NEW YORK: Chickens clucking the doleful “Walking Dead” theme offer up an early hint that what is ahead will be offbeat and funny.
“The Robot Chicken Walking Dead Special: Look Who is Walking” (which airs Sunday at midnight Eastern time on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim) teams “Robot Chicken” masterminds Seth Green and Matthew Senreich with “The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman and showrunner Scott M. Gimple along with “Walking Dead” stars voicing action-figure versions of their characters that, in classic “Robot Chicken” fashion, spoof the AMC zombie thriller.
“It is a massive collaboration by AMC and (Adult Swim parent) Turner that typically is not possible,” Green said during a conversation alongside Senreich earlier this week. “It is awesome they let us do it.”
Writing for the half-hour special began a year ago. First step: Charting out key “Walking Dead” plot twists, season by season.
“We put all that on a board,” Green said. “Then we thought, ‘OK, what are significant visual elements you can reference in a humorous way?’”
“Our writers are all diehard fanatics of the show,” Senreich said. “But our comic sense is to take the moment right before or right after a horrific scene, and find the silliness in how awkward or mundane that moment can be.
“Then, when we saw how all those little pieces were coming together, we needed a framework.”
Green: “I walked out of the writers room for less than five minutes and when I walked back in they go, ‘We have got it!’ The idea was: a retrospective look at everything the ‘Walking Dead’ characters had been through. It is set well into the future, after the walker apocalypse has been cured, and we are reflecting on the mythology about that era, with some of the mythology pretty garbled.”
Senreich: “Then we got to play with all the actors from the show!”
Green: “I do not know that this has ever been done, where you have the entire cast of an ongoing successful drama series playing a comedic version of their characters in a parody of that show.”
Carl, the eyepatch-wearing teenage son of series hero Rick Grimes but now an old man, serves as a narrator of sorts, with Chandler Riggs, who plays Carl, also voicing him in that elderly state.
Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick, recorded his lines over a Skype hookup.
Senreich: “You saw the joy he had in doing this: He would do a take and then say, ‘Hold on,’ and he would give us another version, and then go, ‘I have got another idea, hold on!’”
Michael Rooker, who played the racist roughneck Merle, reveals a lovely singing voice as Merle, chained to a rooftop, serenading a zombie lass.
And the villainous Negan (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is on hand, barbed-wire bat in hand, as his action-figure Doppelganger, performing a song-and-dance number.
Green: “Everybody realized that we were no making fun of the show, that we were not trying to take away any of the audience’s experience of the sincere, frightening original show. We just wanted to do a companion piece that has fun in that world.”
Senreich: “What we are doing comes from a place of love. We are fanboys!”
While this program is a one-off, “Robot Chicken” will be back with a Christmas special on December 10, kicking off a ninth season of weekly episodes.
Senreich: “It is the first chance we have been able to do anything on (‘Star Wars’ films) ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘Rogue One,’ which inspired what might be my favorite sketch of multiple seasons.”
Green (cracking up): “Are you talking about the mice?”
Senreich: “I have seen it maybe 200 times, and it still makes me giggle. It is those little moments that make this all worthwhile.”
The series premiered in 2005 as a joint venture of the multi-faceted Green (a producer-director-writer and actor who landed his first film role at age 10 in “The Hotel New Hampshire,” and voices slothful teen son Chris on the Fox cartoon series “Family Guy”) and Senreich (a kindred spirit who had been editorial director of Wizard, a magazine devoted to comics and pop culture).
Senreich defines “Robot Chicken” as “sketch comedy with toys, as ‘SNL’ with action figures.”
“Thanks to stop-motion animation, our toys come to life,” Green notes.
“One of my favorite things about stop-motion,” he goes on, “is how well it tricks the brain. If you have got an animator who can bring life to something inanimate, the audience not only sees the real shadows and the real lighting, but believes the illusion that this thing that is not alive IS alive.
“And when you are photographing a toy, you are seeing it with the life you imagined it to have as a kid. That is very powerful.
“And by the time you get the joke” — Green snaps his fingers — “it is twice as effective.”
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‘Robot Chicken’ hatches a dead-on ‘Walking Dead’ spoof
‘Robot Chicken’ hatches a dead-on ‘Walking Dead’ spoof
Eric Dane, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star and ALS awareness advocate, dies at 53
- In April 2025, Dane shared his diagnosis of ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease
- He leaves two daughters with wife Rebecca Gayheart, who he married in 2004
Eric Dane, the celebrated actor best known for his roles on “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Euphoria” and who later in life became an advocate for ALS awareness, died Thursday. He was 53.
His representatives said Dane died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known also as Lou Gehrig’s disease, less than a year after he announced his diagnosis.
“He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world,” said a statement that requested privacy for his family. “Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight. He will be deeply missed, and lovingly remembered always. Eric adored his fans and is forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support he’s received.”
Dane developed a devoted fanbase when his big break arrived in the mid-2000s: He was cast as Dr. Mark Sloan, aka McSteamy, on the ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” a role he would play from 2006 until 2012 and reprise in 2021.
Although his character was killed off on the show after a plane crash, Dane’s character left an indelible mark on the still-running show: Seattle Grace Hospital became Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
In 2019, he did a complete 180 from the charming McSteamy and became the troubled Cal Jacobs in HBO’s provocative drama “Euphoria,” a role he continued in up until his death.
Dane also starred as Tom Chandler, the captain of a US Navy destroyer at sea after a global catastrophe wiped out most of the world’s population, in the TNT drama “The Last Ship.” In 2017, production was halted as Dane battled depression.
In April 2025, Dane announced he had been diagnosed with ALS, a progressive disease that attacks nerve cells controlling muscles throughout the body.
ALS gradually destroys the nerve cells and connections needed to walk, talk, speak and breathe. Most patients die within three to five years of a diagnosis.
Dane became an advocate for ALS awareness, speaking a news conference in Washington on health insurance prior authorization. “Some of you may know me from TV shows, such as ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ which I play a doctor. But I am here today to speak briefly as a patient battling ALS,” he said in June 2025. In September of that year, the ALS Network named Dane the recipient of their advocate of the year award, recognizing his commitment to raising awareness and support for people living with ALS.
Dane was born on Nov. 9, 1972, and raised in Northern California. His father, who the actor said was a Navy veteran and an architect, died of a gunshot wound when Dane was 7. After high school, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, landing guest roles on shows like “Saved by the Bell,” “Married...With Children,” “Charmed” and “X-Men: the Last Stand,” and one season of the short-lived medical drama “Gideon’s Crossing.”
A memoir by Dane is scheduled to be published in late 2026. “Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments” will be released by Maria Shriver’s The Open Field, a Penguin Random House imprint. According to Open Field, Dane’s memoir covers key moments in his life, from his first day at work on “Grey’s Anatomy” to the births of his two daughters and learning that he had ALS.
“I want to capture the moments that shaped me — the beautiful days, the hard ones, the ones I never took for granted — so that if nothing else, people who read it will remember what it means to live with heart,” Dane said in a statement about the book. “If sharing this helps someone find meaning in their own days, then my story is worth telling.”
Dane is survived by his wife, actor Rebecca Gayheart, and their two teen daughters, Billie Beatrice and Georgia Geraldine. Gayheart and Dane wed in 2004 and separated in September 2017. Gayheart filed for divorce in 2018, but later filed to dismiss the petition. In a December essay for New York magazine’s The Cut reflecting on Dane’s diagnosis, Gayheart called their dynamic “a very complicated relationship, one that’s confusing for people.” She said they never got a divorce, but dated other people and lived separately.
“Our love may not be romantic, but it’s a familial love,” she said. “Eric knows that I am always going to want the best for him. That I’m going to do my best to do right by him. And I know he would do the same for me. So whatever I can do or however I can show up to make this journey better for him or easier for him, I want to do that.”
His representatives said Dane died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known also as Lou Gehrig’s disease, less than a year after he announced his diagnosis.
“He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world,” said a statement that requested privacy for his family. “Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight. He will be deeply missed, and lovingly remembered always. Eric adored his fans and is forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support he’s received.”
Dane developed a devoted fanbase when his big break arrived in the mid-2000s: He was cast as Dr. Mark Sloan, aka McSteamy, on the ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” a role he would play from 2006 until 2012 and reprise in 2021.
Although his character was killed off on the show after a plane crash, Dane’s character left an indelible mark on the still-running show: Seattle Grace Hospital became Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
In 2019, he did a complete 180 from the charming McSteamy and became the troubled Cal Jacobs in HBO’s provocative drama “Euphoria,” a role he continued in up until his death.
Dane also starred as Tom Chandler, the captain of a US Navy destroyer at sea after a global catastrophe wiped out most of the world’s population, in the TNT drama “The Last Ship.” In 2017, production was halted as Dane battled depression.
In April 2025, Dane announced he had been diagnosed with ALS, a progressive disease that attacks nerve cells controlling muscles throughout the body.
ALS gradually destroys the nerve cells and connections needed to walk, talk, speak and breathe. Most patients die within three to five years of a diagnosis.
Dane became an advocate for ALS awareness, speaking a news conference in Washington on health insurance prior authorization. “Some of you may know me from TV shows, such as ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ which I play a doctor. But I am here today to speak briefly as a patient battling ALS,” he said in June 2025. In September of that year, the ALS Network named Dane the recipient of their advocate of the year award, recognizing his commitment to raising awareness and support for people living with ALS.
Dane was born on Nov. 9, 1972, and raised in Northern California. His father, who the actor said was a Navy veteran and an architect, died of a gunshot wound when Dane was 7. After high school, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, landing guest roles on shows like “Saved by the Bell,” “Married...With Children,” “Charmed” and “X-Men: the Last Stand,” and one season of the short-lived medical drama “Gideon’s Crossing.”
A memoir by Dane is scheduled to be published in late 2026. “Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments” will be released by Maria Shriver’s The Open Field, a Penguin Random House imprint. According to Open Field, Dane’s memoir covers key moments in his life, from his first day at work on “Grey’s Anatomy” to the births of his two daughters and learning that he had ALS.
“I want to capture the moments that shaped me — the beautiful days, the hard ones, the ones I never took for granted — so that if nothing else, people who read it will remember what it means to live with heart,” Dane said in a statement about the book. “If sharing this helps someone find meaning in their own days, then my story is worth telling.”
Dane is survived by his wife, actor Rebecca Gayheart, and their two teen daughters, Billie Beatrice and Georgia Geraldine. Gayheart and Dane wed in 2004 and separated in September 2017. Gayheart filed for divorce in 2018, but later filed to dismiss the petition. In a December essay for New York magazine’s The Cut reflecting on Dane’s diagnosis, Gayheart called their dynamic “a very complicated relationship, one that’s confusing for people.” She said they never got a divorce, but dated other people and lived separately.
“Our love may not be romantic, but it’s a familial love,” she said. “Eric knows that I am always going to want the best for him. That I’m going to do my best to do right by him. And I know he would do the same for me. So whatever I can do or however I can show up to make this journey better for him or easier for him, I want to do that.”
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