Robotboy

Robotboy
Starring	Laurence Bouvard, Rupert Degas, Togo Igawa, Eiji Kusuhara, Lewis MacLeod, Lorraine Pilkington
Country of origin	United Kingdom, United States, France
Original release
Network	Cartoon Network
Release	November 1, 2005 (UK), December 28, 2005 (USA)

Robotboy is a French animated television series which was produced by French production company ALPHANIM with TV ChannelsFrance 3 and Cartoon Network as well as Luxanimation. It was created and designed by Jan Van Rijsselberge and was directed in Alphanim's studio in Paris by Charlie Bean, who worked on other Cartoon Network programs such as Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls. It was first aired in France on October 12 2005 at MIPCOM, Paris and later premiered on TV in the UK on November 1 2005 on Cartoon Network. The pilot episode premiered in the US on December 28 2005 as part of a "sneak peek" preview week for the network's new Saturday morning cartoon lineup scheduled to debut on January 14 2006.

Plot

Template:Spoiler Robotboy is a new creation of the world renowned scientist Professor Mishimo. Due to fears that Robotboy would be stolen by his arch-rival Dr Kamikazi and his main henchman Constantine to be used to take over the world, Professor Mishimo entrusts Robotboy to 10 year old Tommy Turnbull, his biggest fan. 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.

Characters

Major Characters

Robotboy

Robotboy is a battle robot with three modes of operation: Deactivated, Activated and Superactivated. Deactivation mode is Robotboy's standby stage, where he becomes compact enough to fit into a backpack. Activation mode is the standard stage of Robotboy's active modes, where he is able to use most of his non-battle technology. Superactivation mode is where Robotboy transforms into his battle stage of operation, where he has access to an amazing arsenal of weaponry to deal with any and all enemies

Robotboy is mainly a fun loving robot, with the ability to have human-like emotions and actions despite being mostly machinery.

Tommy Turnbull

Tommy is a blonde, square-headed, 10 year old boy, and Robotboy's new owner. He is smart, responsible and likeable and acts as a father figure to Robotboy, Robotboy having no parents himself. Tommy has two parents and an older brother, who is a bully. Maybe he got his square head from his mother, who also has a square head

Lola Mbola

Lola is an African-American 10 year old girl who is well educated and is the daughter of a wealthy diplomat. She is secretly in love with Tommy, but Tommy is too ignorant to notice Lola's true feelings for him.

Augustus "Gus" "G-man" Bachman Turner

Gus is overweight, red-headed and selfish. He is an attention seeker and tries to show off most of the time pulling practical jokes on anyone close to him. However, most of these tricks backfire and often get him in trouble.

G-man's parents are of Amish origin.

Dr. Kamikazi

Dr. Kamikazi is a small and very old man with thick glasses and a suit/bathrobe combo who wants to dominate the world and rename it "Kaziland". He hopes that with his army of genetically mutated anthropomorphic animals, and an army consisting of robots to which he hopes to add Robotboy to, he will soon be able to achieve his dastardly goal. Most of his machines are shaped like himself.

He is voiced by one of the anouncers from the popular television show Banzai who, in irony, is noted to be Chinese rather than Japanese.

Constantine

Constantine is a fat hunchbacked henchman of Dr. Kamikazi who also is a master of sumo wrestling (though it is unknown if he has ever been a yokozuna, or "grand champion"). He is a senstive and none too threatening sidekick to Dr. Kamikazi who mainly acts as his muscle power as well as his assistant.

Despite looking like a Japanese version of a henchman, Constantine is actually Spanish, suggesting that his outfit is simply a uniform assigned to him by Dr. Kamikazi.

Minor Characters

Protoboy

Protoboy was created by Dr. Mishimo in his earlier years. He was meant for battle rather than emtions and human speech, which made him much more powerful than Robotboy. He knocked Robotboy unconcious and started destroying the city. When Robotboy used Super-Activation, so did Protoboy. Robotboy was nearly defeated again until he used the new weapon Dr. Mishimo gave him, and Protoboy exploded and was never seen again.

Bjorn Bjornson

Bjorn Bjornson is a norwegian child who attended Dr. Mishimo's classes at the "school for the rich and smart", and is a jealous rival of Mishimo's work, including Robotboy. He has also designed a robot equal in power to that of Robotboy called "Bjornbot"

Bjornbot

Bjornbot is a robotic lookalike of his creator Bjorn Bjornson. He has weapon capabilites and strength equal to that of robotboy, and can superactivate too.

Robotboy Technology and Weaponry

Coming soon, but Superactiviated Form weapons look like turrets.

Episodes

Currently, there are 52 episodes each lasting 13 minutes (equivalent to 26 half-hour programs) in season 1, with hopes of a second season in 2006. In the list of 52 episodes, 1 is a Halloween special and another is a Christmas special.

Name translations

There are two names in the series that are translations of strange things, a few fans and the genral public think that the producers used these commonly "language sounding" words without actually knowing the meaning of them. Dr. Kamikaze is roughly translated as Dr.Actually 'Kami Kaze' translates literally as 'divine wind' in Japanese. Actually in German 'Gott im Himmel' translates as 'God in Heaven'.The point well being that the producers had no idea what they were saying.(and suprisingly Bjorn means bear in either norwegien or the other two scandinavian languages.and his asademy has a german name)

External links

• Official website (UK)
• World Screen.com news
• ALPHANIM website