Believe it or not this special isn't mainly made of random skits about DC characters that have nothing to do with each other as this special actually has a story going on that ties in most of the skits. You will still see a random short skit here and there as a break from the major skits but there isn't as many of those kinds of skits as in the normal episodes. There's my first complain right off the bat as there wasn't enough short skits in this one and lacks variety but that doesn't mean that the main story was bad. The idea of the main story was actually pretty good and it is funny seeing what goes down in a day in the life of the Legion of Doom. The problem I did have with it was that since it was essentially one long sketch and I did find that some of the jokes dragged on a little too long and could've been shortened down a little bit.
Some of the shorter sketches did carry on some of the jokes found in the first Robot Chicken special featuring DC and they were pretty funny but there were some skits that I wanted to return in this one like the skits highlighting obscure DC characters. Speaking of characters it was nice to see them include characters that weren't in the first special as they were indeed needed to be done in the Robot Chicken style but there were still some that I would've liked to see (maybe for the third special perhaps?). I also found the writing as a whole to be a little weaker compared to the prior DC special and suffers the same problems as the more recent episodes of Robot Chicken. This special is also very "hit or miss" but even when it is a little weaker and hit or miss as I still found it to be enjoyable.
This is not a show that you should be watching if you are not familiar with events that have happened in the comics as they reference stuff that readers and fans will only get, so if you've watched every episode of "Arrow (2012 - Ongoing)" or "The Flash (2014 - Ongoing)" and think you have become well endowed with the DC Universe then you will have no idea what's being referenced... Okay I take that back as you'll get some gags. One thing that was improved over the release of the first special is that this special is released in an uncensored form and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be as this is a home release after all.
The action figures they got for this special are mostly the same as the first special but still amazing that they could get their hands on these action figures. The new figures they added looked very good also but I did find one to look a little awkward (Spoiler written in black, highlight to reveal) "Clayface". The sets and props for this special look incredible as they used some very clever items to make it look good. Music and sound effects worked like a charm as they went well with the show and they really captured that comic book charm. Acting in this show was good as they captured the personalities of the DC characters perfectly and they put in the perfect amount of campiness into their voices to make them work with the sketch/parody theme as serious voices wouldn't work in this case.
The special features section of this release go for around four times as long as the show itself. Included in the special features section are: Two documentaries with one being a standard making of while the other documentary focuses on coming up with the music for this special, deleted scenes and sketches and ideas that were rejected outright, cast and crew answering DC themed trivia questions, "Chicken Nugget" mode makes a return, and finally you get not one but two audio commentary tracks with one from the actors and the other from the writers. That's a very nice selection of features right there.
The two documentaries weren't a bad watch at all as they added in some interesting insight to what went on with the show. I did enjoy the documentary on the music the best out of the two as it was the most interesting... And to all the cast and crew that worked hard on this show I'd like to inform you that yes I indeed watched it (you'll understand that comment if you watched the making of documentary). The special feature titled "20 Questions" where the cast and crew answered trivia questions about the DC Universe was a lot more interesting than I thought it'd be as not only was it funny trying to see them answer the questions but it was also very fun to play along and answer the questions yourself.
The deleted and cut stuff were all great to see and it was a shame that they got cut. Most of the deleted/cut stuff are in sketch form (how ironic, sketches in sketches) but there were two deleted scenes that were fully done in the stop-motion styling. The feature about the skits that were outright rejected was also great to witness and in this feature you have the writers describe the ideas for the skits that got rejected and it was also a shame that some of these didn't make it but there were some ideas to where I was like "yeah I can see why that wasn't made".
The "Chicken Nugget" mode was interesting as it works like a video commentary track. The way it works is that the main program will play normally but then from time to time you will see a chicken button pop up in the top right corner and when you activate it (by pressing the "OK" or "Enter" button on the remote) you'll get a video with the crew going on about that particular sketch the button appeared on. This is not a bad feature at all as you'll get some entertaining comments said about the sketches but the thing that did get a little annoying was that every time the chicken button gets activated you'll have a moment where the disc will freeze due to loading the special videos.
Lastly we are up to the two audio commentary tracks. The actors commentary track was alright as it was entertaining but I felt that they could've gone into more details about some sketches. I'm not saying that they didn't go into detail at all as they defiantly did about some sketches. The writers commentary was very good as it was entertaining and informative plus with a bit of horse play and I mean that in the fun way... And metaphorical as the writers weren't playing with any horses during the commentary... I hope. The thing I found weird about the commentary tracks was that if you listen carefully to the main track (the show's track) in the background you'll notice that they are talking over the censored version of the show. That has nothing to do with how good or bad the features or show was as I just wanted to share some trivia about the commentary tracks (useless knowledge is fun).
Overall this special wasn't quite as good as the first one and does have problems but it was still good and worth the watch. I do recommend picking this one up and also the first one if you haven't already. Fun viewing.
Title: Robot Chicken - DC Comics Special
Studio: Stoopid Monkey, Stoopid Buddies, Williams Street, DC Comics
Genre: Animation, Comedy
Running Time: 20 minutes
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Rating: MA15+ (Strong animated violence, blood and gore)
Price: $19.95
Recommended: Yes
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