Johnny 5
Johnny 5 is a fictional character from the movies Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2. He is a military robot imbued with intelligence and sentience by a lightning bolt, and is considered to be alive in the philosophical sense, as he has emotions and is self-aware.
The Robot
Number 5 was designed by Dr. Newton Crosby and his partner Benjamin Jahrvi (pronounced Jahveri), and was constructed by Nova Laboratories Inc., Robotics Division, along with four other prototypes, as technology demonstrators for the United States Department of Defense (DoD). Nova proposed that the design could be used as a robotic soldier and as an intelligent delivery system for nuclear weapons. The design was marketed to the DoD as S-A-I-N-T (Strategic Artificially-Intelligent Nuclear Transport).
During a scene in Short Circuit, Dr. Crosby states to an Air Force official that he originally had nonmilitary purposes in mind, and jokes that he designed the robots as a "marital aid". He seems genuinely disturbed by the way his creations are put to use.
Listed below are some facts about Johnny Five:
- His monetary value before being brought to life is $11,002,076.17
- His mass is approximately 700 lb (318 kg).
- His casing is made of a magnesium alloy
- His robotic arms are strong enough to crush a large block of ice, yet they are highly articulated and have enough manual dexterity to mix drinks, read books, drive, operate electrical equipment such as car radios and carry out repairs on himself.
- He is equipped with a laser weapon, which can only be enabled or disabled manually at a facility at Nova Robotics.
- In addition to a pair of robot arms and the laser weapon, he comes equipped with a tool arm, a sort of robotic Swiss Army Knife. Tools on the arm include, but are not necessarily limited to, a small manipulator claw, a rotor device, a soldering iron, a small welding device, lock pick, screwdriver and drill.
- His head contains most of his sensory apparatus. In addition to stereoscopic cameras with spectral-analyzers he is also equipped with touch sensors, standard and high-powered microphones, a device that can be used to operate equipment by remote control and an antenna that can be deployed, presumably as some kind of radio sensing device.
- He can read and is able to absorb vast amounts of written information extremely quickly, being able to scan an encyclopedia volume in a matter of seconds.
- On his caterpillar treads he can travel up to 30 miles per hour under his own power.
Modifications for Short Circuit 2
Johnny Five was modified in several areas in between the events of Short Circuit and those of Short Circuit 2. Listed below are some facts about Johnny 5's modifications for Short Circuit 2
- As he has no desire to kill, Johnny 5 has removed his laser weapon and fitted a toolbox to its original mount, The toolbox contains miscellaneous pieces of equipment such as a Polaroid camera, a plasma cutting-torch, an umbrella, and a magnetic grappler on a length of steel cable.
- A more practical hang glider has replaced his standard-issue parachute.
- His original portable power source has been replaced with a lithium-argon liquid battery which can provide enough power for 500 hours of operation. This is supplemented with an emergency backup battery with an unknown capacity, but not much more than a couple of hours.
- He has been fitted with a multi-frequency remote control which can operate almost any electrical device, and can control several devices at once.
- His memory capacity has been increased to 500 megabytes "online", implying that this is his RAM capacity. Whether he has any alternate data storage devices such as a hard drive is unknown.
- His robot arms have been apparently replaced with new models that look significantly different. He has enough strength in his arms to hoist a family car into the air and bend steel bars. Whether he was able to do this with his old arms is unknown.
- He has been decorated with numerous stickers, including Greenpeace slogans and Nike logos.
- In the end of the movie he has been given a new golden shell.
Personality
Johnny 5 is very curious and inquisitive with an almost insatiable thirst for "input" of just about any kind, but he is especially fond of books and television. While he started life as a military prototype he has a great respect for life and refuses to use his capabilities to harm others, even when they have no such compunctions towards him. He is very intelligent and inventive with an encyclopedic knowledge, but can be quite naive and child-like at times and can be too eager to trust people that he shouldn’t. His innocent nature has been taken advantage of on several occasions.
He has a fondness for old movies and comedy shows, from which he quotes extensively. Favorites include Jackie Gleason, the Three Stooges, old gangster movies, Tarzan movies and assorted television commercials. He occasionally quotes from sources with more gravitas, too, including William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and various philosophical texts. His favorite books are Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, probably because he feels empathy for the protagonists of those books.
He finds humans to be bemusing and is sometimes frustrated by their behavior and their failure to recognize him as a sentient life form, but seems to like them on the whole and has several close friendships with humans.
Number 5 in Short Circuit
The events of Short Circuit begin with a robotic combat demonstration at Nova Laboratories' test range near the fictional town of Damon, Washington. Members of Congress and military brass have been invited with the aim of securing funding. The S-A-I-N-T field demonstration is cut short by inclement weather and when the prototypes are returned to the lab, one of them is hooked up to a generator for recharging. While the wisdom of doing this in the middle of a thunderstorm is questioned by one of the technicians, a bolt of lightning strikes the power lines and Number 5 is subjected to a massive power surge before the other technician can disconnect him from the generator. Number 5 survives, apparently undamaged, and the technicians order the S-A-I-N-T units to go and have their laser weapons disarmed.
Number 5 fails to obey the order and begins behaving erratically, first running into a wall, and then becoming fascinated with a light switch and a dangling power cord that’s being dragged along by another robot. While following this robot, he is rammed by a robotic garbage loader and pushed onto the back of a flatbed refuse truck.
Meanwhile, Number 5’s absence has become apparent and Nova begins searching for him. Dr. Howard Marner, and Captain Skroeder order the facility locked down, but before the order can be carried out the truck is allowed to leave and Number 5 inadvertently escapes from the Nova compound. Shortly thereafter, he is distracted by a butterfly and falls off the back of the refuse truck, tumbles into a pasture by the side of the road, and scatters several frightened cows.
Back at Nova, Crosby manages to contact Number 5 via a computer terminal, but gets erratic responses to his commands. When he discovers that nobody has activated the robot’s homing device he does so, and the full extent of the situation becomes apparent: An experimental robot has escaped the lab, is malfunctioning, and its highly destructive laser weapon is still fully armed. When the homing device shows Number 5 moving away from the Nova lab, Dr. Marner panics and suggests destroying the robot before it can attack any civilians it may encounter, but Crosby and Jahrvi convince him that they can contain the robot without destroying it. This is what he orders Skroeder to do, but the aggressively technophobic captain of Nova security instead orders his men to use any means to stop Number 5.
While crossing the Columbia River into Oregon, two Nova security men in an APC encounter Number 5 and inadvertently run him off the Astoria-Megler Bridge, from where he parachutes onto the back of a catering truck belonging to Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy). She drives home, unaware of his presence on top of her truck, and after a run-in with an ex boyfriend, goes about her evening routine.
This is interrupted when Stephanie hears weird sounds coming from outside and goes to investigate. She finds Number 5, who has somehow managed to get inside the truck, and mistakes him for an alien. She takes him inside her house and tries to teach him about Earth. When she discovers that he can read she lets him go through her entire collection of books, including an encyclopaedia.
Even after reading all the books, Number 5 is still hungry for input and starts to get increasingly destructive to Stephanie’s property when she can’t provide it, innocently tearing her house apart in an attempt to satisfy his curiosity with his newfound knowledge. In an attempt to placate him she shows him the TV, which seems to calm him down. She is a little disturbed to find him there the next morning, still watching and now imitating what he hears on the television, and decides to show him the Great Outdoors instead.
Stephanie’s dog, Beasly, is spooked by Number 5 and jumps at the robot. Number 5 panics, rolls off the back of Stephanie’s balcony into a chicken coop and is upended. Stephanie spots an identification plaque attached to his undercarriage and realizes that Number 5 is actually a robot. Angered and annoyed at her own stupidity for not realizing, she calls Nova, who inform their personnel of Number 5’s location, including Crosby, Ben and Skroeder.
Stephanie explains that Nova are coming to collect Number 5, then they both notice a grasshopper, which Number 5 tries to imitate. He is distracted and accidentally lands on the grasshopper, killing it. He asks Stephanie to "reassemble" it, but Stephanie tells him that the grasshopper is dead and that there is nothing she can do for it. Number 5 makes a connection in his mind between disassembly and death and is horrified to realize that death is the fate that awaits him if Nova’s engineers disassemble him. He panics and steals Stephanie’s lunch wagon in an attempt to escape, but he doesn’t know how to drive and nearly drives himself, Stephanie and the truck off a cliff. When Stephanie asks Number 5 why he is behaving like this, he replies that he is alive and is afraid that he will die if Nova disassemble him.
Crosby and Ben reach Number 5’s location first and Stephanie and Number 5 try to convince them that he is alive, but Number 5 is cut off mid-sentence by the arrival of Skroeder and his men. The security men open fire on Number 5, who responds by firing warning shots at a number of nearby boats in an attempt to frighten the men off. But Number 5 takes several hits, partially disabling him, and Crosby manages to shut off his primary power. Number 5 is hauled away in the back of a van with Ben and a security guard, with orders not to power down the robot’s main memory.
Number 5 regains consciousness in the back of the van but is mostly paralyzed with his main power turned off. Using a spanner and his upper camera covers, he manages to switch his main power back on. He then effects repairs on himself and replaces his non-functional right arm with a spare he found in the back of the truck. At this point the drivers of the van notice that he is active again and the security guard produces a handgun. Number 5 immediately relieves him of the firearm and destroys it, and Ben and the security guard run in a panic. Number 5 steals their van and drives off, having learned from his mistakes in Stephanie’s van. While driving, he discovers the homing device and removes it, planting it in the back of a passing pickup truck, throwing Nova off the scent for a while.
Back at Nova, Newton Crosby is fascinated by the ingenuity the robot displayed in figuring out the homing device and becomes adamant on the need to capture Number 5 intact. But by this point Skroeder is making no secret of wanting to destroy the robot, and Dr. Marner is too worried about Nova’s public image to order Skroeder against doing so. He orders Crosby to remain at Nova headquarters and decides to make the escape of Number 5 public knowledge, offering a $25,000 reward for his capture. Stephanie’s slimy ex-boyfriend, Frank, hears this news on television and is determined to get Number 5’s location out of Stephanie.
Number 5 returns to Stephanie's house later that evening. Stephanie tries to convince Number 5 that it isn’t safe for him to stay there anymore, but by employing behavior that can only be described as obnoxiously cute, Number 5 wins Stephanie over and convinces her to allow him to stay the night. Stephanie says that they should try and find Number 5 a new home tomorrow, but Number 5 insists that he is home with Stephanie.
Newton Crosby and Ben are worried that if Skroeder destroys Number 5, they will never discover what caused his change in behavior. They steal a van from Nova’s motor pool and go off in search of Number 5
As Stephanie feared, it wasn’t safe for Number 5 at her house anymore and Frank puts in an appearance while Number 5 is trying (and utterly failing) to prepare breakfast for Stephanie. He tries to bribe Stephanie with a cut of the reward money, but instead Stephanie tricks Frank into revealing his true intentions to Number 5, who then runs. Frank goes to chase him in his car, only to find it dismantled on the lawn outside Stephanie’s house.
Frank fires on Number 5 with a rifle, but he blocks the bullets using one of the car’s brake disks. Frank then knocks Number 5 over using the car's drive shaft as a club, but Stephanie tackles Frank before he can cause any real damage. Frank then turns on Stephanie, but Number 5 intervenes, disarming, then humiliating Frank. After threatening to call Nova, Frank leaves, and Stephanie and Number 5 decide they need to leave too.
Number 5 believes that he can convince Newton Crosby that he is alive, so Stephanie agrees to meet with him in a nearby bar. While they are talking, Number 5 is practicing his baseball skills, when Number 1 attacks him. Number 5 retreats to a muddy river and throws some mud at Number 1, blinding him and causing his computer to malfunction. Number 5 shuts Number 1 down, but Number 2 suddenly appears and fires lasers at Number 5. He locates a tool shed and grabs some tools. Number 5 leads his brother into the forest where he insults Number 2 by saying "Hey, Laser Lips! You're mama was a snowblower!". Number 2 gives chase to Number 5, but falls into a rope trap, is hung upside-down, and Number 5 shuts him down. Number 3 then appears, even deadlier. Number 5 grabs a rock and uses it as a shield to defend himself against Number 3's laser blasts. Number 5 runs in reverse at high speed and lures Number 3 towards an outhouse, but then dodges it at the last second, making Number 3 collide with it, after which, Number 5 quotes "Well, when ya gotta go, don't squeeze the charmin". Number 5 re-programs his brothers and then flees when he spies some Nova trucks approaching. (Number 4's whereabouts are unknown for the remainder of the film.)
Crosby manages to convince Stephanie to let him see Number 5, but at this point, Skroeder and his operatives who were operating under cover at the bar reveal themselves. Number 5 breaks into the bar and rescues Stephanie from Skroeder and his men, they escaped assisted by the three other robots, whom Number 5 has programmed to perform a Three Stooges sketch. Number 1 (Moe) beats up Number 2 (Larry) and Number 3 (Curly), who has a toilet seat hung around his neck.
Stephanie is livid at Crosby’s apparent duplicity, but Number 5 is still certain he can demonstrate to Crosby that he is alive. In order to avoid any further intervention from Nova, Number 5 kidnaps Crosby and takes him to where he and Stephanie are hiding out. After an exhausting night together during which Number 5 tries to demonstrate his sentience to Crosby, and Crosby tries to prove that it is impossible for Number 5 to be alive, Crosby hits on the idea of telling Number 5 a joke. When Number 5 bursts out laughing at it, Crosby recognizes that the robot has emotions and is, therefore, alive.
Unfortunately, Nova, assisted by the Army, locate and surround them. Crosby tries to talk Marner into examining Number 5, but Skroeder decides to take over and prepares to destroy the van in which Number 5 is hiding. At this point the robot emerges from the van and makes a run for it, only to be destroyed by a rocket fired from a helicopter.
Stephanie is distraught, and Marner is angry that an expensive prototype was destroyed without his authorization. Skroeder is ecstatic, but Marner fires him for acting without authority. Newton Crosby quits in disgust at Marner’s failure to prevent Number 5’s destruction. Newton and Stephanie leave the scene in Nova’s van and try to figure out what to do now.
Number 5 emerges from his hiding place under a floor panel in the van and reveals to an astonished Stephanie and Newton that the destroyed robot was a decoy replica of himself he'd constructed from spare parts. Inspired by a song he'd heard on the radio earlier, Number 5 decides to change his name to Johnny 5. The movie ends with the group heading to Montana to live out their lives on some land that Crosby’s parents left him.
Johnny 5 in Short Circuit 2
Ben Jahrvi (called Ben Jabituya in Short Circuit) has lost his job at Nova Robotics for reasons that aren't perfectly clear (he was either fired as a scapegoat, quit in disgust as Dr. Newton Crosby did, or Nova went out of business, the latter of which is confirmed to have happened later in the movie), and now he's trying to eke out a living on the streets of New York, selling toy robots. By a stroke of sheer luck, Sandy Banatoni, a buyer for a major department store, finds one of the toys and places an order for 1,000 of them. With the aid of Fred Ritter, a small-time con man and hawker of fake Rolex watches, Ben sets up a small business to fill the order. This business is located in a building that two bank robbers are using to dig a tunnel to the bank vault across the street.
The criminals decide they must get rid of Ben and Fred and do so by smashing up their assembly line and frightening off his employees, hoping to force him and Fred out of the building. Instead, Number 5, now having taken the name "Johnny 5", arrives in a crate and agrees to help Ben assemble the robots in time.
Ben tries to explain to Fred that Johnny 5 is alive, but this doesn’t really sink in. He is relieved that he can assemble the toys so quickly, as he borrowed money from a loan shark in order to start the business, and is worried about the consequences of non-payment.
Ben warned Fred about Johnny’s insatiable curiosity, but he lets slip that they are in the middle of a city and Johnny 5 decides to head off on an impromptu sightseeing tour. In doing so he causes a great deal of confusion on the part of passers by, ruins a rigged card game being run by street hustler and is tricked by a street gang into helping them steal car stereos. In return, they give him a graffiti-style paint job. On the way back to the warehouse, he encounters and befriends a man named Oscar Baldwin. Johnny 5 returns home with directions from Oscar and gets scolded for the bad language he picked up from the car thieves and for helping them break into cars.
Later that night, the bank-robbers return to destroy Johnny 5, but he throws them out. Oscar returns the next day with a sightseeing booklet for Johnny 5 as a gift, which he reads in a matter of seconds before resuming construction of a makeshift security device to deter further break-ins. Oscar makes a comment regarding how much Johnny 5 costs, and Johnny 5 reveals his full monetary value. This news angers Fred, who can’t understand why they don’t just sell Johnny 5 instead of building toys for a living. He confronts Ben, but Ben is obviously adamant that Johnny 5 cannot be sold for any price. Fred then comes up with a scheme to get Ben out of the building by suggesting he should pursue a relationship with Sandy, then takes Johnny 5 to meet some "friends of his".
On the way, Johnny 5 encounters the World’s Biggest Bookstore and proceeds to trash the place, reading his way through the books on the shelves with little regard to the damage or chaos he is causing. He takes an especially keen interest in two of the books he read and heads to the counter, and in one of the most humerous lines of the movie states to the cashier: "2 excellent books! May I have these, craphead?"
The "friends" that Fred wants to introduce Johnny 5 to are a group of businessmen, to whom Fred attempts to sell Johnny 5. When this becomes apparent, Johnny 5 becomes extremely agitated at the prospect of being sold into bondage and shoves Fred over a counter. He then accidentally backs through a glass window and plummets from the skyscraper they were in. Fortunately, he is able to deploy his hang glider in time and glides to a safe landing at a modern art exhibit some distance away. While there, Johnny 5 is mistaken for an exhibit and becomes depressed after one of the patrons describes him as repulsive.
In an attempt to fit in, Johnny 5 acquires a coat and a bobble-hat and tries to "mingle". He thinks this is working in spite of the fact that he is still attracting as much attention as ever. While wandering around outside, he comes to a church with a sign outside claiming that he can find "The Answers" within. Assuming this means "input", he enters the building and proceeds to the confessional booth.
In a conversation with the priest, Johnny 5 learns of the concept of a soul. Unfortunately, when Johnny 5 reveals that he is a robot, the priest believes he's the victim of some kind of elaborate prank and runs the confused Johnny 5 out of the church. Shortly thereafter, he is "arrested" by a pair of police officers, who take him to the police station and put him in storage as "stolen goods".
Ben is livid at what Fred tried to do and that he has now lost Johnny 5. As their confrontation reaches a climax, the police arrive to inform Ben that they have found Johnny 5. Ben finds him in the stolen goods room at the station, slowly reading one of his books in a depressed stupor. Ben discovers that the books Johnny 5 is reading are Frankenstein and Pinocchio, and Ben gets some insight into his friend’s state of mind.
After leaving the police station, Johnny 5 and Ben discuss it and Johnny 5 decides that he is feeling loneliness. Ben admits that he is also feeling lonely because Sandy seems oblivious to his attempts to strike up a personal relationship with her. Johnny 5 says he can help, as he has read many books on dating at the bookstore.
Johnny 5 arranges for the bus that Sandy is riding home to stall just as Ben is walking past. They go to a small coffee shop and Ben tries to strike up a conversation, using prompts provided to him by Johnny 5, who is remotely controlling an animated billboard across the street. This scheme works poorly and Ben is forced to admit his scheme. Sandy finally realizes that Ben has a romantic interest in her and agrees to go on a date with him.
The next day Oscar meets up with Johnny 5 just after he has finished loading a delivery truck with the completed toy order. Oscar keeps him talking while the two bank robbers kidnap Ben and Fred, taking them across town and sealing them in the refrigerator of a Chinese restaurant. As soon as they’re out of the way, Oscar convinces Johnny 5 that Ben isn’t safe from the thugs who keep trying to break in, and shows him a tunnel he has been working on in the basement of Ben’s warehouse. He persuades Johnny 5 that this is the entrance to an escape tunnel to a secret room across the street, which Ben can use as a hiding place should the thugs ever return.
Ben finally manages to convince Fred that Johnny 5 is alive, and that if the thieves go through with their plan to destroy him after using him to steal the jewels they are after, he will die. They manage to build a system to dial telephone numbers using Ben’s pocket calculator, but their efforts to call the police are frustrated by the fact that neither one of them knows Morse code.
Johnny 5 digs Oscar’s tunnel in a matter of minutes and encounters a steel wall. He plans to dig around it, but Oscar convinces him that this is the room he was talking about. He tells Johnny 5 to cut an entrance, which he does with a plasma cutting torch.
Fred and Ben come up with another escape plan, using their pocket calculator they call Sandy and play tunes down the phone line to her answering machine, hoping that they will give Sandy clues as to their current predicament and to where they are being held. Sandy finds the recording and realizes it’s from Ben and that he’s in trouble. She calls the police, but they are of no help, so she calls a taxi and goes looking for them herself.
Johnny 5 completes cutting out a section of the wall and he and Oscar enter the secret room, which turns out to be a bank vault. Johnny 5 starts to grow suspicious, but Oscar manages to talk him into unlocking a container in the vault, containing a collection of precious stones that were due to be put on display at a local museum and were being kept in the vault for safekeeping until then.
Oscar then leaves in a hurry, and Johnny 5 begins to realize that he has been duped into helping Oscar into stealing the jewels. He goes to stop him, but he and the two thugs whom were working with him, attack him and try to run him down with their car. He flees across a park where people are operating model aircraft and manages to elude his pursuers. He then apprehends Oscar and tries to get some straight answers out of him. Instead, Oscar confuses him by using Pig Latin to order his henchmen to go around the block and attack Johnny 5 from behind.
The attack is savage. Oscar wants the robot destroyed on the grounds that it is a witness and could potentially identify them later in court. The thugs beat Johnny 5 mercilessly with crowbars. Johnny 5 manages to fight his attackers off by commandeering two of the model planes he saw earlier and uses them to harass his attackers, but the damage is now already done. The attack severs the connection between his main battery and his memory, and also punctures the battery casing, causing battery fluid to leak. His speech synthesizer is also disabled, his left arm is broken off and his right camera-eye is smashed. Johnny 5 is left with only his failing backup battery to sustain him.
Fred, Ben and Sandy return to the warehouse, only to discover the police there, investigating the theft of the diamonds from the bank vault. When they see Ben and Sandy they assume that they are responsible and arrest them. Fred manages to avoid the police and goes looking for Johnny 5.
The severely damaged Johnny 5 limps through the city, looking for help. He manages to extend his survival time by stealing car batteries and wiring them into his system, but even so, he is dying. Fred finds him in an alley behind a Radio Shack store and Johnny 5 asks Fred to fix him. With Fred’s help and supplies taken from the store, Johnny 5 manages to effect makeshift repairs on himself and restores himself to about 70% of normal operating capacity. Johnny 5 is, however, damaged well beyond his and Fred’s ability to repair him fully. His main battery can be reconnected to his system before his backup fails completely, but he has still lost a lot of battery fluid and has only a couple of hours before the battery dies, taking him with it.
Fred explains Oscar's actions to Johnny 5, who becomes enraged at what Oscar and his thugs did to him and determines to capture them and make them answer for their crimes. Fred tries to talk the still heavily damaged Johnny 5 out of it, but he is adamant, so Fred goes along to help him.
When Oscar and cohorts spot Johnny 5 and Fred in pursuit they start driving dangerously to lose them, but Johnny 5 vanishes into the sewers and continues his chase from underground. He emerges from the sewers via a manhole right underneath Oscar’s parked car and confuses the crooks into crashing it. Johnny 5 takes on and traps Oscar’s accomplices, but Oscar himself escapes when he sucker-punches Fred in the belly. Johnny 5 has no intention of letting him get away and resumes the chase.
Oscar steals a boat, thinking he can lose Johnny 5, but he still won’t give up the chase, using a pickup truck to pull him along at great speed, then using a dockside crane to hoist himself into the air with his grappler. He swings from the crane, plucks Oscar from the boat and deposits both Oscar and himself on the shore, awaiting the arrival of the police.
When the police and Ben do arrive, Johnny 5 has barely a minute of running time left before his battery fails, barely enough time to say his final goodbye to Ben. For a moment it seems that Johnny 5 is lost, but Ben manages to keep him alive by using a defibrillator to provide him with power.
As news of Johnny 5 and his daring capture of Oscar spreads, Ben and Fred find themselves with a massive success on their hands. Their robot toys are selling faster than they can produce them and Johnny 5 himself, who now appears to be a gold-plated robot, becomes something of a celebrity. In return for capturing Oscar and his gang, the U.S. Government recognize him as alive and entitled to full human rights, and he and Ben are sworn in as U.S. citizens.
Quotes from Television
- "To the moon, Alice!" - Jackie Gleason
- "Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk!" - Curly Howard
- "Say, pilgrim, that liked parted my hair. If ya wanna play rough, I can sure oblige ya." - "Aw, take heart, li'l lady. I'll fix their wagon." - "Derf, a lifeforms gotta do what a lifeforms gotta do. Stand aside." - "Okay pilgrim, it's round-up time." - John Wayne
- Note: Johnny 5 seems to quote John Wayne more than any other actor, probably because of the fact he decided to call himself Johnny.
- "Franky, ya broke the unwritten law. Ya ratted on yer friends. When ya do that Franky, yer enemies don' respect ya. Ya got no friends no more. Ya got nobody, Franky." - Humphrey Bogart
- "Escaped robot fights for his life, film at 11:00." - "Robot ejects prawlers, film at 11:00." - News presenter
- "Ah, that w'aps you up, ya wascily wobot." - Elmer Fudd
- "I can't help it. I'm in a panic, I'm frantic, and I'm (warbles) manic!" -Maniac Mike
- "Luuucy, I'm home!" - Ricky Ricardo
- Tarzan's Yell - Various Tarzan Movies
- "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" - Jack Nicholson
- "C'Mon, ya bug-eyed geek!" - Sylvester Stallone
- "Ya feel lucky, punk?" - Clint Eastwood
- "Oh, like I'm really scared, y'know, fer sure." - a Valley girl
The props
- In Short Circuit, for close-up shots, Johnny 5 becomes a giant hand-puppet: His arms are attached to extended metal rods, similar to that of a muppet.
- For distant shots, a version of Johnny 5 was remotely controlled by an actor wearing a virtual reality suit that sensed his movements and transmitted them to the robot, which mirrored them.
- Some shots used a miniature version of Johnny 5, e.g., when he was being pushed across the Astoria-Megler Bridge by the Nova armored car in Short Circuit.
Trivia
- In both films, Johnny 5's voice is provided by puppeteer Tim Blaney. This casting decision was made, due to the director's belief that real-time interaction with the robot prop would make the interaction seem more natural on-screen than if they edited Johnny's voice in during post-production.
- Many of the little tricks done by Johnny 5 onscreen (like flipping through book pages in a blink of the eye and tossing a washer into the air in a mimic of a scene from an old gangster movie he saw) were done using relatively simple, yet ingenious sleight of hand prop effects. For instance, the pages were flipped using an air hose, while the washer was flipped using a piece of string at both ends sideways. Not only did this save money for the producers for the actual robot and the screenplay, but they proved remarkably effective in getting just the right look needed for the scenes, even more so than more complicated and expensive effects.
- In Short Circuit 2, Johnny is referred to a couple of times as a giant metal grasshopper, most likely as a nod to the scene in the original movie where Johnny accidentally squashes a grasshopper while immitating its jumping, thus learning about death and life and realizing its own sentience. However, Johnny's body shape is clearly reminiscent of a Praying mantis, specifically in the head, long body, and the normal 'rest' position of the arms.
- Short Circuit's storyline, and Johnny himself, is remarkably similar to Issac Asimov's short story Robot AL-76 Goes Astray, which deals with a robot inadvertently escaping into a world that he doesn't understand. However, the movie's real inspiration is more complex: the director and producer, having dealt with short educational videos involving robots before, had decided to make a feature-length robot film, and looked at other films involving robots in some great capacity. They found that with most of those movies, the robots were already treated as if sentient, emotional automations were the norm, and instead of copying that plot device, decided to form a movie based on the obvious question - and answer - brought up with such movies: what if such a sentient robot really did exist in modern, real-world society? How would people really react to it? Naturally, it's assumed that they wouldn't believe it for a second, and hence how Short Circuit came to be.
- In the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, the episode "Attack of Big MACC", featured a robot from the year 2390 called MACC (Motor-Armored Computerized Combatant). MACC was similar to Johnny 5, could read books as fast he could, didn't like violence, and MACC also mistook a video camera for his brother who, oddly enough, was called "Number 5".
See also
External links
- Johnny-five.com, a fansite dedicated to the robot.
- Input-Inc.com, a fansite where the recreation of Johnny Five is happening.