immy Neutron is more than just the hero of writer and director John A. Davis' upcoming computer-animated movie, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. He's also the centerpiece of a new multimedia franchise that will eventually encompass a Nickelodeon series, games, a Web site, magazine and other products. But Jimmy is also Davis' alter ego, the brilliant kid who can invent anything using stuff around the house, who gets to fly and travel into space—but only if it's not on a school night.
Jimmy has actually been cooking in Davis' brain for 20 years, ever since he created a computer-animated short called Runaway Rocket Boy, about a kid who runs away in a homemade spaceship. The character mutated through several incarnations before winding up in a movie produced by Nickelodeon and Paramount.
Davis directed Jimmy Neutron and co-wrote the film with David N. Weiss, J. David Stem and Steve Oedekerk. He took a few minutes with producer Julia Pistor to speak with Science Fiction Weekly and other reporters while promoting the movie. Jimmy Neutron opens Dec. 21.
Were the jet skis in the flooded school hallway a reference to Hard Rain?
Davis: Absolutely. That, and I always wanted to do that: flood the school and go swimming down the hallways.
It was just something that I thought, "What would kids do?" There's a lot of influences, a lot of movies and things that I liked when I was a kid that most of the things are based on in terms of Jimmy's gadgetry, and wouldn't it be cool to build a rocket and fly around or have a robot dog? In fact, when we were doing the pilot and I started writing on that, I went back and looked at things that I liked when I was a kid, like the Thunderbird shows and Stingray and Gerry Anderson shows, those old monster movies and all the Ray Harryhausen films and things. Those had a way of creeping into the movie.
When you say the pilot, do you mean for the upcoming series?
Davis: Yeah, well, the history of Neutron going back to '95 was, I originally did it as a short film. It was 40 seconds long when my company [DNA Productions] first started getting into the 3-D technology. It was an idea that I had around for a little while.
I tried to do it initially as a live-action short with effects and miniatures and stuff and get a grant to do it, but I couldn't because it wasn't educational or helpful to anybody. So I shelved it until we got into 3-D, then started building the elements and thought, "This would be a great 3-D show. It would be perfect for 3-D, because it's so gadget-driven and vehicle-driven and effects-driven." So, I did this little short film and started preparing it to go pitch as a series idea in '95.
[I] entered it in a film festival that was sponsored by the software we were using, and it won a couple of awards, got written up in a magazine that [writer-producer-director] Steve Oedekerk happened to read about. So that precipitated a phone call to us. And then we started talking to him, and we didn't know who he was. They were sending tapes and stuff. And finally he said, "Well, this is who I am, this is what I do, and I really think I can help you guys get this placed somewhere. I'd love to partner with you." So we did, and the first place we took it was Nickelodeon, and it seemed like a perfect fit. They were interested in doing a pilot for a series. Then we did this 13-minute pilot in '98 and once the pilot was done—
Pistor: The pilot was so good, and the character was so strong, that we thought that we would launch it as a feature first to launch our franchise.
Will that pilot be the pilot for the new series?
Pistor: Pieces of it have been taken and absorbed into the feature and into the TV series. We don't have a pilot for the TV series, because we're making the TV series, and it will be on the air in 2002.
Will the original short appear on the DVD?
Davis: That's what I'm hoping to do. I think it would be cool to show the evolutionary process, because, actually, there were two shorts made before the pilot. There was the original 40 seconds, and after we pitched [it], I hated the first 40 seconds [and] thought I could do much better. So, I redid it again and sent it, just because, and then we did the pilot. To show all those stages, it changed a little bit at every step, I think it would be an interesting reel to see.
Did Jimmy always look like he does?
Davis: No, he actually evolved.
The hair and all?
Davis: That all evolved too. Jimmy kind of grew as the years went by. He kind of grew up a little bit. The first incarnation of Jimmy, he actually looked a little younger.
Wasn't he called Johnny?
Davis: Yeah, he was called Johnny Quasar. There was a name change, because there was a Captain Quasar video game, [and] there's Jonny Quest, which is a little close. So, we definitely wanted to have a typical little-kid first name and then a more iconic science-based last name. So, we traded "Quasar" for "Neutron," which is actually a better fit, because it kind of works into the whole nuclear '50s sort of style and a great little icon for him.
What did he originally look like?
Davis: He actually had the big head, and his relative proportions were the same. The hairstyle was a little bit younger-looking, wasn't quite as outrageous, partially because the tools at the time, back in '95, weren't what they became later. So we were able to get closer to what we wanted to do as time progressed. It was actually sort of good timing, because by the time we got around to doing the pilot, we were able to capture more of what we wanted in the character. And the same thing in the feature, too. By the time we did the feature, we could capture even more and get closer to what we wanted.
Is there any desire to get kids interested in science?
Davis: Yeah, definitely, because that's what I liked when I was a kid growing up, and still like. To me, science was like magic, and that really became Jimmy's magic. That was his tool for doing all these wonderful things. I remember being young and, in less cynical times, having a real sense of wonder about the universe and things. So many things were possible, and I really wanted to try to open that up to kids and have them, through Jimmy, live out these possibilities, that I can create ways around things, I can invent things, and science provides an answer.
Do you hope this will stimulate kids to build things?
Davis: Absolutely, because one of my favorite toys was an Erector set, being able to make stuff, gizmos and gadgets. Again, that's kind of what drives Jimmy. He was an inventor.
What was the original 40-second short about?
Davis: Oh, it was really just an introduction to the character. In 40 seconds, Jimmy and Goddard flew up in his rocket to the camera and sort of introduced himself, dodged a few asteroids and zipped away. It was really as simple and quick as that.
Why is it important for these characters to have a cartoonish look?
Davis: Well, for me, I am much more excited about doing things that aren't photo-real, because my philosophy is that, if you're wanting something to be as photo-real as possible, the highest you can attain is the look of live action, which you might as well shoot live action. I'm more interested in creating worlds that can't be seen with a camera, that you have to totally create. So, in creating Jimmy, I definitely wanted it to be very cartoony, and there's a really cool hybrid that evolves when you have a cartoony design done in 3-D, which in and of itself tends to replicate reality. So, you have a cartoony design sense, but you have realistic shadows and reflections and refractions and all these qualities that exist in the real world, but it's not the real world. It's something that's sort of surreal-looking. That, to me, is exciting. I like pushing that envelope more to create worlds that people haven't seen before.
Why did you decide to mix past, present and future?
Davis: It was really a desire on my part to create a universe that is both friendly and fun and sort of optimistic and timeless. The timeless aspects come from mixing styles. You've got high technology with a '50s sort of older design sense, and that became something that we had a lot of fun with. What would a laptop computer look like if it was made in the '50s? Well, it wouldn't look like what we have today. And using that in Retroville, their little town, became a lot of fun, and it does give sort of a timeless sense to it that I really like.
Is Jimmy your alter ego?
Davis: He's everything that I wished I could have been. I wanted to build a contraption to fly to school in. I used to actually design things that I thought would work, but I could never ever build. Wouldn't it be fun to do this? I'd design it, but, of course, it never worked. But what if a character could actually make it work? So, he became my little avatar through which I could do these things.
What were your favorite cartoons as a kid?
Davis: Well, I really like things like the Gerry Anderson shows, Stingray and Thunderbirds, and I really liked all the Warner Brothers cartoons, because they're so smart, and they didn't talk down to me as a kid. They were really for adults, and I loved that. I loved Jonny Quest—the adventure and the gizmos and the action. I loved all the Japanese monster movies and was a big fan of the Ray Harryhausen movies, all the fantasies.
Why are the villains chickens and eggs?
Davis: That kind of evolved. I guess subconsciously, I had the whole egg and space thing going on. One of the first movies I made in junior high with my parents' home movie camera, I built a spaceship out of a L'eggs pantyhose container, so it was literally an egg ship flying around in space. But then when we started designing the aliens, the Yolkians, I wanted them to be this highly, highly advanced race.
They were so advanced that everything was done for them to where they just atrophied into a puddle of goo. Then they needed to be contained by something, so they were encased in this shell that resembled an egg. And that gave us a motif to have all the puns. They'd fly in giant chicken warships, and they worshiped this great chicken god. Then it became a thread that we would weave into Neutron's home. If you look around, one of the first images you see are two eggs on a plate. Then Jimmy opens the [refrigerator] door, and there's a jillion eggs in their refrigerator for no particular reason. Ms. Fowl is very chicken-like. It just became really fun to go run with that.
Did you ever think about following logical rules of space travel?
Davis: Yeah, it was something that I entertained briefly, but then just tossed it aside, because I didn't want to be encumbered by the logic of space travel. I didn't want it to be like 2001—there's no sounds. At some point, you're breaking logic anyway to make it entertaining. I thought, "Well, I'm going to make it as friendly as possible." It's like the anti-2001: A Space Odyssey, because [here,] space [is] warm, you can wear your short-sleeved shirt, and you can holler at your friends over there, and you don't need helmets, and you're breathing fine.
Do we need more fantasy these days?
Davis: I catch myself doing it occasionally, too, where I'll worry about things too much, and I'll [realize,] "You know what? I don't need to worry about this." It's whatever is going to be the most entertaining. And for me, one of my favorite visuals in the film is the whole amusement park in space, and that just became a lot of fun to work on and develop the rides. It became more about what would look really cool and what would be fun to see, without having to explain too much. You get in this constant state of explaining things, and then it becomes not as entertaining.
Talk about the casting process.
Davis: What was important for me was to find unique voices that are in sync with talent, with actors that have a comedic background and are able to kind of go off-script and really play with the material. Because then it's just such a win-win, you've got a really, really interesting voice, and then you've got somebody who can really work with material and go off and be creative, which is what we do and what I encourage. That's where a lot of the little funny nuances came from for each character.
For example, Rob Paulsen, who does the voice of Carl, his whole llama thing came out of just a line Rob happened to toss up one day, and I latched onto it and said, "Yeah, yeah, go with that, do that." And it became part of the movie. It's just one example of a lot of good things that were done. But we were fortunate to have such a great cast. Patrick Stewart and Martin Short—Patrick was great. He really enjoyed being way over the top and childlike. He really owned that character at the end.
What are some of the storylines for the TV show?
Davis: The TV show's going to concentrate mainly on [the] day-to-day life of the kids—school life and home life. [It's] something we didn't have a lot of time to get into in the movie, [which] was a big, epic story. So, the characters will be more fleshed out. You'll see backgrounds, where they come from and what drives them more, because we really explore the characters deeper.
Is there a conscious Revenge of the Nerds theme?
Davis: Not specifically that movie, perhaps, but definitely that theme. I was a nerd growing up. I was the kid that was always quieter in class and reading a science fiction book, looking around and wearing my "Star Trek Lives" shirt, having people ridiculing me, making fun of me. I never wore it again. That kind of stuff. A lot of kids feel awkward and like that when they're younger and to have them be heroes, I think, is really fun and satisfying.
Was Carl's dad's look based on somebody?
Davis: You know, a lot of characters in there are. His dad's look came out of the mind of my partner, Keith Alcorn, and I'm not sure what he was thinking.
Does Jimmy get his mechanical skills from his mother?
Davis: Well, yeah. It was fun giving Jimmy's mom this sort of June Cleaver look with the apron and everything, but then having her work under the car and doing performance modifications on their family vehicles. And Dad has no idea how a car works. Just to kind of flop those roles, to have them look right, but just play with that was really fun.
Why does she still turn to Dad to discipline Jimmy?
Davis: Well, because he's such a goof. He's got to do something. Dad is so bad at it, he just hates confrontation, and he doesn't know how to do it really well, and finally [he] just kind of runs out of the room.
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