The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
"3...2...1...GOTTA BLAST!"
Genre: Comedy Science Fiction Action Adventure Running Time: 22 minutes Country: United States Release Date: July 20, 2002 – November 25, 2006 Network(s): Nickelodeon Created by: John A. Davis Distributed by: Viacom Media Networks Starring: Debi Derryberry Rob Paulsen Jeffrey Garcia Frank Welker Carolyn Lawrence Crystal Scales Mark DeCarlo Megan Cavanagh Tim Curry Wendie Malick Seasons: 3 Episodes: 64 (90 segments) Next show: Planet Sheen

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius is an American computer-animated television series created by John A. Davis. It is the first spin-off to the 2001 film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. It originally aired on Nickelodeon for three seasons beginning July 20, 2002, and the final episode aired on November 25, 2006.

Plot

Based on the 2001 film and taking place after its events, the series chronicles the exploits of a bright young kid named Jimmy Neutron and his pals, as well as his robotic companion dog Goddard.

Why It's A Brain Blast

1. Sean Maynard's CGI animation in Maya and LightWave is excellent, even for 2002-2006 standards. As the series develops, the CGI animation quality improves.
2. Brian Causey's theme tune is fantastic!
3. This show has an endless amount of wonderful jokes and an equally great sense of humor. For example, Carl and Sheen picking on each other, multiple sequences with Hugh, Jimmy, and Cindy's sarcastic banter, occasional breaching of the fourth wall, and ongoing gags like Carl's scapula giving out.
4. A ton of awesome episodes, including but not limited to "Normal Boy," "I Dream of Jimmy," "Men at Work," "Raise the Oozy Scab," "The Retroville 9," "The Egg-pire Strikes Back," "Out, Darn Spotlight," "Crouching Jimmy, Hidden Sheen," "The Tomorrow Boys," "King of Mars," "My Big Fat Spy Wedding," "One of Us," "Sheen's Brain," "Vanishing Act," "Beach Party Mummy," "Stranded," "Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion," "Lady Sings the News," "Win, Lose, and Kaboom," "The League of Villains," and even the post-2001 movie pilot episode "When Pants Attack!"
5. Memorable and hilarious characters like Jimmy himself, Goddard, Jimmy’s parents (Hugh Neutron and Judy Neutron), Carl Wheezer, Sheen, Cindy, Libby, Nick Dean, Ms. Fowl, Bolbi, Betty Quinlan, Brittany, Principal Willoughby, Ultra Lord, Butch Pakovski, Sam Melvick, Brobot, and Jet Fusion.
   • Hugh, Jimmy's father, is one of the more forgiving versions of the traditional "stupid dad" stereotype since he is shown to truly love and care for his son, and the things he does are typically tied to the narrative of the episodes in question rather than being run-of-the-mill running gag gags. In contrast to other father figures in general, who are all abusive or otherwise negligent of their children in their ways.
6. The love-hate relationship between Jimmy Neutron and Cindy Vortex is very entertaining to watch and serves as an excellent example of a cartoon relationship between two characters done right. Picking up from where the show left off after the 2001 feature, Jimmy and Cindy start as rivals who constantly pretend to despise each other from the beginning of season 1 to around the beginning of season 2, with some subtle romantic hints shown during this period. From the middle of season 2 to the end of season 2, there are some more hints that Jimmy and Cindy might have romantic feelings towards each other, as seen in episodes like "Beach Party Mummy," "Love Potion 976/J," and the season finale "Win, Lose, and Kaboom!" Season 3 is widely known as the "Relationship Season," as Jimmy and Cindy become more open to each other and acknowledge their feelings toward each other more openly than previously, especially in episodes like "Stranded," "Crouching Jimmy, Hidden Sheen," "The Tomorrow Boys," "Vanishing Act," "Lady Sings the News," and the series finale "The League of Villains."
7. On the aforementioned topic, Jimmy and Cindy's relationship is also an example of a mutual child crush done right, because the writers of this show knew how to further push and develop their relationship as the series progressed without taking it too far or to any extremes (i.e., declaring love, kissing, making their relationship saccharine and sappy, et cetera). Instead, the writers made their relationship more subtle and realistically executed, which is a very nice touch to a show that has a cartoony aesthetic. It also helps make them one of Nickelodeon's best romantic relationships. All of this could also be seen as relatable to some children Jimmy and Cindy's ages with mutual crushes.
8. Memorable villains and/or creatures like Professor Calamitous, Beautiful Gorgeous, King Goobot V, Meldar Prime, Evil Jimmy, The Junkman, Nanobots, Eustace Strytch, Twonkies, Baby Eddie, and the Space Bandits, even though they reformed.
9. Jimmy's inventions are pretty cool and clever like the Shrink Ray, the Hovercar, his rocket, Brobot, Brobot’s parents, and of course, Goddard.
10. Great voice acting from the cast, such as Debi Derryberry, Rob Paulsen, Jeffrey Garcia, Tim Curry, Frank Welker (Fred from Scooby-Doo), and Wendie Malick just to name a few.
    • It also uses adult voices for children the right way.
11. The show manages to avoid coming off as a Dexter's Laboratory rip-off, despite similar premises.
12. Despite being known as a show, "The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius" is arguably more of a series than a show, because it's rather story-driven and character-driven, and the characters grow, develop, and form relationships with each other as the series progresses. There is also some good continuity between several episodes. To give just one of many examples, the villains of Jimmy Neutron (i.e., Professor Calamitous, the Space Bandits, Grandma Taters) appear solo in episodes they star in, and later band together in the series finale "The League of Villains." This is considered continuity because there are some callbacks to previous episodes, like when King Goobot explains how none of the villains were able to defeat Jimmy alone in previous episodes, and Libby brings up how Tee tried to steal their astro rubies in "A Beautiful Mine" and tried to sell the citizens of Retroville as toys for alien space children in "The Incredible Shrinking Town." But Tee has a legitimate turnaround in this episode, and is the reason his fellow partners Zix and Travoltron turn from bad to good too!
13. The show also has some very smart writing, which may help to explain why most "Jimmy Neutron" episodes range from decent to good. In fact, as of September 2021, not one episode scores below a 6.0 rating on IMDb except for "Carl Wheezer, Boy Genius," which has a 5.7 rating, respectively.
14. It had three crossovers with The Fairly OddParents.
15. The "We All Can Sing Except Sheen" song in the episode "My Big Fat Spy Wedding" is funny and awesome.
16. The final episode in production order, The League of Villains was a good way to end the show despite plans for one more season that sadly got scrapped due to DNA Productions shutting down due to financial issues and failure of the film, The Ant Bully.

Bad Qualities

1. There are some mean-spirited moments.
2. Cindy tends to take her abuse of Jimmy a bit too far. However, it thankfully starts to gradually decrease during the later seasons when the writers began further developing her relationship with Jimmy in a much more positive light, as mentioned in WIABB #6 and #7.
   • Likewise, Jimmy himself sometimes does not listen to good advice or reason.
3. Some of the characters were very underused in this show. Professor Calamitous is the main example because despite supposedly being the main antagonist, he only appeared in eight episodes of the series. A couple of characters only appeared once in the show and never returned, especially April the Gorlock in season 2's "Win, Lose, and Kaboom," and Skeet, an employee at the McSpanky's restaurant from "Men at Work."
4. The running gag of Jimmy screaming "NOOOOOO!", while iconic, can get pretty tiresome after a while.
5. A few episodes are very weird, if not nonsensical, such as an episode from Season 3 called "Who's Your Mommy", where Carl becomes pregnant with an alien in his buttocks.
6. Like the movie, some characters kind of look ugly.
7. Ocassional bad episodes such as:
   • "Carl Wheezer, Boy Genius"
   • "Lights, Camera Danger!"
   • "A Beautiful Mine"
   • The third and final Jimmy Timmy Power Hour crossover, "The Jerkinators", while not bad, is arguably considered the weakest of the three crossovers, as it did little to wrap up loose ends, had a very generic plot, and some of the characters, mainly Jimmy and Timmy themselves, were out of character. However, it isn't terrible in the slightest and is rather decent. It's just the weakest.
8. Don't even get us started on Planet Sheen.

Trivia

• There were plans for a fourth season but due to the box office failure of the film The Ant Bully, the series was cancelled. Many ideas of the fourth season included but not limited to: Evil Jimmy would've returned and officially defeated in the season premiere, the villain humor would be kept to a minimum, Nick would've rejoined the main cast, there would've be an overarching story about the gang starting middle school, Cindy and Betty would've become friends, new villains would've been introduced and Jimmy and Cindy would've finally stopped pretending to hate each other.
• On October 26, 2021, Shout! Factory released The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: The Complete Series, a DVD collection containing every single episode of the series, including four episodes (those being When Pants Attack, Party at Neutron's, Ultra Sheen, and Holly Jolly Jimmy) that are missing on digital platforms, such as iTunes or Paramount+, as well as all three crossover specials with The Fairly OddParents, and a number of bonus features. This collection came to be after Shout! Factory acquired the show's home video rights from Amazon once their "Best of" manufacture-on-demand DVD's for the series were discontinued in June 2021.
• Before deciding on the name "Jimmy Neutron," creator John A. Davis was originally going to name the character "Johnny Quasar," but had to change the name due to the name sounding to much like "Captain Quasar" and "Johnny Quest."
• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius was Nickelodeon's first-ever computer-animated Nicktoon.

Episodes with their own pages

• One of Us
• The 3 Jimmy Timmy Power Hours (crossovers with The Fairly OddParents)
• The League of Villains

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