Robot Chicken creators craft new plot-based show: Titan Maximum

TITAN MAXIMUM premieres on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim September 27 at 11:30PM (ET/PT).

It's a complete mystery how the 1960s TV show Thunderbirds has made such an impact on the world. The series had a bit of a revitalization on FOX in the 90s, but it still always seemed like a mere footnote in TV history. Though the show always had its fans, it seemed that the parodies are what truly kept Thunderbirds alive.

Titan Maximum is the latest parody to poke fun of the genre. Though the new cartoon coming to Adult Swim on September 27 is stop motion and not marionettes, the effect is the same. There are plenty of ways to make fun of the original, Titan chooses to do it by setting the time shortly after a heroic Thunderbird-esque team is eliminated by a government bureaucracy. Each member has found their own path of crafting solo albums, drinking heavily, or turning to evil. It's a little cliche to start, but isn't that part of the point of a parody?

When watching a preview of the pilot, I wondered if this show was a little too late in the game. Didn't the South Park guys do something similar with Team America: World Police a few years back? There are certainly parallels, but Team America was parodying Michael Bay movies as much as Thunderbirds, perhaps more so. Titan is more focused on the latter.

The adult language (I should've made note how man times they used the word "vagina") offers a cheap but effective source of laughs. Plus, I've got to give credit to the guys from Robot Chicken (Tom Root, Matthew Senreich, and Seth Green are all involved in both Chicken and Titan), they actually managed to make a show with a unified plot.