Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?

Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?
Genre	Science fiction Comedy Slice of life
Created by	Greg Miller
Developed by	Mike Stern Greg Miller
Directed by	Greg Miller (Season 1) Rob Renzetti (Season 1) Steve Socki (Season 2)
Voices of	Text-to-voice program ("Junior" voice; season 1, credited as "Himself") Bobby Block (season 2) Text-to-voice program ("Ralph" and "Trinoids" voices; uncredited) Kyle Sullivan Gary LeRoi Gray Myles Jeffrey
Theme music composer	The Invisible Car
Opening theme	"Do the Robot"
Composers	Greg Miller Mike Stern (season 2)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	13 (26 segments) + 1 pilot
Production
Executive producer	Greg Miller
Producer	Rob Renzetti (Supervising Producer)
Running time	22 minutes
Production companies	Hanna-Barbera (pilot) Cartoon Network Studios
Original release
Network	Cartoon Network
Release	July 19, 2002 (2002-07-19) – November 14, 2003 (2003-11-14)

Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? (usually shortened to Robot Jones) is an American animated television series created by Greg Miller for Cartoon Network, and the 12th of the network's Cartoon Cartoons. The show centers on a teen-aged male robot attending a suburban middle school in a futuristic 1980s world. It won a Peabody Award in 2003 "for outstanding efforts in making learning a pleasurable experience for pre-schoolers."

Premise

Promotional image featuring the series' main characters. From left to right: Cubey, Socks, Robot Jones, and Shannon.

The series centers on Robot Jones (voiced by a text-to-voice program in season 1; Bobby Block in season 2), who, as his name suggests, is a robot who lives in a small city in Delaware, in a futuristic version of the 1980s in which robots are commonplace. Robot attempts to learn of human nature by attending Polyneux Middle School, where he makes three new friends: Timothy "Socks" Morton (Kyle Sullivan), a tall boy who loves rock music; Mitch Davis (Gary LeRoi Gray), a headphones-wearing boy whose eyes are hidden by his long hair; and Charles "Cubey" Cubinacle (Myles Jeffrey), a shorter boy who loves video games and wears a Pac-Man T-shirt. He also meets Shannon Westerburg (Grey DeLisle), a girl he develops a crush on, because of her large retainer and metal prosthetic leg.

In each episode, Robot, sometimes prompted to by his parents, explores a concept average teenagers usually face in their everyday life, such as gym class, or taking a part in a competition. Robot must submerge himself in the episode's title subject in order to fully understand it, while doing as much as he can to fit in with his human counterparts. The situations he finds himself in are very much like those most awkward adolescents can relate to, but are made worse by Robot's social ineptitude and others' lack of understanding. As Robot gets settled in at school, he begins taking part in exploring humanoid concepts of his own will. Many of the situations Robot finds himself in, which are not due to his parents insisting, are a result of Robot trying to get closer to Shannon. Examples of this would be Socks convincing him to go camping in Summer Camp, or discovering the ability to feel jealous in Jealousy. In some episodes, the villain is not one of the enemies Robot makes at the school, but a complex social idea that he either cannot wrap his head around, such as puberty or popularity, or refuses to accept altogether, such as working for a wage. While most of the school tends to avoid Robot, they often are oblivious to his existence, due to his polite nature and shortness. However, among the enemies that his good grades, poor social skills, and status as a robot earn him are a technophobic, raving Principal, Mr. Madman, a jealous and insecure math teacher, Mr. McMcMc, and two genius twin brothers who look nothing alike, Lenny and Denny Yogman. At the end of most episodes, Robot makes a data log entry, in which he states what he learned that day and what conclusions he has arrived at on humanity, which are often not positive.

The opening sequence of the show, in which Robot Jones is assembled in a factory and then inserted into a school bus, is an homage to the opening sequence of 1980s children's show You Can't Do That on Television, which starts with a similar animation of children being assembled in a factory and poured into a school bus. At the beginning and end of the intro where the title of the show is spoken, a group of young children voices say the "Whatever Happened to..." part in unison, while the "...Robot Jones" part is done by a Macintosh Macintalk voice known as Trinoids. The first season also had kids speaking out the title cards, which was done away with during season two, although some season 2 episode titles are spoken by voices of the characters, like Mitch saying "Garage Band" or Madman saying "Hookie 101".

Production

Greg Miller's original series pilot aired on Cartoon Network on June 16, 2000, in a contest featuring 10 animated shorts to be chosen for a spot on the network's 2001 schedule. During the weekend of August 25–27, 2000, all 10 pilots aired as part of a 52-hour marathon called "Voice Your Choice Weekend", in which viewers would vote for their favorite pilots. While Grim & Evil won the contest with 57% of the vote, Robot Jones came in second place with 23% and was given its own series run beginning July 19, 2002.

Robot Jones's animation style can be seen as a throwback to 1970s and 1980s cartoons such as Schoolhouse Rock!, with an intentionally messy and rough look. The artistic style seems to be influenced by Paul Coker and Jolly Roger Bradfield. The series' animation technique is different from most American cartoons from the early 2000s; it was animated with traditional cel animation, at a time when many American cartoons had switched to digital ink and paint (possibly due to the 1980s settings). The show was animated at Rough Draft Studios at Seoul, South Korea.

Greg Miller stated in an interview on Facebook that he used a Microsoft Word 98 text-to-voice software for Robot's voice during production for season one, but after the first season was completed, the executives of Cartoon Network found Robot's automated voice to be unusual and requested Miller to find a "more Hollywood voice actor." Bobby Block was chosen to take the role of Robot in season two, hence re-dubbing all of his lines in all the episodes of the first season and even in the pilot episode. Robot Jones' automated voice was also recorded for production of the second season, but because the voice change happened during the production of those episodes, this voice was never dubbed into the final prints. In that interview, he also said that he would want to do a revival of Robot Jones but it would be up to Cartoon Network and there has not been any updates as of 2017.

After waning support from the network executives, constant time slot changes, and steps to redevelop the series (including re-casting the voice of Robot), Greg Miller left the show and Robot Jones was cancelled during its second season, leaving some of the remaining episodes (that were put into production at the moment) to be left unfinished, including one episode involving the history of robotics, another episode involving Robot guest-starring on "The Soapy Winfall Show", and a planned ending where Robot rallies a robot army to eliminate the human population (which canonically happened even though it was never seen).

Characters

Main

• Robot Electro Jones (voiced by a text-to-voice program's 'Junior' voice in season one and Bobby Block in season two + redubbed reruns of season one) is a robot who does whatever he can to fit into human society, and often encountering problems in doing so. He is specifically a "KX-8" model, as he claims to be in one episode, developed and produced by a company called JNZ Robotics. Although his real age is unknown, it is presumed that he is programmed to be an adolescent, thereby fitting in with the middle schoolers he is observing. His body is painted red with black stripes on the bottom. Among his humanoid features, he has a set of large yellow eyes, which also function as "cameras" to analyze objects and humans as well as for x-ray vision. Robot's eyes also flash on and off when he talks, rather than moving his mouth. His "brain" resembles a giant light bulb, which screws to the top of his head. The Yogman Twins make it one of their great missions to obtain Robot's brain, implying that it contains all of Robot's life essence, although being without his brain does little but slows down Robot's thought process, as seen in Electric Boogaloo. Whenever the day ends, he adds something to his memory called "Data Log Entry," which he uses to recall what he learned through the experience.
• Timothy "Socks" Morton (voiced by Kyle Sullivan) is the best friend of Robot Jones. He is quite a fanatic to rock music. Though he typically mentors and provides Robot with reassurance as best as he can, he has a realistic cap to his understanding, and can lose his temper with Robot, as show in Family Vacation. In his first appearance in the Pilot, he was a student in Mr. McMcMc's class who commented positively on Robot challenging McMcMc,and had no name. Unlike Mitch and Cubey, is never revealed how he became Robot's friend, let alone his closest. He has blond curly hair and wears a green jacket. He is roughly 12 years old.
• Charles "Cubey" Cubinacle (voiced by Myles Jeffrey) is the shorter friend with dark, straight hair, sunglasses with window blinds for lenses, and roller skates. He is a video game lover, and became friends with Robot in Electric Boogaloo with that in common. He is roughly 12 years old.
• Mitchell "Mitch" Freeman Davis (voiced by Gary LeRoi Gray) is a lad often seen wearing headphones, a red sweater and sandals. His eyes are obscured by his long hair. Like Cubey and Robot, he also enjoys video games, and appears more often with Cubey than either appear without each other. It may be assumed from this Cubey and Mitch are best friends. Mitch is also roughly 12 years old.
• Dad Unit (voiced by a text-to-voice program's 'Ralph' voice) is Robot's father, specifically a KC-213 Unit. When he says something, he often says it three times; one example would be "Listen to your mother! Listen to your mother! Listen to your mother!" as said in the second pilot "Electric Boogaloo." He has only one arm on the top of his head, wears a tie and in his focus on tasks he often gets into shenanigans such as smashing through walls. He is very no-nonsense and easily annoyed, which often results in him causing destruction of some kind. He is very protective of his family, and will punch out a supposed peeping tom spying on his wife, as seen in Hookie 101, or threaten anybody who comes too close to his house, such as the mailman in "Parents."
• Mom Unit (voiced by Grey DeLisle) is Robot's mother, specifically a JUN-77. She is pink in color, has one eyeball which is a red camera lens, and her arms are gas pump hoses with nozzle-like hands which she uses for giving fuel to her fellow units. Like Dad Unit, she seems to generally have a no-nonsense attitude. Mom Unit also spends time at home drilling holes in the front yard looking for more sources of oil whenever she runs out, as shown in "Parents." She is more verbose than Robot's father, and often it is she who is explaining or instructing Robot on what task he will complete in a given episode. Though very intelligent, she herself is bewildered by human behavior, and uses her own questions to prompt Robot's next social assignment, such as in Cube Wars.

Recurring Characters

• Shannon Westerburg (voiced by Grey DeLisle) is a girl whom Robot becomes a crush with because she has more mechanical attachments than any human he has ever seen, specifically a large orthodontic appliance and a prosthetic leg. Shannon talks with a lisp. Although she is sometimes friendly to him, as seen in "Embarrassment", "Garage Band" and "House Party," Shannon doesn't socialize too much with Robot unless he approaches her. Depending on the episode, it is unclear if she realizes that Robot has a crush on her. Depending on the episode, again, she may consider him anything from a close friend, to a pest, to a nobody. Despite this, there is some evidence that Shannon may be harboring at least a fondness for Robot in return, if not romantic feelings. Because Shannon's better treatment of Robot comes about when she is alone with him, it may be speculated that she actually likes Robot and is afraid of anybody finding out, least her own social reputation be worse. However, too little episodes exist to truly prove this as what drives her erratic behavior throughout the series, and some people chalk it up to disagreeing writers. She is not a technophobe, as seen in "Jealousy", when she had a crush on a handsome android named Finkman. Shannon is socially awkward herself, as seen in "Hair", whens she pestered a boy named Frederico trying to eat his lunch. Shannon is roughly 12-years old, and it has never been revealed how her leg became amputated.

• Lenny and Denny Yogman (voiced by Josh Peck and Austin Stout respectively) are notorious young genius brothers and they are the main antagonists of the show. They wear red hats that resembles the 1980s band Devo's energy dome hats, yellow shirts, green shorts, and black/white sneakers. Lenny is tall while Denny is short. They do whatever they can to take Robot's brain, as they believe that stealing it will allow them to "rule the school". Lenny mentions in "The Yogmans Strike Back" that he plans to it to "Brainwash the principal, and abolish PE forever!"

• Principal Samuel Madman (voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the pilot and Jeff Glen Bennett in the series) is the principal of Polyneux Middle School. His mustache and haircut resembles that of Adolf Hitler; as such, he is very tyrannical to Robot. He is afraid of technology as a whole, as seen in "Sickness", "Parents" and the pilot episode.

• Mr. McMcMc (voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the pilot and Rip Taylor in the series) is Robot Jones' math teacher. Like most of the staff at Polyneux, he is very childish and also extremely insecure about his intelligence, as seen in "Math Challenge".

• Clancy Q. Sleepyjeans (voiced by David Koechner) is the school janitor. He owns a vacuum cleaner which he names "Dust Buddy," whom Robot built friendship with after learning that humans and robots were never designed to co-exist. Clancy also has a job in the school's safety patrol. He once let Robot take part in the school's safety patrol in "Safety Patrol", but Robot turned out to be enforcing the rules very strictly which soon leads the entire school to be thrown into detention. Clancy also partnered with Mr. McMcMc in a math competition in "Math Challenge".

• Mr. Workout (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) is the PE teacher in Polyneux Middle School. He forced Robot to take a shower in "PU to PE", resulting in him being electrocuted inadvertently by Robot. He later appeared in "Growth Spurts" with little impact on the plot, alongside an unnamed mustached coach.

• Mrs. Raincoat (voiced by Grey DeLisle) the English teacher.

• James Nob (voiced by Gedde Watanabe) is the owner of Nob's Arkaid, where Robot and his friends hang out. He keeps telling kids that they're breaking his arcade machines, every time they play with them. In "Hookie 101", it is revealed that his arcade gives a discount on game tokens during school hours.

• Gramps Unit (voiced by a text-to-voice program's 'Trinoids' voice) is Robot Jones' grandfather. Gramps Unit sounds like Robot Jones' father, but he could be the dad of Dad Unit & Mom Unit. It is shown in "Vacuum Friend" that he strongly dislikes humans and wishes for machines to take over from mankind as rulers of the planet. However, he cares deeply for his grandson, as seen in "House Party".

Episodes

Series overview

Season		Episodes	Originally aired
			First aired	Last aired
	Pilot		June 8, 2000 (2000-06-08)
	1	6	July 19, 2002 (2002-07-19)	September 13, 2002 (2002-09-13)
	2	7 (4 others planned)	October 3, 2003 (2003-10-03)	November 14, 2003 (2003-11-14)

Pilot (2000)

No. in series	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Original air date
0	1	"Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?"	Greg Miller and Rob Renzetti	June 8, 2000 (2000-06-08)
Robot Jones is informed by his parents, Mom Unit and Dad Unit, that he has been put into a human public school that he must now attend. While in math class, he believes that the problems are too easy for him, which results in him getting sent to the principal's office for being condescending to the teacher. Later the same day as all of the school kids are eating lunch, Principal Madman trips on a wire which he later finds out is Robot's charger cable. After finding out it was Robot Jones, he gives him three months detention for tripping him, which angers Robot so much that he starts malfunctioning and firing lasers out of his eyes, setting the room on fire and scaring away everyone. Later, he rants about the humans in the hallway and almost gives up completely on them, until he develops a crush on a girl named Shannon because of her braces, which he designates as "high metal content". He then realizes that humans are not all that bad and that he needs to study more on them. NOTE: This episode was later aired as the first segment along with "Electric Boogaloo" and "Groovesicle."

Season 1 (2002)

No. in series	No. in season	Title	Written by	Storyboarded by	Directed by	Original air date
1	1	"P.U. to P.E. / Vacuum Friend"	Greg Miller	Kevin Kaliher and Mike Stern	Greg Miller	July 19, 2002 (2002-07-19)
P.U. to P.E.: Robot Jones fears taking a shower in gym class because he thinks he will rust. Vacuum Friend: Robot Jones befriends a vacuum cleaner after thinking humans and robots cannot be friends.
2	2	"Cube Wars / Sickness"	Greg Miller, Kevin Kaliher and Mike Bell	Kevin Kaliher and Mike Bell	Greg Miller	July 26, 2002 (2002-07-26)
Cube Wars: Everyone becomes obsessed with solving their Rubik's Cubes (called Wonder Cubes on the show), but Robot Jones' superior mind allows him to solve it almost instantly. The Yogmans sabotage Robot's cube, however, and he begins to malfunction. Sickness: The Yogmans prank Robot Jones by inserting a virus-filled floppy disk in Robot's disk drive, and he becomes very ill.
3	3	"Parents / Embarrassment"	Greg Miller, Dave Smith and Paul Tibbitt	Dave Smith and Paul Tibbitt	Greg Miller	August 2, 2002 (2002-08-02)
Parents: Robot Jones must bring his parents to parent-teacher night at the middle school. When his parents embarrass him, Robot Jones attempts to manually override them to control their behavior, but fails. Embarrassment: Robot Jones wants to ask out Shannon to the Harvest Dance, but his nervousness causes his exhaust to malfunction whenever he gets near her.
4	4	"Politics / Growth Spurts"	Greg Miller	Kevin Kaliher and Mike Stern	Greg Miller	August 9, 2002 (2002-08-09)
Politics: Robot Jones runs for student council president. Growth Spurts: Robot Jones modifies himself to be tall enough to be on the basketball team.
5	5	"Electric Boogaloo / The Groovesicle"	Greg Miller	Greg Miller and Mike Stern	Greg Miller and Rob Renzetti	September 6, 2002 (2002-09-06)
Electric Boogaloo: Lenny and Denny Yogman try to trick Robot Jones into being his friend so they can steal his brain. The Groovesicle: Robot Jones and Socks watch a live concert "The Groovesicle" on TV featuring a music video performed by a band called "The Lavender Fudge Experience".
6	6	"Jealousy / Scantron Love"	Greg Miller, Clay Morrow and Walt Dohrn	Clay Morrow and Walt Dohrn	Greg Miller	September 13, 2002 (2002-09-13)
Jealousy: Robot Jones feels jealousy towards an android named Finkman, who manages to make Shannon fall for him (as well as the rest of the school). Scantron Love: Robot befriends the school's Scantron machine in order to get the answers for his history tests, and soon passes out the answers to the rest of the students in class. However, things do not go as planned, but also results in Robot getting caught in a love triangle between the Scantron and Shannon.

Season 2 (2003)

No. in series	No. in season	Title	Written by	Storyboarded by	Directed by	Original air date
7	1	"Gender / Math Challenge"	Greg Miller, Kevin Kaliher and Charlie Bean	Kevin Kaliher and Charlie Bean	Steve Socki	October 3, 2003 (2003-10-03)
Gender: Robot Jones struggles to understand the differences between human boys and girls. Math Challenge: Mr. McMcMc challenges Robot Jones to a math competition to determine who is the smarter one of the two.
8	2	"Family Vacation / Hair"	Greg Miller, Clay Morrow and Chuck Klein	Clay Morrow and Chuck Klein	Steve Socki	October 10, 2003 (2003-10-10)
Family Vacation: Robot and Socks go on a spring break vacation together with Robot's family, but Robot's parents are getting the wrong idea about them. Hair: Seeing other boys in school with hair makes Robot want hair of his own to impress Shannon, but he cannot get any because of his robotic body.
9	3	"Garage Band / Work"	Greg Miller, Brian Larsen and Mike Stern	Brian Larsen and Mike Stern	Steve Socki	October 17, 2003 (2003-10-17)
Garage Band: Robot, Socks, Cubey, and Mitch form a garage rock band together. They focus more on being cool rather than actually practicing songs, which confuses Robot. Work: Robot Jones gets a job at JNZ Robotics to make extra money.
10	4	"The Yogmans Strike Back / Hookie 101"	Greg Miller, Kevin Kaliher and Charlie Bean	Kevin Kaliher and Charlie Bean	Steve Socki	October 24, 2003 (2003-10-24)
The Yogmans Strike Back: The Yogmans hypnotize Robot's friends and turn them into an amalgamation robot called the "Yogstrosity". Hookie 101: Robot, Socks, Cubey, and Mitch all play hookie.
11	5	"House Party / School Newspaper"	Greg Miller, Clay Morrow and William Reiss	Clay Morrow and William Reiss	Steve Socki	October 31, 2003 (2003-10-31)
House Party: Robot Jones throws a big party at his house while his parents are away. School Newspaper: Robot Jones gets a job for the school newspaper and writes stories about Principal Madman.
12	6	"Safety Patrol / Popularity"	Greg Miller	Greg Miller and Mike Stern	Steve Socki	November 7, 2003 (2003-11-07)
Safety Patrol: When Robot Jones is put on the school's safety patrol, he enforces the rules very strictly. Popularity: Robot Jones sends a decoy version of himself to school so that he can attend a robotics expo, but the decoy ends up becoming popular with his classmates.
13	7	"Summer Camp / Rules of Dating"	Greg Miller, Chris Reccardi and Paul Tibbitt	Chris Reccardi and Paul Tibbitt	Steve Socki	November 14, 2003 (2003-11-14)
Summer Camp: Robot Jones tries to impress Shannon by showing off his nature skills at a summer camp. Rules of Dating: Robot attempts to impress Shannon, but his efforts are marred by restrictions enforced on him by the "Laws of Robotics".

Broadcast

After production for the show ceased, the series continued to air reruns for a few more months throughout 2003 and 2004, before being removed from the network's schedule. Despite the show's short-lived run, the series was also available for viewing on Cartoon Network Video for short periods of time before being removed. Unlike other Cartoon Network shows, this show was not included as a bonus cartoon on any Cartoon Network VHS releases.

From 2005 to 2008, Robot Jones returned sporadically in reruns on The Cartoon Cartoon Show, along with segments of other Cartoon Cartoons from that time period.

From 2015 to 2017, the show aired reruns on Cartoon Network's Latin-American sister network Tooncast.

As of 2017, Cartoon Network has no intention of releasing the show for consumer purchase on digital retailers such as iTunes, Amazon, Hulu and Netflix, moving the show to its sister channel Boomerang, or even physically releasing the show on a DVD set anytime soon despite its major cult following.

See also

• List of fictional robots and androids
• List of science fiction universes

External links

• Official website (archive)
• Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show
• Template:Bcdb