However, Chicken's revenge was not done, with the 6th season opening with RC reviving Huhnmörder the same way he was revived (though with a blue laser eye instead of red) and locking him in the viewing chair instead. Sometime following this rescue, Chicken and Cluckerella would get married.
In the Season 7 episode Chipotle Miserables, Cluckerella divorces Chicken, and the eldest of Huhnmörder's children would steal his father's one remaining organic eye to open a door guarding several spare parts, which he would use to create his own force of robot animals (and one unlucky hobo) for his plans. Using these cyborg animals, he'd kidnap all five living US presidents at the time of the episode's airing (Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama), forcing Chicken to team up with his creator/nemesis to rescue them. The two of them are able to defeat the scientist's insane son, and Chicken leaves his final fate to his father, who traps him in the same viewing chair both of them had already been subjected to.
Chicken would eventually find himself frozen, only to be thawed centuries later by a new Huhnmörder, a descendent of his original creator. This new scientist would, as his ancestor before him, forces Robot Chicken to watch more brain-numbing TV.
At an unknown point in time, Robot Chicken would be replaced by the Nerd in his torture. The exact point in the timeline of the show is unknown, although it is likely that this happened prior to his freezing as, despite the switch happening in Season 10 (following the Nerd's death at the end of Season 9), Chicken and the mad scientist are shown to still be friendly, suggesting that this is the original Fritz Huhnmörder and not the descendent.
In Season 11, Chicken is launched in an escape pod, parodying the film adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey, whereupon he sees an older version of himself, watching the same brain-numbing television he'd been tortured with for years. The only difference is that this older RC is willingly watching, rather than being forced to watch.