The last time I saw Robot Chicken co-creator Matt Senreich was in-person at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019. A lot has changed over the last three years, but one thing remains the same: Robot Chicken is committed to delivering wacky, funny episodes. And the show continues to receive awards recognition. It’s up for the 2022 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Short-Form Animated Program. Senreich and I reunited over Zoom to talk about the nominated Halloween-themed episode “Happy Russian Deathdog Dolloween 2 U” and the future of the iconic Adult Swim series. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: Life has changed quite a bit, hasn’t it?

Matt Senreich: Just a tad. Did you go to Comic-Con this year?

JM: I didn’t. Did you go?

MS: I went for maybe 36 hours. It was a little overwhelming. It’s uncomfortable to be wearing masks all day and still bumping into so many people. I’m a little COVID sensitive. Let’s say that.

JM: Ok. But was it still at least fun?

MS: It was great seeing people I hadn’t seen in a long time in person. That part was fantastic. I did a lot of that outside when I could. I just didn’t buy the amount of stuff I usually do, which is a little disappointing for me, but at the same time, it was nice to see some people.

JM: Congratulations on the Emmy nomination! How does it feel to get it for this specific Halloween episode?

MS: As it always is, and Seth [Green] and I say this every time, it’s always a shock. It sounds cliche, but it’s amazing. It’s a wonderful feeling when you hear that. Every year you don’t believe it, and I’m still in that awkward sense where I don’t believe it. You look at who you’re up against… and you know you’re gonna lose. (laughs) It’s just fun to be nominated and you’re with these amazing other creators.

JM: You’ve got a shot! You know what it shows in this category when you’ve got The Simpsons and The Boys…

MS: …and Star Wars and Love, Death + Robots!

JM: …it shows that animation is fantastic and diverse. And the content and the quality, I think, just keeps getting better and better.

MS: Look, I’ve seen every one of these things and I love every one of these things. We have little internal bets on who’s gonna win, and it’s fun to see. If any of these people win, it’s like a high-five to them. The Star Wars guys I’ve known for 15-20 years now. Love, Death + Robots, with Seth, I think he’s known those guys for even longer. It’s pretty fun. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. But I hope we get to sit at a table with these people like we did last year and have fun.

JM: Good. Tell me about the origins of this Halloween episode. Where did it come from?

MS: We knew we wanted to do some sort of holiday special. Adult Swim said to us, “We have way too many Christmas specials. Shake things up. Pick another holiday.” (laughs) Just looking at our production schedule and the kinds of things we like to laugh about, Halloween came up. We’ve always talked about doing some sort of Groundhog Day-esque story. Our head writer Tom Root was pushing in that direction and we just started spinning and spiraling to come up with this concept.

JM: Do you remember the first time you saw Groundhog Day?

MS: I don’t remember the first time. I’ve seen it probably 100 times. I showed it to my kids over COVID, which I loved. And my wife saw it for the first time during that time as well. That movie is such a pleasure.

JM: I love Edge of Tomorrow.

MS: Oh my God! Edge of Tomorrow is fantastic. No one talked about it when it was coming out. It went under the radar. It’s an unbelievable movie.

JM: It made my 10 Best list that year, and the momentum sort of started to grow after that of, “Oh yeah this movie actually is really good and a new high for Tom Cruise.”

MS: And another one that came out recently, over COVID, was Palm Springs — another great one and done in such a comedic, different way. I really enjoyed that as well. These movies are a blast. Every time they do a little different version of it, it’s a pleasure. We were hoping to do kind of our own take on it in the geek sensibility.

JM: How was it making scenes but doing them again with slight alterations? That has to be a little different than what you normally do with an episode.

MS: If anything it may have actually helped production in a lot of ways. We only had to make a couple sets that we could just reuse over and over and over. Probably the hardest part was taking our Nerd puppet and giving him whole different costumes in each of those scenes and trying to make it as close as possible to the previous version of that — and how that character walked into the set… or even just walking up to the front door and redoing that in different costumes. We had to make sure the camera was in the same place each time.

JM: In this episode The Nerd calls himself “America’s Sweetheart”.

MS: (laughs) Our Nerd is the everyman. He’s the guy who breaks the fourth wall occasionally and looks at things the way we kind of see things. “It’s all the writer’s perspective on the world.” That makes him a lot of fun to play with.

JM: Since this episode is about doing things over and over again: any experience with an early episode in the run of Robot Chicken that you would want to do again?

MS: I love our Star Wars stuff. Anything Star Wars just makes me happy and smile. I love the characters’ personalities that we’ve created.

JM: Nice. What about your favorite Halloween costume as a kid?

MS: My favorite Halloween costume, which no one would recognize, is a character called Mazinger. It’s kind of Gundam-esque. I probably stood out as people were looking at me: “What is this kid doing?” I had an action figure of this thing.

JM: The most recent episode of Robot Chicken aired in April. What does the future look like for the series?

MS: We’re on our little hiatus right now. We’re taking our little time and we’re looking at what the future’s gonna hold for us. We’re talking with Adult Swim about what’s coming next.

JM: Very good. Do you know which night is your category for the Creative Arts Emmys?

MS: I believe it’s on Saturday night [September 3rd]. Last year you were only allowed four people to come because of COVID. I always say we sat at the kids table because our table was a little smaller and we were with the South Park group. (laughs) We just kind of hung out. We were in the back corner just chit-chatting the whole time. It was a nice, fun time.

JM: There’s another longtime show that’s [still going].

MS: The thing we always start to talk about is how they’re doing these creative one-offs, and it’s something we always talk about with our specials. Do we shift the focus, now that streaming is popping up, into more specials in that realm vs. a season? Is television as viable as streaming? That’s the big conversation. We started this show as shorts for dial-up on Sony Digital. And then it evolved to Adult Swim when that was starting up. Never do we expect these things to grow the way they did. And now watching it do the way it does on streaming, it’s really fantastic. It’s surreal in a lot of ways.

JM: You’ve got about a month to prepare a speech.

MS: (laughs) I will say this: there’s never preparation for a speech, which is kind of weird. And there was one time where Seth was out of town and there was no way he could get back for the Emmys. I was like, “What do we do if we win?” And he’s like, “We’re not gonna win. But just tell them I’m in the bathroom.” That was the year we won. (laughs) I went up on stage and I was really uncomfortable, and I was like, “It’s such a shame that Seth’s in the bathroom because he was supposed to give the speech.” That’s what happened, and afterwards everyone was like, “Where’s Seth? It’s so weird he was in the bathroom.” I was like, “Wow! I actually sold this?” He wasn’t even there.

It definitely made for an uncomfortable situation. Seth’s the talker. I’m the one who likes to hide behind the scenes. Even me doing this interview with you: I’m completely uncomfortable. (laughs)

JM: What? You’re great at this! We’ve talked now three or four times.

MS: I know, it’s because I know you that I feel like we have a rapport here. It’s good. (laughs)

JM: I appreciate that very much. Maybe Seth will decide that YOU’RE in the bathroom this time.

MS: Maybe! (laughs)