Optimus Prime of &Transformers& getting prostate cancer? Voltron break dancing in a &You Got Served&-style dance competition? Speed Racer keeping a dismembered woman in the trunk of his Mach 5? It&s just a few of the many strange skits in Cartoon Network&s new television show &Robot Chicken,& one of several new animated programs planned for this year.&Robot Chicken& is a stop-motion animation sketch show using action figures and custom-created dolls to skewer current pop culture trends and cartoon icons of the past, such as a &Kill Bill&-style samurai sword face-off between Jesus Christ and Santa Claus, and an &I, Robot& parody of the &Jetsons& where robot maid Rosie kills her owner George Jetson. The show is the creation of former ToyFare Magazine Editor Matthew Senreich and actor Seth Green, who is best know for his roles as Scott Evil in the &Austin Powers& movies and as the voice of Chris Griffin in the animated show &Family Guy.& The weekly-aired show has proven to be a huge success for Cartoon Network since its premiere on Feb. 20 at 11:30 p.m. as part of the channel&s late-night animation programming block, called &Adult Swim.& The first show pulled in 732,000 viewers in the adult 18-34 demographic, and the third show brought in more viewers with 842,000 adults, according to Nielson Media Research. &Robot Chicken& currently has 20 episodes in production, and as Green mentioned in an interview with WizardUniverse.com, they&re saving plenty of extras and outtakes for the eventual DVD release of the series.This is not the first success for the &Adult Swim& programming block. Since its premiere in September 2001, the franchise has steadily become the one of the top performers in its time period amongst adults 18-34, adults 18-24 and men 18-24, finally becoming No. 1 in 2003 when the block expanded to five days a week. Acquisitions such as &Futurama& and &Family Guy& constantly pull in the top ratings in their time slot, and original programming like &Aqua Teen Hunger Force& and &Sealab 2021& have launched a successful line of merchandise including clothing, action figures and DVDs.&Adult Swim& has become so successful that at the end of this month it will officially split from Cartoon Network to become its own network, but will still air on the same channel at different times of the day, similar to the way Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and Nick at Nite are integrated into the same channel. This split will improve the Nielson ratings for the new network, becoming No. 1 in its time period among adults 18-34, with 11 of the top 50 ad-supported cable programs in the same demographic, according to a story at ICv2.com.The &Toonami& programming block, which airs every Saturday from 7-11 p.m., also has several new anime shows scheduled to air later this year. &One Piece& follows the adventures of Luffy, a young pirate with the ability to stretch like rubber, on his search for the legendary treasure called One Piece in order to become the King of Pirates. &Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo& is about a man named Bobobo who can talk to and understand hair, and with his blonde hair he aims to stop the Hair Patrol posse, who under the control of Baldy Bald are trying to make everyone bald. Perhaps the most significant acquisition is &Naruto,& about a boy who posses a powerful demon in his body and aims to become a master ninja. The anime and manga, or Japanese comic, have become a huge commercial success in Japan, rivaling the success of the classic series &Dragon Ball Z.&For more information about Cartoon Network and its programming, visit its Web site at www.CartoonNetwork.com.8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;8211;Nicholas Fricke can be reached at [email protected]