My Life as a Teenage Robot is an
American animated television series, created by
Rob Renzetti for
Nickelodeon. The series follows the adventures of XJ-9, better known as Jenny Wakeman, a female robot designed to protect
Earth, who is excessively addicted to teen-related activities, which are almost always interrupted by Nora Wakeman, her creator. Overall, the series has over 30 characters, with the most featured being XJ-9, whose middle name has been never revealed as with many characters.
Of the three ideas Renzetti chose, he conceived the series unusually, and hired a small team to make "My Neighbor was a Teenage Robot", the short that the series originally came from the second season of Frederator's cartoon shorts incubator,
Oh Yeah! Cartoons in 1999. The series, a
Frederator Studios production executively produced by Renzetti and
Fred Seibert, sparked deadline delays. Portions of the production and development on the series led to changing the designs of the characters from the short, including Tuck's baseball cap being removed. Eventually, several incarnations of the look of its design were made. A
background artist, a background designer, Alex Kirwan, and a few other people worked for the series. Apparently inspired by Otto Soglow's classic comic strip
The Little King, the series shares the strip's trademark thin-line circular drawing style, exaggerated body forms, and abstract art-deco backgrounds.
Though not broadcast on major television networks, such as
HBO and
Fox, Nickelodeon debuted the series by airing the first episode of
My Life as a Teenage Robot on August 1, 2003 at 8:30 PM. Despite being released to critical success, the series was a ratings disapointment. After the series was cancelled, later episodes of the series were airing as "never before seen episodes" on
Nicktoons Network since October 4, 2008. The series is distributed outside the
United States by the Canadian animation studio,
Nelvana Limited, and ended on May 2, 2009, amidst rumors to why
Eartha Kitt died months prior to the final episode, how the show was canceled, plans for a movie based on it, and further so.
Production
Robert Renzetti, a animator that was born in Chicago in 1968, struggled to fit in at
art school for over a decade before conceiving
My Life as a Teenage Robot. He met with
Genndy Tartakovsky during that period.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiOZt9sOFO8&feature=related
Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 1 of 7 Retrived on April 21st, 2010http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9vqu0zpwI&feature=related
Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 2 of 7 Retrived on April 21st, 2010 They worked with 5 episodes for
after graduating. After spending a "struggling" time in
Spain, they moved back to the
United States for various
Hanna–Barbera projects, such as
2 Stupid Dogs,
Dexter's Laboratory, and
The Powerpuff Girls, the latter which was one of the inspirations for
Teenage Robot. In that case, Hanna-Barbera had left him out of contract, while developing the
Mina and the Count shorts aired on
Oh Yeah! Cartoons and
What a Cartoon!, with a small team, which never developed into a television series, due to failure.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7VzvDzTDQQ&feature=related
Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 3 of 7 Retrieved on April 21, 2010
After
Nickelodeon rejected the idea of a television series of the same name,
Fred Seibert tasked Renzetti to write three different ideas. He said to him if he "just got over doing a series about a relationship between a little girl and a vampire", he may not be writing a screenplay about "a relationship between a teenage girl and a robot". The one he chose had forced him to merge the two characters into one while he was driving to the supermart using a car, looking for pieces of paper to do so; This popped into his brain for a few minutes. The series was called "Great" and was immediately conceived, working on "My Neighbor was a Teenage Robot", a short aired on
Oh Yeah!. It took four weeks to create it with a small team, who were making another series of
Mina and the Count shorts with him. A
background artist, a background designer, Alex Kirwan, and a few other people worked for the series.
The team were needing
Japanese
anime influence on the series, as they did to the so-called "pilot". The protagonist, Jennifer "Jenny" Wakeman (XJ-9), was made as the
Starfire-eqsue
female superhero, who dislikes the job and wanted to be like a normal teenage girl. Portions of the production and development on the series led to delays of its deadline and changing the designs of the characters from the short, including Tuck's baseball cap being removed. Eventually, several incarnations of the look of its design were made. One of the characters, XJ-9 was criticized by Renzetti for being "too hard" to draw, as he ended up sketching the final design of her; He preferred the original design over the final. Both
Astro Boy, which Kirwan is a fan of, and the 1930s cartoons were influences, along with the inspiration by Otto Soglow's classic comic strip
The Little King. The final visual design of the series was pitched to share the strip's trademark thin-line circular drawing style, exaggerated body forms, and abstract
art deco backgrounds. Calls were made to all the actors from the pilot to be "recast for the series, except for the voice of Brad."
Chad Doreck was forced to fill in the slot for the character.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22SILH_bKkw
Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 4 of 7 Retrived on April 21st, 2010
The
title sequence of the series was created during post-production. When Jenny looks at a magzine in her room, she "get
s a call to go blading at the skate park down by the mall". She goes there but is interrupted by Nora Wakeman, who forces her to karate-kick, heft and
racquet-strike a alien-controlled robot. She comes down to ground and stands up for a short time but due to a robot malfunctioning, she is frezed by water, then zapped. With her eyes turned to it, she flies up to drill the near-destroyed robot, and finally lands at the skate park with the robot hitting her. The song appearing in the seqeunce, "My Life as a Teenage Robot", which was rumored to be written by various musicians, such as
industrial rock act
Nine Inch Nails frontman
Trent Reznor and
parody musician
"Weird Al" Yankovic, was sung by Jennifer Karr. The lyrics to the theme song have been misheard, however.
Working on the third season took much longer and harder than the second,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwZGmIK2SuI&feature=related
Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 5 of 7 Retrieved on April 21st, 2010 According to Rob Renzetti himself, during his interview on the
Boing! podcast, process slowed down during 2008 when the "money was flowing", an artist got the job of the
storyboard artist, 13 episodes were slated instead of 39, and "everything crashed" during that year,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6LFJcqfUk4&feature=related
Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 6 of 7 Retrived on April 21st, 2010 This was a result of the series not being picked up for a fourth season, so that production would be completely halted and wrapped.
Plot
XJ-9 ("Jenny" as she calls herself) is a highly sophisticated battle robot created by Dr. Nora Wakeman, but Jenny only wants to live the life of a normal teenage girl. Both live in the fictional futuristic town of Tremorton (a parody of
Trenton, New Jersey), and live next door to her best friends Brad and Tuck Carbunkle. At school, she has an ongoing rivalry with the Crust Cousins, Brit and Tiff, the popular girls in school, and puts up with Sheldon, a somewhat stereotypical loser who is completely obsessed with her. Adding to her trouble is that she is constantly being dogged by the all-robotic Cluster Empire, whose queen, Vexus, wants her to join their world of robots (by force if necessary). Despite it all, however, Jenny still struggles to maintain some semblance of a mostly-human life.
The series' themes focus on making lighthearted fun of typical teenage problems and other conventions of the teenage and superhero lives, mixed up with a combination of action, adventure, and comedy sequences. In total, 40 episodes are airing on the
US television network
Nicktoons, then known as Nicktoons Network at the time it aired the third season. The only error is the series' made-for-television film,
Escape from Cluster Prime, should have been considered the season finale of the second season on the guide of its episodes.
Characters
Overall,
My Life as a Teenage Robot has over 30 characters, with the most featured being Jennifer "Jenny" Wakeman (XJ-9), whose middle name has been never revealed as with many characters. Some of the cast are not heavily featured, some of them are. Jenny is the main
protagonist and the "16-year-old robot" to which the title refers, a state-of-the-art
gynoid automaton created by Dr. Noreen Wakeman five years prior to the series. When she was designed as a 16-year-old girl, and Earth's protector, armed to the teeth with a wide range of weapons, devices, and transformations, she desires to live the life of a normal teenager and often makes this desire quite apparent to her friends and creator. She was preceded in development by eight other models.
Bradley Carbunkle is usually seen as outgoing and adventurous, and is the first actual friend Jenny ever made. He likes to think of himself as a "ladies' man", but he mostly
fails to find a girlfriend, as seen when the local girls reject all his pick-up lines and it is rare for a girl to interest his request to be his girlfriend, but in more episodes, he begins to like Melody. Tucker Cornelius Carbunkle is usually tagging along with both, but his aptitude for adventure is significantly less than Brad's. This can be chalked up to his many childish fears, among them the dark and giant wheels. Amid this, Tuck has since warmed up to Jenny as a friend. Though not as heavily featured as the rest of the main cast, Sheldon Oswald Lee arguably qualifies as a core member of the group. Sheldon is Jenny's self-proclaimed romantic admirer. However, no matter what he tries, Jenny still refuses his romantic advances, though she does care for him as a friend. There are rumors of Jenny and Sheldon as a couple have been discussed by Renzetti and his team.http://www.awn.com/articles/drtoon/dr-toon-nuts-and-bolts-rob-renzetti/page/5%2C1 Jenny also has allies, such as Misty and Vega. Dr. Noreen "Nora" Wakeman is an elderly
spinster robotics scientist and the one who built Jenny, who often simply refers to her as "Mother" or "Mom". Though Nora does indeed like her "daughter", she would often stick into her personal life and is known to call on her at the most awkward moments. In one episode it is revealed that Dr. Wakeman has a sister "Wisteria" whom she argues with every time they meet. Aunt Wisteria believes in "fun, peace, and love" and has a strange ability to either accelerate
plant life or control it.
Many
antagonists in the series appear in one or more episodes. The most popular of them, Vexus, Smytus and Krackus, appeared the most, particularly "Designing Women", "Around the World in 80 Pieces", "Hostile Makeover", "Sister Sledgehammer", "Queen Bee" and "Trash Talk". Vexus is obsessed with the conquest of Earth, under the claim of "liberating robotkind" from the humans. About the only thing that matches her dreams of conquest is her controversial obsession with Jenny, whom she has continuously tried to induct into the Cluster with no lasting success. Smytus is an arrogant Cluster commander with an overinflated ego. In comparison to the manipulative Vexus, Smytus prefers action, and is always quick to jump into battle. Krackus is a Cluster inventor, who eventually is not good at inventing. Despite being skilled at putting a variety of devices together, he
usually misses the necessary details needed for them to work (and keeping it together), which usually results in humiliating defeats for the Cluster. Occansionally, aliens will be antagonists of a number of episodes. The least popular episode of the series, "Teen Idol", a prequel to "Good Old Sheldon", is one example. If there are more than one antagonist in a episode, viewers would figure out the number of them in it.
Reception
Though not broadcast on major television networks, such as
HBO and
Fox, Nickelodeon debuted the series by airing the first episode of
My Life as a Teenage Robot on August 1, 2003 at 8:30 PM.http://www.nick.com/all_nick/tv_supersites/teenageRobot/videoclips/ The second season, which was originally set to air on October 1, 2004 but was postponedhttp://teenageroblog.blogspot.com/2004/09/episodes-delayed-but-third-season-is.html Episodes delayed but Third season is a go to December 8, 2004 (though fans argued that it was pushed back to January 24, 2005),http://teenageroblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/teenage-robot-premieres-in-five-days.html Teenage Robot (2nd season) premieres in Five Days and third season brought low ratings. Both were more well-received from fans and critics alike. After the airing of the infamous 48-minute
Escape from Cluster Prime 2-part episode, the show was canceledhttp://teenageroblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/band-aids-and-teenage-robots.html Band Aids and Teenage Robots as
Carlos Ramos left the project to focus on
The X's.http://teenageroblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/xjwriter-is-no-more.html XJWriter is No More! The third season first aired in
Asia starting on October 6, 2006, with "Weapons of Mass Distraction/There's No Place Like Home School". The series' final episode was aired on May 2, 2009. This marked the end of the series' 7-year run. The series has been rerun worldwide on various channels, such as
Nicktoons, but there are rumors of a second full length feature film and a fourth season that are yet to be confirmed.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfjuo8Qmtho&feature=related
Rob Renzetti interview from Boing! Podcast Part 6 of 7 Retrived on April 21st, 2010
Critical reception was generally positive, but critics criticized portions of the redesigning from "My Neighbor was a Teenage Robot".
References
External links