My Life as a Teenage Robot -- Episodes 216-219

First Aired: 12 August 2005

"Escape from Cluster Prime" (Episode 216-219)

Directed by: Rob Renzetti, Chris Savino

Plotline

The show started off like any other episode but for the exception of evidence of "film failure." The "film" soon failed and the regular intro was replaced with one with dramatic music and opening credits like that of a feature film.

The episode began with Tremorton citizens celebrating the town's tri-centennial anniversary. Meanwhile, Jenny was fighting a Cluster rocket launched by Vexus. The rocket was destroyed by Jenny. It turned out Jenny failed to destroy the warhead inside. The entire celebration was ruined and everyone blamed Jenny.

Later that night, Jenny wished she could vanish off the face of the earth. In Vexus' attempt to bring the Cluster to her, Jenny fell through a portal that lead to a scrapyard of robots from Cluster Prime. Just as Jenny was about to become one of them, attempting to escape her doom, she was escorted by authorities to "high school." While at her new school, she met Vega and her friends and they hung out downtown. Enjoying this time with her new friends, did this make Jenny want to return home?

Back on Earth, Cluster inventor Krackus unleashed his evil robotic inventions that would bring humans to their knees. Jenny was nowhere to be found to help them. Meanwhile, on Cluster Prime, Jenny woke up in a park, recharged and ready for a new day. At school, she heard about Cluster Prime's tri-millenial celebration. She also found out she's been depicted as a wanted criminal who destroyed the golden chips that give Cluster bots extra weapons. She couldn't let her friends know that was her so she changed her appearance to a different superhero identity. This new secret identity provided great services to the citizens of Cluster Prime. Eventually suspicious Cluster Prime authorities captured her and discovered she was the infamous XJ-9. The authorities chased Jenny to Vexus' palace where she ran into Vega.

Back on Earth, while Mrs. Wakeman and Sheldon were arguing over weapon designs, Brad and Tuck joined the Minutemen, citizens teaming up to destroy the invading Cluster. At first, the Minutemen were able to defeat the drones simply by using water guns. After a new batch of water-resistant Cluster bots arrived, almost every one of the Minutemen gave up. It was up to Brad and Tuck to continue the mission to save the city. After failing to defeat the water-resistant bots, they were imprisoned then escaped. After escaping, the brothers made their way to the robot factory and attempted to destroy the robots around the factory. The enslaved factory worker kids joined Brad and Tuck in this battle. Smytus, the slave master, found out about this and the slaves told him they didn't want to go back to work. Smytus liberated the slaves but resumed his plans to vaporize the earth. Soon Brad and Tuck got sucked (literally) into a portal, teleporting their way to Cluster Prime. Sheldon and Mrs. Wakeman teleported their way to Vexus' outlook point on Earth. Neither Mrs. Wakeman nor Vexus knew the whereabouts of Jenny. When Vexus found out that Jenny was on Cluster Prime, she made her way over there. Sheldon hot-wired Vexus' spaceship and he and Mrs. Wakeman were on their way to Cluster Prime.

Back on Cluster Prime, Jenny found out Vega is Vexus' daughter. Vega learned Jenny is the infamous XJ-9. She also discovered her mom had been hiding the golden chips all along---they were never destroyed. After recovering from a fall, Jenny's friends volunteered to help her even after finding out who she really was. They input their found golden chips and they got powers to help defeat the evil Cluster bugs. Vega needed to tell the planet the truth about the golden chip and that Jenny is not evil. Vexus showed up and found the citizens were then against her. After Sheldon and Mrs. Wakeman showed up on Cluster Prime, Mrs. Wakeman cat-fought with Vexus after Jenny's attempt to fight her. Even Vega went against her mother and the golden chips were returned to each citizen robot. With these chips, the robots outnumbered their queen causing her to retreat in defeat. Now every bot wanted Vega to be ruler. Vega invited Jenny to help her but Jenny declined as she was convinced she was needed more on Earth.

As Smytus was about to destroy Earth, Vexus' ship, the one Sheldon hot-wired, crashed into Smytus' ship. Jenny broke into his ship and Smytus pushed the self-destruct button. Jenny launched the self-destructing Smytus and ship debris into space and Tremorton went wild with happiness. With that, the day was renamed from the "tri-centennial" to the "Jen-centennial." Jenny felt she made the right decision to stay on Earth after all.

Trivia

Origin of Tremorton: 300 years prior, the town was settled at the end of a fault line after a devistating earthquake. Settling at the end of the fault line assured their safety.

The "dynamite salesman" from "The Great Unwashed" reappears talking on a public pay phone but his voice and color scheme are different (red-ish hair instead of black hair in "The Great Unwashed," for example).

Then again, they could two different men. In "The Great Unwashed," he was the dynomite salesman, credited as "salesman," voiced by Quinton Flynn. In this episode, he was credited as the "Pizza Man" order pizza voiced by Billy West. They might be twins.

When Jenny was seeing downtown Cluster Prime for the first time, she and her group passed by "Hal's Cafe"; possibly named after Hal 9000. Hal 9000 was the mail villain from Arthur C. Clark's Space Odyssey series.

3D Animation was used for the moving backgrounds in that scene.

Ms. Binky (from "I Was A Preschool Dropout" (S1)) made a cameo appearance among the Earth crowd in this special.

"Maybe there's room for one more dog on Pluto." Did this quote have anything to do with the Disney character Pluto, Mickey Mouse's dog?

"Mrs. Wakeman's Secret Underground Vault" was the same place the future scope was hidden in "Future Shock" (S2).

When at "Oil Can Joe's" (Cluster Prime's version of Mezmers), Jenny said, "...We could have had a V8." Here, she means drinking from a V-8 engine but Jenny was alluding to the V8 Vegetable Juice slogan used in their advertisements.

The way Jenny ran into that phone booth-like enclosure to change into her superhero alter ego was similar to how Clark Kent would change into Superman.

The Minky Mo Mo was sung once again. This time Brad and Tuck sung it.

I see there is no agreement on the spelling "Minky Mo Mo" (how most people, including me, spell it). The captions spell it "Minky Moo Moo." The credits spell it Mincky MoMo (with "mo mo" being one word).

It is also revealed in the credits that the song was written by Brandon Kruse.

Mrs. Wakeman and Sheldon's "you got your time fissure capsule in my quantum defibular" (and vice versa) comes from the back and forth between two people in Reeses Peanut Butter Cup commercials from the 1970's ("You got your chocolate in my peanut butter"--and vice versa).

So Vice Principal Razinsky is the vice principal of Tremorton High School AND the mayor of Tremorton? He's sure to be a busy man.

Toward the end of this special, when Brit and Tiff were dominating Tremorton with the Cluster, Brit had a hairdo similar to that of Princess Leia from Star Wars.

Goofs

When Mrs. Wakeman was describing what a warhead was to Jenny, when she got to the "BOOM!" part and puckered out her lips, her lipstick completely disappears.

How was Jenny so sure that the portal transported her to Cluster Prime?

There was the Cluster symbol above the front of the tunnel through where the truck in which she was detained drove.

When Jenny woke up in the park, up close her charging station had the words "POWER UP HERE captioned around the outlet. Once the "camera" zoomed out, the words disappeared.

In Cluster Prime, Jenny gave her hand nut to a robotic squirrel. How did she keep her hand in place between the time she took it out and got a new one from the "hot nuts" stand?

If the Top Cluster Dogs (Vexus, Smytus, Krackus) regard Jenny as "XJ-9," why did the rest of Cluster Prime call her Jenny?

After Mrs. Wakeman "stripped" into (Did she already have it on?) her Skyway Patrol uniform, from the back she was still wearing her yellow shoes. The next shot from the front, she wearing the uniform's boots. How was she able to change her footwear so quickly between the two shots?

After Jenny (as the "mysterious stranger") saved her friends' lives, Vega automatically assumed the hero was female. How did she know?

After the Minute Men prematurely celebrated their defeat of the Cluster, Brit and Tiff just slide in from nowhere. What was the real purpose? What purpose were they to play in this special other than to rule the world with the Cluster? Did the Cluster find favor in them though they were not robots? I thought the Cluster hated all humans. Something's missing here.

Were Sheldon and Mrs. Wakeman going hand-to-hand when they were fighting? If Sheldon was slapping her he could have gone to jail (even as a teenager). I guess we'll never know since the fight had a dust cloud covering it and we couldn't see it.

Quotes

Vega: "Hey, you're that new kid. [to her friends] Hey, it's that new kid I've been telling you about. [to Jenny] So, what's up with the hole, new kid?"

Jenny: "Uh...I was just...I was just digging for a...worms. [Vega and friends' facial expressions change] Uh, I mean, I was digging for mechanano worms for Mechabiology class?" [smiles sneakily]

Vega: "I get it! You're one of those back-to-the-motherboard tree huggers. That's cool!"

"They Need Me" lyrics

Just when I thought I should go away I found a brand new reason to stay

they need me, yeah, I think they neeeed me (they need me)

savin' folks, that's what I do, I won't reprogram, I know it's true

they need me (they need me), yeah, I think they neeeed me (oh yeah!)

I help my friends I don't need to flaunt it, it means so much just knowing that you're wanted

Oooooh, they need me, yeah, I think they neeeeeed me, they need me

Oooooh, I think they need me (yeah, yeah).

Brad: "Viva la revolution!"

Tuck: "You speak Spanish?"

Jenny: "Smile! We're live in 3-2-1..."

Vega: "Robots of Cluster Prime, you have deceived. XJ-9 did not destroy our chips. They've been hidden all this time. We have betrayed and lied to by our leader. XJ-9 is not our enemy."

Vexus [cuts in]: "But she is mine." [jumps off the rocket and pounces on Jenny]

Mrs. Wakeman: "I'm going to Vexus' ship to get her [Jenny] back."

Sheldon: "And I'm going with you."

Mrs. Wakeman: "No, it's too dangerous."

Sheldon: "Yes!"

Mrs. Wakeman: "No!"

Sheldon: "Yes!"

Mrs. Wakeman: "No!"

Sheldon: "Yes!"

Mrs. Wakeman: "No!"

Sheldon: "I'm going with you and I won't take several 'no's' for an answer."

Mrs. Wakeman: "Oh, all right! [hands Brad and Tuck a vaporizer] Don't vaporize yourself."

TLDR

Once Jenny was kidnapped to Cluster Prime, Vexus thought it would be an excellent time to release the rule of the Cluster to planet Earth. Her plans did not work and Earth and Cluster Prime were freed from evil rulings.

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