Robot Jenny

[Ermelindo Klatt]

MyLife as a Teenage Robot is an American animated science fiction superhero comedy television series created by Rob Renzetti for Nickelodeon. It was produced by Frederator Studios and Nickelodeon Animation Studio.[3][4] Set in the fictional town of Tremorton, the series follows the adventures of a robot super-heroine named XJ-9, or Jenny, as she prefers to be called, who attempts to juggle her duties of protecting Earth while trying to live a normal human life as a teenage girl.[5]

Renzetti pitched the series to Frederator Studios' animated shorts showcase Oh Yeah! Cartoons and a pilot titled "My Neighbor Was a Teenage Robot", which aired on December 4, 1999.[4] Viewer approval ratings led to the commissioning of a half-hour series, which premiered on August 1, 2003; after airing its first two seasons, the series was cancelled on October 17, 2005. The completed third season eventually aired on Nickelodeon's spinoff network Nicktoons from October 4, 2008, until ending its run on May 2, 2009. The series totals up to three seasons, consisting of 13 to 14 episodes each.

Jenny's friends are her neighbors Brad (voiced by Chad Doreck) and Tuck Carbuckle (voiced by Audrey Wasilewski). Brad is outgoing and adventurous, and is the first human friend Jenny makes, while Tuck is Brad's rambunctious younger brother who usually tags along on adventures. Another one of her friends is Sheldon Lee (Quinton Flynn), a somewhat stereotypical nerd who is obsessed with her. Jenny often rejects his romantic advances, but still cares for him as a friend.

At high school, Jenny has an ongoing rivalry with the Crust cousins, Brit (voiced by Moira Quirk) and Tiff (voiced by Cree Summer), the popular girls in school. Dr. Wakeman often tries in vain to control her creation and keep her daughter focused on protecting the planet Earth. Adding to her trouble is that she is constantly being dogged by the all-robotic Cluster Empire, whose queen, Vexus (voiced by Eartha Kitt) and sometimes Commander Smytus (voiced by Steve Blum) or Krackus (voiced by Jim Ward), wants her to join their world of robots (by force if necessary). Despite it all, Jenny struggles to maintain some semblance of a mostly human life.

The special of the series, "Escape from Cluster Prime", shows that the alien planet is actually a peaceful paradise for every kind of robot. It's also revealed that Vexus has made Jenny out to be a villain because of her constant refusals to join, branding her responsible for destroying the missing components that allow robots to transform, while they are truly hidden by Vexus, to control the population.

Rob Renzetti moved from Cartoon Network to Nickelodeon to develop his own ideas as part of Fred Seibert's and Frederator Studios' Oh Yeah! Cartoons. At Nickelodeon, he developed a pilot called "My Neighbor Was a Teenage Robot", which was the basis for the series. After brief stints working on Family Guy, The Powerpuff Girls, Time Squad, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, and Samurai Jack, Renzetti returned to Nickelodeon to start the Teenage Robot series.

Renzetti made 11 shorts during two seasons as a director on Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Five of these starred two characters called Mina and the Count and followed the adventures of a rambunctious little girl and her vampire best friend. He hoped that these characters might get their own series, but Nickelodeon rejected the idea. Faced with an empty slot where the sixth Mina short was slated to go, Fred Seibert tasked Renzetti to come up with three new ideas. One of these was about a teenage girl whose boyfriend was a robot. After further thought, Renzetti merged the two characters to create Jenny, a robot with the personality of a teenage girl.

The show's crew revealed on their blog on October 17, 2005, that the show had been cancelled, and that the third season would be the last: "The executives love the show but the ratings aren't good enough for them to give us more episodes."[7][8] The series wrapped production in April 2006. Following the series' cancellation, Renzetti returned to Cartoon Network Studios, working on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and The Cartoonstitute, before moving on to the Disney Channel to become supervising producer for Gravity Falls. The third season aired on Nicktoons from October 2008 to May 2009, officially concluding the broadcast of the series in the United States.

Nickelodeon premiered My Life as a Teenage Robot on August 1, 2003, at 8:30 PM EST.[3][9] The show was a part of Nickelodeon's Friday night programming block called Friday Night Nicktoons in Fall 2003, and briefly was a part of the TEENick lineup in 2004 to June 2005.[citation needed] The first season ended on February 27, 2004, with "The Wonderful World of Wizzly / Call Hating".

The second season premiered on December 8, 2004, with the Christmas episode "A Robot For All Seasons". Another new episode was not aired until January 25, 2005.[10] In the second season, a 48-minute, two-part TV movie titled "Escape from Cluster Prime" (which was nominated for an Emmy in 2006)[11] aired.

The episodes "See No Evil", "The Great Unwashed", "Future Shock", "A Robot For All Seasons", "Hostile Makeover", and "Grid Iron Glory" were released on Nick Picks DVD compilations.[citation needed] As of December 12, 2011, seasons 1, 2, and 3 are available on DVD exclusive to Amazon.com in region 1.[citation needed] The full series was released across six discs by Beyond Home Entertainment in Australia on February 5, 2012.[13]

Sean Aitchison from CBR wrote positively of the show stating, "Aside from the look of the show, My Life as a Teenage Robot had a fun premise that made for some great action comedy storytelling, and it definitely holds up [in modern day]. Though the show's depiction of teendom is somewhat outdated, the cliches actually end up working in favor of the humor. Though there's not a lot of story progression throughout the series, My Life as a Teenage Robot is still a whole lot of fun."[14] Joly Herman of Common Sense Media wrote more negatively of the show, saying that, "Though it looks cool and has an upbeat energy, the show can be a bit of a drag. Some kids may enjoy it for the mindless entertainment it intends to be, but know that there are much better uses of a free half-hour."[15]

Jenny was featured as a playable character in the PlayStation 2/Wii and Nintendo DS versions of Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots with Janice Kawaye reprising her role as the character[22] Jenny also appears as a playable character in the mobile game Nickelodeon Super Brawl Universe, the fighting game Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and its sequel,[23] and the kart racing game Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway alongside Vexus as a Chief power up, with Kawaye reprising her role in the latter three games. Jenny also appears as a character skin for Smite, and was available during a July 2022 event.[24]

As of 2023, creator Rob Renzetti has been publishing a web story based on the series in his personal newsletter.[25][26] The story was written by Renzetti alongside Steven Michael Burns and Donovan Patton, with illustrations initially by My Life as a Teenage Robot art director Alex Kirwan,[27] and later by storyboard artist Heather Martinez.[28] The first chapter was released in August 1, 2023, in commemoration of the series' 20th anniversary.[25]

She is a state-of-the-art robotic protector of Earth, armed with advanced weaponry and devices at her disposal, but wishes to live the life of a normal teenager. Throughout the series, she tries to balance her life with duties of a crime-fighter while attending high school and proceeding with teenage endeavors.

Jenny was designed as a teenager of about 16 years of age (in design and mentality), but it was 5 years since she had been created, prior to the events of I Was a Preschool Dropout (2002). As her number indicates, she had eight prototypes, whom she treats as her older sisters.

While she was designed as a teenage robot, presumably with the adolescent mind of a 16-year old or so, she apparently did undergo a period of infancy according to the episode Humiliation 101 (2004). As revealed in the same episode, she also spent some of her early years as a crude steam-powered robot before being upgraded to hydronium-electric hybrid-power (as seen in the blueprints of her Master Plan).

For an uncertain amount of time, she was prevented from leaving the house by her mother, except for the purpose of saving the earth, where she would not be viewed by the general populace. Following the events of It Came From Next Door (2002), she finally managed to interact with the outside world and make human friends, namely Brad Carbunkle and his younger brother Tuck, and later enrolling in Tremorton High School where she soon met and befriended Sheldon Lee.

Jenny stands at 6.6 feet (1.98 m) tall and weighs roughly 600 lbs. She has blue "pigtails" with bolts connecting them to her head that can act as rocket boosters, blue "bangs", white skin, blue "clothes" (a crop top, a miniskirt and boots), a belly-bolt (a bolt that simulates a belly button) which doubles as a linchpin as mentioned in Around the World in Eighty Pieces (2004), hands with 4 fingers each and center holes, a "false nose".

Jenny has no ears, instead possessing an auditory system "decades ahead of its time." according to Ear No Evil (2002). Her body processes are carried out by a fully-functional, metallic electronic brain, which her eyes are connected to, as seen in Mind Over Matter (2004). Her body also contains several access ports for downloading, charging, and other purposes.

In Raggedy Android (2002), Nora designed an Exo-Skin for Jenny to freely go around in public during a amusement park event, but the first prototype skin was rushed in production within a day, which resulted in an exo-skin looking more akin to an old ragdoll that ended up scaring everyone at the park. By the end of the episode, Jenny decided to take off the Exo-Skin and reveal her true nature, and has since been able to blend into society freely as a robot.

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