In 2004, I decided that I had it with Nickelodeon, so I retired myself from watching it further. The reason? It's because ever since we entered in the 21st century in 2000, Nick has usually released shows with quality that ranged from mediocre (Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron, As Told by Ginger, a lot of the Teenick shows, etc.) or very bad (Butt-Ugly Martians, Chalkzone, and the extremely short-lived Action League Now). Once in a blue moon, however, a decent, or even good, show appears such as Fairly Oddparents and Invader Zim (I never loved Zim, but at least it was better then some of the crap Nickelodeon viewers get today. Shame on Nick for canceling it unfairly!). So when "My Life as a Teenage Robot", or MLAATR for short, was first introduced in 2003, I found myself enjoying much of what it had to offer.
The story involves a robot created by Dr. Wakeman to help protect earth from disaster and/or crime (yes, this concept has been used several times before), but this robot has the personality of a female teenager. So, while the robot's codename is XJ9, she prefers to be called "Jenny." She's willing to do her job in keeping the world safe, but she also wants to live a normal teenage life in high school and hang out with friends. This is where she meets Brad and Tuck, two human brothers who live within Jenny's neighborhood. Brad is a fellow classmate of Jenny's in high school, while Tuck is more around elementary school aged. Brad tries being cool to fit in with the crowd while Tuck is immature, silly and obnoxious at times. But hey, that's how brothers are with their different behaviors. They both eventually get along with Jenny very well. Later on in the series, Jenny meets more friends such as Sheldon, a nerdy geek who develops a crush on her, and some rivals like Brit and Tiff, AKA "The Krust Cousins," as well as villains that interrupt her daily life. And that's the basic plot of most episodes.
When it comes to the characters I mentioned above, they all have a purpose and are pretty likable, except for Brit and Tiff, who always try to find ways to humiliate Jenny and hurt her feelings. Some of the episodes I've seen through the entire series were fairly enjoyable to watch. They were usually filled with interesting humorous moments, action-filled scenes, and even brief bits of suitable character development/drama. The comedy is sometimes a little childish, but it usually does not make you cringe and it can get a laugh out of everyone at times. The plots and themes presented in the show seem to capture many people's different interests as well.
The animation and art style of MLAATR is pretty unique. It makes use of old-school character design elements from the 1930's, but makes them fresh and appealing with colorful technology we have today. A similar amount of praise can be said about the sound work. The music isn't too memorable, but it does get the job done with upbeat, catchy music for the standard scenes, and trance music for the fighting/action scenes. The voice acting in this show doesn't disappoint, and a few voices may sound familiar to cartoon fanatics. A shout out must be given to Janice Kawaye for her cute, appealing, and fun performance as Jenny.
I haven't really watched this show ever since I gave up on Nickelodeon in 2004. From time to time, I check in on the channel to see what they do these days. As of this writing in 2006, they haven't changed too much. There are a couple of new shows being made, but they don't look special to me (The upcoming Mr. Meaty, for instance, looks terrible and retarded). Unfortunately, it looks like Nickelodeon canceled MLAATR at some point. I'm somewhat disappointed in this. Viacom, the parent company of Nickelodeon, always seems to cancel their good shows prematurely if they do not meet the sky-high profits of shows like Spongebob Squarepants.
"My Life as a Teenage Robot" may not have the same level of appeal like the great Nicktoons of the 90's (Rocko's Modern Life, Doug, early Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Catdog, etc.) did, and there are a couple aspects of the overall show that I don't care much for, it was still enjoyable for what it was and I feel it's better then many of the Nickelodeon shows being aired today. I hope it gets a good DVD release someday.
