A successful spoof needs two things: an audience that gets the joke and a spoofer with an encyclopedic knowledge of what it is he or she is ripping on. SinceStar Wars has been common cultural currency for the last 30 years, it’s an easy target for satirists, presuming everyone knows a stormtrooper from a tauntaun. No piece of science fiction is so ubiquitous. (Yeah, try making a Serenity parody, and see how many people get that hi-la-rious Reavers gag, fanboy.)

This easy target has paid varying bounties (Clerks good, Spaceballs bad), but Adult Swim’s stop-motion sketch-comedy series Robot Chicken and its half-hour Star Wars special have an advantage in the form of hyperactive actor/writer/producer/all-around creative force/Star Wars fanboy Seth Green. He’s the kid with all the coolest toys, which is handy, because the whole show is a tribute to the twisted, puerile joy of making your Ben Kenobi and Chewbacca figures make kissy-face. It’s Star Wars when the camera normally turns away to follow the heroes, focusing instead on a lascivious Boba Fett and cereal-shilling Adm. Ackbar.
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