Channel Frederator Blog

Frederator Veteran John Fountain, looks back on his time spent working on Rob Renzetti’s My Life As A Teenage Robot.

“I haven’t had time to do any new doodles or paintings lately, so I’m just going to wax nostalgiac.
Unfortunately, tragically and disappointingly, not all that many people are familair with the show ‘My Life as a Teenage Robot’.
It was created by Rob Renzetti who, apart from just being an overall good guy, has been instrumental in shaping some of the better cartoons from the last decade or more.
‘Robot’ was, originally, part of the ‘Oh Yeah! Cartoons!’ anthology series on Nickelodeon.
Anyway, it became a series and I had the honor of working on it in a number of capacities.
Rob let me write, direct, storyboard and - oftentimes - design entire characters. Rob was one of those rare directors who was able to step back, hire folks he trusted and just let them run.
This [Read more…]

Little did creator Rob Renzetti know that when he made this short, it would lead to a hit series on Nickelodeon! Part of the Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts program, this 7-minute-wonder introduces the fabulous Jenny, and also captures the show’s signature design, color, and fabulous backgrounds. The title of this short later got changed to “My Life As A Teenage Robot” when Nickelodeon picked it up to go to series.

Says Renzetti, “The origins of (this original short) are a lesson in the laws of reverse effort. Fred and I were both strongly pushing Mina and The Count during the second season of Oh Yeah. I really wanted it to be a series. The network was not buying it, so much so that they cancelled the sixth episode I was slated to do. Fred let me keep the slot. I had an idea about a normal human emotional teenage girl who’s boyfriend was a normal [Read more…]