Jenny Wakeman

''My Life 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. Set in the fictional town of Tremorton, the series follows the adventures of a robot super-heroine named XJ-9 (or "Jenny Wakeman", 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.

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. 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 on a 3-year hiatus starting 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 40 episodes across three seasons, consisting of 13 to 14 episodes each.

Overview

''My Life as a Teenage Robot'' is set in the fictional town of Tremorton, located near Omaha, Nebraska, and focuses on making lighthearted fun of typical teenage issues and conventions of works relating to teenagers and superheroes. The series follows XJ-9 ("Jenny Wakeman", as she prefers to be called), who is a highly sophisticated state-of-the-art sentient robot girl created by her mother Dr. Nora Wakeman, an elderly robotics scientist, five years before the series. Jenny is Earth's protector, armed with a wide range of weapons and devices, but simply wants to live the life of a normal teenager. She was preceded in development by eight other models; in season 1, the episode "Sibling Tsunami" introduced XJs 1–8.

Jenny's friends are her neighbors Brad and Tuck Carbuckle. 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, a somewhat stereotypical nerd who is obsessed with her; Jenny often rejects his romantic advances, but still cares for him as a friend. At Tremorton High School, however, Jenny has a tense, love-hate relationship with Britney "Brit" (voiced by Moira Quirk) and Tiffany "Tiff" Crust (voiced by Cree Summer), the school's resident popular girls.

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.

Characters

*Jennifer "Jenny" Wakeman (Robotic Global Response Unit Model No. XJ-9) (voiced by Janice Kawaye) is a sentient XJ-series humanoid robot created by Dr. Noreen Wakeman five years prior to the series, along with her half-done prototype predecessor sisters colored blue, green, and violet. Though she was designed to be 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 covet quite apparent to her friends. Jenny's personality is often kind, friendly, sweet, and optimistic, though this also comes with being rather naïve to her surroundings.
*Dr. Nora Wakeman (voiced by Candi Milo) is an elderly roboticist who built the XJ robots. She is often simply referred to as "Mother" or "Mom" by Jenny and her sisters.
*Bradley "Brad" Carbuckle (voiced by Chad Doreck) is Tuck's older brother and Jenny's best friend and next-door neighbor. He is outgoing and adventurous, and is the first friend Jenny ever made.
*Tucker "Tuck" Cornelius Carbuckle (voiced by Audrey Wasilewski) is Brad's younger brother. He is usually tagging along with his brother and Jenny, though his aptitude for adventure is significantly less than Brad's.
*Sheldon Oswald Lee (voiced by Quinton Flynn) is Jenny's self-proclaimed romantic admirer. Jenny refuses his romantic advances, though she does care for him as a close friend. Being highly skilled in science and inventing, Sheldon has created gadgets and modifications for Jenny, usually very unnecessarily bulky and extravagant, as well as done minor repair work. He also occasionally masquerades as a robot superhero, the "Silver Shell".

Episodes

Production

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.

In March 2002, Nickelodeon ordered 13 episodes of the series. The series was initially called "My Neighbor Was a Teenage Robot" before settling on its final title.

Cancellation

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." 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.

Broadcast and home media

Nickelodeon premiered ''My Life as a Teenage Robot'' on August 1, 2003, at 8:30 PM EST. 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. 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 24, 2005. In the second season, a 48-minute, two-part TV movie titled "Escape from Cluster Prime" (which was nominated for an Emmy in 2006) aired.

Since the series' cancellation, reruns continued to air on Nicktoons until April 14, 2013. However, it started airing again on December 13, 2015, lasting until May 15, 2016. From March 2021 to January 2022, reruns of the series aired on TeenNick during its NickRewind block.

In 2021, the entire series was available for streaming on Paramount+. The series was removed from the streaming service on December 19, 2024.

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. As of December 12, 2011, seasons 1, 2, and 3 are available on DVD exclusive to Amazon.com in region 1. The full series was released across six discs by Beyond Home Entertainment in Australia on February 5, 2012.

Reception

Critical reception

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 n 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." 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."

Awards and nominations

Other media

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. 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, and the kart racing game '' Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway'' alongside Mrs. Wakeman, Brad, and Vexus as Chief power ups, with Kawaye reprising her role in the latter three games. Jenny also appears as a character skin for ''Smite

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