My Life as a Teenage Robot

Overview

My Life as a Teenage Robot is set in the fictional town of Tremorton and focuses on making lighthearted fun of typical teenage issues and conventions of works relating to teenagers and superheroes. The series follows XJ-9, also known as "Jenny Wakeman" (Janice Kawaye) 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 (Candi Milo), 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; the season 1 episode "Sibling Tsunami" introduced XJs 1–8.

Jenny's friends are her neighbors Brad (Chad Doreck) and Tuck Carbuckle (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. 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". At Tremorton High School, however, Jenny has a tense, love-hate relationship with Britney "Brit" (Moira Quirk) and Tiffany "Tiff" Crust (Cree Summer), two cousins who are the school's resident popular girls obsessed with fashion and beauty.

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 Jenny constantly being dogged by the all-robotic Cluster Empire, whose queen, Vexus (Eartha Kitt), and sometimes Commander Smytus (Steve Blum) or Krackus (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 season 2 finale 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.

Episodes

Main article: List of My Life as a Teenage Robot 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 [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." 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. One of Jenny's pre-fight lines in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl ("You wouldn't like my brain! It's all circuity and metallic!") was removed from the game due to its association with an animated porn parody of My Life as a Teenage Robot created by Newgrounds animator Zone. Jenny also appears as a character skin for Smite, and was available during a July 2022 event.

On August 1, 2023, in commemoration of the series' 20th anniversary, creator Rob Renzetti began publishing a web story based on the series in his personal newsletter. Titled "Alternaversity", the story was written by Renzetti, with illustrations initially by My Life as a Teenage Robot art director Alex Kirwan, and later by storyboard artist Heather Martinez. The final chapter released on May 6, 2025.

Notes

References

References

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13. (December 19, 2024). "More Nickelodeon Series Removed from Paramount+, Including "Doug"". Nickandmore!.
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