Robotboy: Difference between revisions

Robotboy
Genre	Science fiction comedy Action-adventure Superhero Mecha Cyberpunk
Created by	Jan Van Rijsselberge
Written by	Robert Mittenthal Michael Rubiner Adam Cohen Randolph Heard Scott Peterson
Directed by	Charlie Bean (S1) Bob Camp (S2) Heath Kenny (S2)
Voices of	Laurence Bouvard Lorraine Pilkington Rupert Degas Lewis MacLeod Togo Igawa Eiji Kusuhara
Composer	Hans Helewaut
Country of origin	United Kingdom France
Original languages	English French
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	52 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Christian Davin Clément Clavet Daniel Lennard Finn Arnesen
Editor	Cédric Chaveau
Running time	11 minutes (segments) 23 minutes (total)
Production companies	Alphanim LuxAnimation (Series 1) Cofinova 1 (Series 1)
Original release
Network	Cartoon Network (United Kingdom) France 3 (France)
Release	1 November 2005 (2005-11-01) – 27 September 2008 (2008-09-27)

Robotboy is an Anglo-Franco-American animated television series produced by Gaumont Animation (originally known as Alphanim) for France 3 and Cartoon Network Europe, in association with studios LuxAnimation and Cofinova 1 for Series 1 only. In a total of 52 23-minute episodes with 104 segments produced (52x13), it was created and designed by Jan Van Rijsselberge.

The series was directed at Alphanim's studio in Vincennes by American animator Charlie Bean—who worked on Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack—and later with American directors Bob Camp and Heath Kenny.

Plot

Robotboy is the latest creation of the world-renowned scientist Professor Moshimo. Due to fears that Robotboy would be stolen by his arch-enemy Dr. Kamikazi and his main henchman Constantine to be used to take over the world, Professor Moshimo entrusts Robotboy to 10-year-old Tommy Turnbull,^[1] his biggest fan living in San Francisco, USA. While being protected by Tommy and his two friends Lola and Gus (or "G-Man" as he calls himself), Robotboy learns how to behave and act as if he were a real boy while occasionally battling Dr. Kamikazi and Constantine who sought out to capture him.

Episodes

Cast

• Laurence Bouvard as Robotboy, Robotgirl, Lola Mbola, Debbie Turnbull ("Momma's Boy"), Miu-Miu, Agent Kalashnikov, Hester Turner, Wallie's Mother, P.E. Teacher, Charlie, Nagbot, Kindergarten Teacher, and Elderly Woman
• Aidan Drummond as Super Activated Robotboy
• Lorraine Pilkington as Tommy Turnbull, Debbie Turnbull, and Computer Teacher
• Rupert Degas as Augustus Bachman Turner, Constantine, Protoboy, Donnie Turnbull, Kurt, Ambassador Mbola, Randy, Brian the Consultant, Mookie, Romcroft, Jebediah Turner, Stu, Dave, Walter the Tapeworm, The Inhuman Toe, Green Alien Minions, Lance Chestwax, Mr. Fournier, Mr. Yaschinshki, Old Thief #1 at the Museum, The Elderly Wrestler #2, The Green Alien, The Kids at the Pre-Criminal-School, The Tour Guide, Waitress, and Wallie.
• Lewis MacLeod as Dwight Turnbull, Felonius Hexx, Special Agent, Bjorn Bjornson, Bjornbot, General Yakitori, Ludwig, Principal Culpepper, Ronald Rump, Von Der Schnitzel, Brainy Yak, Stevie, The Cast Bot, Margaret, Bjorn's Mother, Vance Cosgrove, The Human Fist, Screaming Scott, Ambassador's butler, Ogbot, Aunt Gravitee, Cruelio, Teasebots, Constabot, Farmer Stenkie, Girl at School, Green Alien Minions, Math Teacher, S.M.T.H.R.S, Old Thief #2 at the Museum, The Doctor, The Elderly Wrestler #1, The Kids at the Pre-Criminal-School, and Announcer
• Eiji Kusuhara as Dr. Kamikazi
• Togo Igawa as Professor Moshimo

Characters

Protagonists

• Robotboy – The titular character who is best friends with Tommy Turnbull. Robotboy has three modes: deactivated, activated, and superactivated. In his superactivated mode, Robotboy has a variety of weapons at his disposal, but his main weapon is Gatling lasers. Robotboy has the following modes:
  • Deactivated – Robotboy's toy mode. In it, he is small in size and he is unable to move or talk. However, he is seen lighting up his eyes and smiling in several episodes.
  • Activated – While activated, Robotboy can talk, express emotions, fly, fight and use some special abilities introduced throughout the series.
  • Superactivated – Activated when Robotboy hits his hands together, increasing his size and overall strength greatly. He can to shoot down enemies with a variety of weapons. While superactivated, he can't talk, although he created growl-like noises while turning evil by Kamikazi in "Crying Time".
• Tommy Turnbull – Robotboy's 10-year-old^[1] owner and human best friend. He acts as a role model and mentor/father figure to Robotboy and cares deeply for him. Unlike Gus, he is bright, sensible, kind, and responsible, although he gets criticized by Dwight for being rather nerdy/not getting enough exercise.
• Augustus "Gus"/"G-Man" Bachman Turner – Tommy's fat, rude, self-centered, and dumb best friend. Despite coming from an Amish family, Gus is "the black sheep" of the bunch. He is infatuated with food and video games. Usually, it is his selfish nature that gets everyone into situations caused by Kamikazi.
• Lola Mbola - 10-year-old Lola is the confident and smart daughter of a wealthy African ambassador, Kingsley Mbola. She can fly jet planes and control speedboats despite her age and secretly has a crush on Tommy.

Supporting

• Professor Moshimo - Professor Moshimo is the creator of Robotboy, Robotgirl, and Robotbird (also Protoboy and Robotman). He received a letter from Tommy Turnbull about him looking forward to his latest invention. As a result, Professor Moshimo sent him Robotboy to take care of. The Professor has a Japanese fiancée named Miu-Miu, who also acts as his assistant. He also created Protoboy, Robotman and Robotgirl. His former rivals are Dr. Kamikazi and Björn Bjornson. He is voiced by Togo Igawa.
  • Miu-Miu - Professor Moshimo's fiancée and lab assistant. She is typically depicted as silent, however, she speaks for the first time in the episode "Grow No-Mo". While she rarely talks, she does seem to be annoyed with Moshimo's many hobbies. She is voiced by Laurence Bouvard.
• Robotgirl - Robotboy's female counterpart and sister. A super fighting robot just like Robotboy, who was introduced in the namesake episode and her final appearance was in "The Return of Robotgirl". She quickly made good friends with Robotboy and was only seen superactivated twice, both times in episode "Robotgirl". In the first place, she had to be convinced by Moshimo to use her ultimate powers, otherwise, she would never see her friends again. In "The Return of Robotgirl" she was brought back to Tommy with a distress message by Moshimo, she could not be activated until she was repaired by Tommy and she suffered from a major memory loss but was convinced by Lola to use her emotions in favor of the kids' team. In the end, she was defeated in a fight against Protoboy and then was saved by Robotboy.

Antagonists

• Dr. Kamikazi – A small, old man with thick glasses and a suit/bathrobe combo who is a self-proclaimed evil genius and the main antagonist of the series. He wishes to capture Robotboy to create a template for an army of super robots, with which he will be able to achieve his dastardly goal of world domination. Most of his mutant henchmen have a large letter K on their uniforms, to show that they are on Dr. Kamikazi's side. He has had many pets, ranging from snakes to cats, but as a running gag they normally always hurt him.
  • Constantine – A fat hunchbacked hitman or henchman of Dr. Kamikazi who also is a master of sumo wrestling. He is a sensitive and non-too-threatening sidekick to Dr. Kamikazi who mainly acts as his muscle power as well as his assistant. Constantine is also a refined chef, being able to create dishes ranging from Sashimi to tapas. It is mentioned occasionally that Constantine used to be an orphan before he began working for Kazi. Despite presumably being Japanese, Constantine can speak Spanish. He is also shown to be constantly pushed around and inadequately treated by Kazi (even nearly getting killed by him in one episode), but yet he stays with him regardless as he feels he owes him his life for saving him. In one episode he was abruptly fired and replaced but returned in the same episode as Kazi finally apologized. He is also shown to be compassionate to Tommy and his friends from time to time depending on the situation they're in.
• Donnie Turnbull – Tommy's big brother and secondary archenemy, he is a constant bully to every child in the neighborhood, including Gus and Tommy himself. He frequently calls people's names, threatens them, beats them up, etc., and yet despite this, Tommy's high moral compass forces him to still treat him as family. Some people exploit his attitude and poor intelligence for their benefit, usually Dr. Kamikazi. His bullying backfires in several ways, such as in "Donnie Turnbull's Day Off" when Robotboy drives him crazy when he decides to play hooky from school in order to humiliate, expose and possibly destroy Robotboy.
• Kurt – A sadistic bully at Tommy's school, he has blond hair and wears a hat. He constantly bullies Gus and Tommy, as well as any other kid he finds. His dad is a government agent who has used Kurt to try and capture Robotboy. Tommy sometimes has outsmarted Kurt and his cronies by outwitting them, usually with Robotboy. They became less frequent adversaries of Tommy after he fought them all at once and won all by himself (even if he thought Robotboy was helping him).
  • • Kurt's Father/Special Agent - a Secret Agent who strives to take Robotboy to reproduce him so he can use him for Government Means. Although his name is never mentioned, he's shown to be in a very low tier in his position. His halting vocal inflections are reminiscent of Christopher Walken. His base is located in the Transamerica Pyramid.
  • Stu and Mookie - Kurt's friends/henchmen. Stu is the largest and least intelligent of the group. He wears a blue hoodie with a red cap. Mookie is the smallest bully in the group who, in the absence of Kurt, is the leader. He wears a dark red beanie which happens to have a bowling ball hidden inside.
  • Bambi - A Queen Bee-like character and Tommy's love interest. Despite being clearly out of his league and already having Kurt as a boyfriend. Tommy still attempts to get her attention despite being treated like he doesn't exist. She is shown to harbor some affection for him from time to time when the situation benefits Tommy's reputation, even if it actually goes against his friends, especially Lola, who all tell him to stay away from her.
• Felonious Hexx - the best-known magician who had his career ruined after getting ridiculed and humiliated by Gus during his performance, and ever since he's been a recurring villain. From one job to another, he's always ready to get back at Gus and/or possibly kill him given the chance.
• Björn Björnson – A Nordic egotistical boy genius who is about Tommy's age and claims to be a greater genius than Professor Moshimo. He has his own robot double named Björnbot, who is sometimes referred to as Brother Björn. Both were first introduced in the episode of the same name – "Brother Björn". Their mission is to destroy Moshimo's creation – Robotboy, so Björnbot would be the greatest fighting robot in the world.
  • Björnbot/Brother Björn - Björnbot is a robotic lookalike of his creator Björn Björnson. He has weapon capabilities and strength equal to that of Robotboy—as well as being superactivated. It seems that Björn himself has created several Björnbots. Björnbot has his own form of Superactivation. Unlike Robotboy, he lacks emotion and has a rather flat vocabulary (which consists mostly of the word "Ja!") Robotboy thinks of strategies in battles and Robotboy is able to overcome Björnbot. In the episode Party Out of Bounds, he dressed as a girl and Björn called him Sister Björn. In more recent episodes, he seems to have become more hyperactive, being very jumpy and excited. He is voiced by Lewis MacLeod.
• Protoboy – Robotboy's long-lost brother, who was created by Moshimo in his earlier years, but later that same day he was taken by young Kazi and Constantine and turned overly evil to control. He was then forcibly deactivated by Constantine and stored in a large storage room inside Kamikazi's quarters in Kaziland until he was saved by Robotboy. With the ability to superactivate like his brother, the cannon built into his left arm is static and cannot be switched with an arm or another weapon. His brother was seen superactivated in Protoboy's body in "The Old Switcharobot" but his cannon was damaged because Protoboy (in Robotboy's body) had removed some of its parts prior to the body switch.
• Klaus Von Affenkugel – A super wealthy man from Germany with implied extreme Myopathy, who wants to use Robotboy's parts to replace his own. He has been pushed around, harassed, beaten up, and abused by virtually everybody he knew since childhood because of his disease. Because of his deformity, Klaus is carried around by his bodyguard, colleague, assistant, and best friend, a giant orangutan named Ludwig, the only living being who really cared about him in his time of need.
  • Ludwig - After being bullied by both kids and squirrels, Klaus went near a zoo, where a missing orangutan, Ludwig, decided to protect him and give him company. He is a large orangutan who serves as his assistant to Klaus at all times.
• Principal Dr. Freeman Coldpepper - Tommy's Principal and nemesis. She is a liar and is infatuated with toys due to never being allowed to play with them as a child, instead having to make her own dolls out of tin foil and chicken bones. She abuses her position as principal to confiscate toys and play with them herself. She later returns for revenge to ruin Robotboy's cliffhanger and play with him forever.
  • Mr. Yashinky - Coldpeer's henchman.
• Brainy-Yak – A super-intelligent Yak given a new brain by Professor Moshimo, because he had been made fun of for being incredibly stupid. After Moshimo gave him a Brain Transplant, he became even more isolated and poorly treated by the rest of the herd for being too intelligent. Then Moshimo encouraged this behavior because he didn't think it was a problem. After disappearing for a few decades, he seeks revenge for being ostracised from his herd and being mistreated by Moshimo time and time again.

Broadcast and home video

The series debuted in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2005, on Cartoon Network. It later premiered on December 28, 2005 in the United States for Cartoon Network's "Sneak Peek Week" as part of a "sneak peek" preview week for the network's new saturday morning cartoon lineup premiering on January 14, 2006. Reruns of the series have aired in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany as well as in some Latin American countries such as Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia, though it was never shown in Eastern European or Asiatic regions.

As of October 2019, Series 2 is currently available on Starz's streaming service in the United States, leaving the Series 1 currently unavailable.^[2] The complete series is available in English and French via YouTube.^[3][4] StudioCanal released three DVD volumes of Robotboy from 2007 in France only.

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Robotboy.

• Robotboy at Cartoon Network
• Robotboy at IMDb
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