Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? (partially lost unreleased original voice audio and unfinished/unknown Cartoon Network animated series episodes; 2002-2003): Difference between revisions

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|<span style="font-size:80%">S1E1A</span>
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|<span style="font-size:80%">Electric Boogaloo</span>
|<span style="font-size:80%">Electric Boogaloo</span>
|<span style="font-size:80%">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDCdbJ6C5Ao Found]</span>
|<span style="font-size:80%">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_FFWoTypW0 Found]</span>
|<span style="font-size:80%">[https://vimeo.com/129767228 Found]</span>
|<span style="font-size:80%">[https://vimeo.com/129767228 Found]</span>
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As of October 2017, a user by the name of NickDanielson, who uploaded all the first season episodes with the original voice (recorded via camera) recently got suspended from Vimeo. Luckily, all the Season 1 episodes with the original voice (this time audio-synced from HQ video sources ripped via capture card rather than a poor-quality camera recording) have been saved to a Google Doc. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3bfMI5ZZEpGX2JYNnVLYllNMnM
As of October 2017, a user by the name of NickDanielson, who uploaded all the first season episodes with the original voice (recorded via camera) recently got suspended from Vimeo. Luckily, all the Season 1 episodes with the original voice have been saved and are now audio-synced in higher quality from the Latin-Spanish and/or Portuguese dubs from Tooncast. A user has synced the English audio to the Spanish and/or Portuguese video sources in higher quality and uploaded them, along with the majority of the show's episodes, on a Google Doc. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3bfMI5ZZEpGaXJVd1RQczJHQU0
 
The majority of the show's episodes also have recently surfaced in DVD-like quality, audio-synced from the Latin-Spanish and/or Portuguese dubs from Tooncast. A user has synced the English audio (even the original Word98 voice for all the first season episodes) to the Spanish and/or Portuguese video sources in higher quality and uploaded them on a Google Doc. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3bfMI5ZZEpGaXJVd1RQczJHQU0


=Video Gallery=
=Video Gallery=

Revision as of 04:18, 12 October 2017

RobotJonesTitle.png

Opening title card to Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?

Status: Partially Lost

Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? was a 'Cartoon Cartoon' that ran for two seasons from 2002 to 2003 on Cartoon Network. The series consisted of 12 shows with two episodes per show and filled a 30-minute time slot. The cartoon was notable for its style, mimicking cartoons produced in the early 80s in addition to many references and plots devices based on fads of the era. For example, an episode based on the Rubik's Cube series of puzzle boxes. Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? Was produced using tradition cel animation when most productions had moved on to computerised animation, furthering the style that was desired. The series was released to praise from critics for its unique animation style.

Plot

Robot Jones is a young robot tasked by his parents to attend a middle school for humans so that he may study them. Initially, Jones is hesitant to do so as he finds humans 'inefficient'. After 'dad-unit' has his say, Jones begins life as a typical middle school student with a light bulb for a head. He quickly finds fitting in to be very difficult as most of the school finds him strange, including the students, teachers, and especially a technophobic principal. Shortly after blowing a fuse in front the entire school, Jones loses all will to study humans, until he falls for a mess of a girl in an overly exaggerated set of braces with a metal leg and instantly changes his attitude on the matter. Humans are now interesting creatures that desire 'further study'. As the series progresses, Jones confronts typical middle school issues such as love, fads, bullies, and Physical Education.

The Voice

For the first season of Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? The titular character had a computer-generated voice that stood out amongst the other characters' voices (with the exception of Jones' parents, also using computer-generated voices). Series creator Greg Miller has stated that he wanted a true synthetic robot voice and researched a lot of speech programs when starting the show, even discussing the topic with Bell Laboratories. Contrary to popular belief, Jones' voice was not produced with Macintosh Macintalk's Junior Speech but was actually produced using Microsoft Word 98's Junior Speech text-to-speech function. Miller confirms this in a Facebook interview. He chose Word because of its controls in speed and pitch. Miller created the Jones Audio himself, even spelling each word phonetically for it to be pronounced correctly and adjusting the pitch to get the "acting" right. The executives at the Cartoon Network found the voice unusual and requested a more 'Hollywood' voice for Jones. This led to Jones's being voiced by an actual voice actor (Bobby Block) at the start of Season 2. In addition, the Pilot and older episodes were re-dubbed using Block's voice for re-runs of the series. Episodes containing the original computer-generated voice are currently being sought after by fans of the series. The voice change was made early in the production of Season 2.

Other Lost Aspects

In addition to the original Jones voice, several other small aspects of Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? are now lost as well.

The Season One episode "Growth Spurts" was edited in later airing to remove a poster in the background containing the phrase 'Kick-Ass', changing the phrase to simply 'Kick'. The original airing of the episode remained lost until it was picked up by Cartoon Network's Latin-Spanish sister channel, Tooncast. The show aired reruns on there for a couple of years since 2015, but for some reason it may have been recently taken off Tooncast's schedule around September of 2017.

Three episodes are believed to have been put into production before the series was cancelled, and were storyboarded but never actually animated:

  • The first would have been about the history of robotics, possibly explaining a little more about this robot-assimilated society the series revolves around.
  • The second, called the 'Talk Show' episode, would have had Robot Jones appear on a parody of the Oprah Winfrey show (called the 'Soapy Winfall' show in-universe). Storyboards for this episode have been made available from series writer Chuck Klein's blog spot.
  • The content of the third episode is unknown as of now. Miller claims "it was so long ago, I forget...".


Two episodes are also rumored to have existed as the fourteenth show of the series: "Risk" and "Robotic Graffiti." Most people claim that the two episodes could be fake or fan-created as a predicted educated guess while the official Season 2 premiere was actually pushed back to October of 2003 (after Season 1 ended in September of 2002), because the person on TvTome.com rumored the two episodes in the first place without knowing anything about the second season's episodes that have not yet been publicly aired.[1] On the other hand, in 2012, an anonymous fan has posted a theory on Wikipedia faking that these two episodes, like the banned Ren & Stimpy episode "Man's Best Friend", were potentially banned by the executives at the Cartoon Network for violent mature content. In August of 2017, the fan, now by the name "Wer Wie Was," eventually debunked the theory on an Illiop.com forum, stating that the two episodes were actually scrapped or unfinished,[2] but the two episodes' existence in the first place remains unconfirmed.

On a Toonzone forum, someone posted that there is an unaired Halloween special for the show,[3] but so far, no physical evidence of this has been put forward, so this episode's existence also remains unconfirmed.

And finally, according to a FaceBook interview with show creator Greg Miller, it is clear that the planned series finale involves Robot Jones exterminating the human civilization and ruling the planet, but unfortunately before this could be revealed, the show was cancelled, making "Rules of Dating" the last episode of the show (even that one wasn't actually intended to be the actual series finale in the first place).

Episode Availability

The show has a total of 25 segments + 1 seven-minute pilot episode + a music video, totaling up to 27 segments total. 2 episodes are unknown to exist and 5 of them have remained unfinished due to the show's cancellation. Calculating the total amount of known segments on this list, the show would've had a total of 34 segments in all.

Episode Name Original Voice Bobby Block Episode Name Original Voice Bobby Block
Pilot Found Found
S1E1A Electric Boogaloo Found Found S1E1B The Groovesicle Found x
S1E2A Politics Found Found S1E2B Growth Spurts Found Found
S1E3A P.U. to P.E. Found Found S1E3B Vacuum Friend Found Found
S1E4A Parents Found Found S1E4B Embarrassment Found Found
S1E5A Cube Wars Found Found S1E5B Sickness Found Found
S1E6A Jealousy Found Found S1E6B Scantron Love Found Found
S2E1A Gender x Found S2E1B Math Challenge x Found
S2E2A Family Vacation x Found S2E2B Hair x Found
S2E3A Garage Band x Found S2E3B Work x Found
S2E4A The Yogmans Strike Back x Found S2E4B Hookie 101 x Found
S2E5A House Party x Found S2E5B School Newspaper x Found
S2E6A Safety Patrol x Found S2E6B Popularity x Found
S2E7A Summer Camp x Found S2E7B Rules of Dating x Found
Risk x Unconfirmed Robot Grafitti x Unconfirmed
History of Robotics x Unconfirmed
Talk Show x Unconfirmed
unknown episode x Unconfirmed
Halloween episode x Unconfirmed
planned ending x Unconfirmed

As of October 2017, a user by the name of NickDanielson, who uploaded all the first season episodes with the original voice (recorded via camera) recently got suspended from Vimeo. Luckily, all the Season 1 episodes with the original voice have been saved and are now audio-synced in higher quality from the Latin-Spanish and/or Portuguese dubs from Tooncast. A user has synced the English audio to the Spanish and/or Portuguese video sources in higher quality and uploaded them, along with the majority of the show's episodes, on a Google Doc. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3bfMI5ZZEpGaXJVd1RQczJHQU0

Video Gallery

The newly discovered episodes.

Some old commercials for the show that use the older voice.


Kick-ass poster can be seen at 20:59

References