TVSquad

The team behind Robot Chicken is moving on up ...to Fox. They sold an animated series to the network that is intended to appear on prime time.

The formula of the new show will be familiar. It's pretty much a family and school-based comedy like all the other Fox animated shows. It's somewhat of a shame as Robot Chicken presented something fun and different while this could potentially be lost in a crowd that includes the entire Sunday night Fox line-up. Hopefully Green and company can add some sort of unique flavor to the show that will help it distinguish itself.

Obviously, Seth Green is already involved with the Sunday night Fox animated shows, since he's the voice of Chris Griffin on Family Guy. That show even throws in lines occasionally promoting a fictitious Family Guy/Robot Chicken feud. I wonder if this news will change the dynamic of that "feud" somewhat. Probably not, other than giving them something else to make in-jokes about.

It was mentioned a few months ago that some of the folks behind Robot Chicken (including Seth Green) are making a new Adult Swim series called Titan Maximum, which is basically a Voltron parody. I didn't realize when I first heard of this project that there was also a little Thunderbirds in the mix as well. And quite probably some Team America: World Police.

It's too early to tell, but based on the preview, the show certainly looks funny. Unlike Robot Chicken, this show will likely have things like plots and regular characters (the nerd kid from Robot Chicken doesn't count). In that sense, it's more a parody in the vein of The Venture Brothers.

If you asked around to most experts and fans attending Comic-Con International what the biggest event was today, they'd probably pick the 3 p.m. panel featuring James Cameron and his first public showing of footage from Avatar.

But Seth Green was scheduled opposite Avatar to discuss Robot Chicken, the new Titan Maximum and whatever else his fans could throw at him.

Sure the crowds were massive for Cameron, but it was also a maxed-out Meeting Room 6A for Green and the Adult Swim shows as fans lined up down the hall, down another hall and, eventually, outside the upper level of the convention center.

Seth Green and a bunch of his associates from Robot Chicken will be lending their voices to a new animated series called Titan Maximum which is, for all intents and purposes, a parody of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and their ilk (or even Voltron). Many of the people behind this show are also behind Robot Chicken.

I've been saying for years that if the world is threatened by an extra-terrestrial menace, the last group of people I would want to defend me is "teens with attitude". With that in mind, this sounds like a really funny concept. I'm just not sure if it would work as a continuing series. It might be better as a limited series or just a movie. Hopefully Green and company will prove me wrong.

It helps that two of the writers behind it write for comic books (Geoff Johns and Zeb Wells) since it's such a comic book premise. This is definitely one that I'll set the DVR for.