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

The show's opening title card.

Status: Partially Lost

Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? was a Cartoon Network animated series that ran for two seasons from 2002 to 2003. 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 1980s in addition to many references and plot 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 traditional cel animation when most productions had moved on to computerized animation, furthering the style that was desired. However, 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, Robot is hesitant to do so as he finds humans "inefficient." After Dad-Unit has his say, Robot begins life as a typical middle school student with a light bulb for a brain. He quickly finds fitting in to be very difficult as most of the school find him strange, including the students, teachers, and especially the technophobic principal. Shortly after blowing a fuse in front of the entire school, Jones loses all will to study humans, until he falls for a girl with large orthodontic headgear and a prosthetic metal leg and instantly changes his attitude on the matter. Humans are now interesting creatures that desire "further study". As the series progresses, Robot 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 being voiced by an actual child voice actor (Bobby Block) for Season 2. In addition, the pilot and all episodes of the first season were re-dubbed using Block's voice for re-runs of the series. Miller had made all of Robot's dialogue before the change happened, as it was made late during the production of the second season. He has claimed that he may still own VHS workprint copies of the second season episodes with the original voice audio. Episodes containing the original computer-generated voice are currently being sought after by fans of the series.

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 American 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. It returned to Tooncast's schedule in 2020 (unknown voice audio version), and was removed again in January 2021 according to the official programming schedule. Cartoon Network Latin America aired segments from both seasons in the early morning Cartoon Pop programming block from at least 2015 until the block was dropped on May 1, 2021, but only with the Bobby Block voice on the English audio track.

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, referred to as the "talk show" episode, would have had Robot Jones appear on a parody of The Oprah Winfrey Show (called the "The Soapy Windfall Show" in-universe). Storyboards for this episode have been made available from series writer Chuck Klein's BlogSpot since 2006. The images are titled 'Obsession2' and 'Obession3 [sic],' presumably implying that the working title of the episode was "Obsession." No 'Obsession1' image has been found, if one exists.

• 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. On the other hand, in 2012, an anonymous fan (later known as "Wer Wie Was" on the Illiop.com forum) has posted a theory on Wikipedia thinking that these two episodes were potentially banned by the executives at the Cartoon Network for violent, mature content, then posted another theory on an Illiop.com forum believing that the two episodes were actually scrapped or unfinished, but so far, no physical evidence of this has been put forward, so it is unknown whether these two episodes actually existed in the first place or were discovered to be fake.

According to a FaceBook interview with show creator Greg Miller, it is clear that the planned series finale could involve Robot Jones rallying (or even building) a robot army to exterminate the human civilization and rule the planet, but unfortunately, before this could be revealed, the show was cancelled, resulting in "Rules of Dating" to be the last episode of the show (even though that one wasn't actually intended to be the actual series finale in the first place).

Availability

The show has a total of 25 segments + 1 seven-minute pilot episode + a music video, totaling up to 27 segments total. 3 episodes are unconfirmed to exist, and 4 others 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.

As of October 2017, user BigFatRobot2002, who backed up all of the first season episodes with the original voice audio has synced the English audio to the DVD-quality Tooncast video sources (removing the Spanish and Portuguese language tracks) in higher quality and uploaded them, along with Tooncast rips of the second season episodes as well, on a Google Doc.

The original Latin American Spanish and Brazillian Portuguese rips from Tooncast, which BigFatRobot2002 obtained the DVD-quality rips from, also have also been uploaded to a Google Doc. Latin American Spanish dubs of all episodes have been found; only ten episodes are available in Brazillian Portuguese.

In April 2022, the series was added to the Latin American version of HBO Max in HD. However, the only known English language track for all episodes is the Bobby Block dub.

Episode List

Season 1

Episode	Name	Original Voice	Bobby Block
0	Pilot	Found	Found
1A	Electric Boogaloo	Found	Found
1B	The Groovesicle	Found	Lost
2A	Politics	Found	Found
2B	Growth Spurts	Found	Found
3A	P.U. to P.E.	Found	Found
3B	Vacuum Friend	Found	Found
4A	Parents	Found	Found
4B	Embarrassment	Found	Found
5A	Cube Wars	Found	Found
5B	Sickness	Found	Found
6A	Jealousy	Found	Found
6B	Scantron Love	Found	Found

Season 2

Episode	Name	Original Voice	Bobby Block
7A	Gender	Lost	Found
7B	Math Challenge	Lost	Found
8A	Family Vacation	Lost	Found
8B	Hair	Lost	Found
9A	Garage Band	Lost	Found
9B	Work	Lost	Found
10A	The Yogmans Strike Back	Lost	Found
10B	Hookie 101	Lost	Found
11A	House Party	Lost	Found
11B	School Newspaper	Lost	Found
12A	Safety Patrol	Lost	Found
12B	Popularity	Lost	Found
13A	Summer Camp	Lost	Found
13B	Rules of Dating	Lost	Found

Unreleased/Unfinished Episodes

Episode	Name	Original Voice	Bobby Block
N/A	Risk	Lost	Existence Unconfirmed
N/A	Robotic Graffiti	Lost	Existence Unconfirmed
N/A	History of Robotics	Lost	Existence Unconfirmed
N/A	Obsession	Lost	Existence Unconfirmed
N/A	3rd Unknown Episode	Lost	Existence Unconfirmed
N/A	Untitled/Planned Ending	Lost	Existence Unconfirmed

Gallery

Screenshots

• 

  One of the storyboards of the alleged talk show episode (#1).

• 

  One of the storyboards of the alleged talk show episode (#2).

Videos

A promo (with the original voice).

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CN Fridays bumper.

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See Also

Anthology Series

• Cartoon Network "Cartoon Network Responds!" (partially found interstitials from TV channel; 1997-1999)
• Big Bag (partially found Cartoon Network live-action/animated/puppet series; 1996-1998)
• The Moxy Show (partially found episodes of Cartoon Network CGI animated anthology series; 1993-2000)
• Sunday Pants (partially lost Cartoon Network animated anthology series; 2005)
• ToonHeads (partially lost Cartoon Network animation anthology series; 1996-2003)
• ToonHeads "A Night of Independent Animation" (partially lost special of Cartoon Network animation anthology series; 1996)
• What A Cartoon! (found Cartoon Network animated anthology series; 1995-1997)

Bumpers and Interstitials

• The Big Game XXVI: Tom vs. Jerry (found Cartoon Network marathon special; 1998)
• Cartoon Network (partially lost "CN City" bumpers from TV channel; 2004–2007)
• Cartoon Network (partially found "High Noon Toons" bumpers from TV channel block; 1994-1996)
• Cartoon Network (partially lost "Nood" bumpers from TV channel; 2008-2010)
• Cartoon Network NBA All-Star Slam (partially found interviews of marathon; 2003)
• Cartoon Planet (partially found bumpers of revival block of Cartoon Network animated variety series; 2012)
• Cartoon Planet (partially found "Live from Cartoon Planet" bumpers of Cartoon Network animated variety series; 1995)
• Codename: Kids Next Door Mission Weekend (partially found marathon bumpers for Cartoon Network animated series; 2003)
• Fridays aka "Cartoon Cartoon Fridays" (partially found interstitials from Cartoon Network channel block; 1999–2007)
• Hotdog TV (partially found Cartoon Network interstitial series; 2010)
• JBVO, Toon FM & Viva Las Bravo (partially found interstitials from Cartoon Network channel blocks; early-mid 2000s)
• Lumpus and Slinkman's Cabin Fever (partially found Cartoon Network program block segments; 2005)
• Teen Titans Go! Top 5 (lost promos for Cartoon Network weekend morning block; 2015)
• Tickle-U (partially found Cartoon Network preschool block; 2005-2006)

Pilots

• Ben 10 (partially found unaired pilot of Cartoon Network animated series; early-mid 2000s)
• Billy and Mandy in Trepanation of the Skull and You (found prototype short of "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy" Cartoon Network animated series; 1995)
• Camp Lazlo "Monkey See, Camping Doo" (lost unaired pilot of Cartoon Network animated series; 2004)
• Captain Sturdy (found Cartoon Network animated pilot; 2001)
• Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe (partially lost pilots from animation studio; 2008-2011)
• Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi (found unaired pilot of Cartoon Network animated series; 2003)
• IMP, Inc. (found Cartoon Network animated pilot; 2001)
• Jeffrey Cat: Claw and Order (found Cartoon Network animated pilot; 2002)
• A Kitty Bobo Show (found storyboard of cancelled second animated pilot for Cartoon Network; 2002)
• Major Flake in "Soggy Sales" (found Cartoon Network animated pilot; 2001)
• The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (partially found "Wedgies pilot" of Cartoon Network animated series; 2007)
• Mess O' Blues (partially found prototype short of "Johnny Bravo" Cartoon Network animated series; 1993)
• My Gym Partner's a Monkey (lost unaired pilots of Cartoon Network animated series; 2003/2004)
• Nikki (found Cartoon Network animated pilot; 2000)
• The Powerpuff Girls (lost pilot of Cartoon Network animated series reboot; 2016)
• Project Gilroy (lost Cartoon Network animated pilot; 2007)
• Regular Show (non-existent Flash pilot of Cartoon Network animated series; late 2000s-2010)
• Squirrel Boy "Kite Makes Right" (lost unaired pilot of Cartoon Network animated series; 2004)
• Uncle Gus (partially found original English audio of Cartoon Network animated pilots; 2000-2001)

Live-Action

• Bobb'e Says (partially found Cartoon Network live-action clip series; 2009)
• BrainRush (partially found Cartoon Network live-action game show; 2009)
• Track Rats (partially found Cartoon Network reality short series; 2010)
• The Othersiders (found Cartoon Network paranormal reality series; 2009)
• Out of Jimmy's Head (partially lost original English dub of Cartoon Network teen sitcom; 2007-2008)

Other Cartoon Network Series

• The Amazing World of Gumball "The Downer" (lost original draft of episode of Cartoon Network animated series; existence unconfirmed; 2012-2014)
• Chowder (lost production material of cancelled Cartoon Network TV film; 2009)
• Class of 3000 (found original English dub of Cartoon Network animated musical series; 2006-2008)
• Codename: Kids Next Door (lost production material of cancelled episodes of Cartoon Network animated series; 2002-2008)
• Dexter's Laboratory "Rude Removal" (found unaired episode of Cartoon Network animated series; 1997)
• Droopy's Guide to the Cartoon Network (found launch preview of TV channel special; 1992)
• Ed, Edd n Eddy "Luck Be an Ed Tonight"/"A Room with an Ed" (rumored/lost unfinished episodes of Cartoon Network animated series; existence unconfirmed; 2005)
• Ed, Edd n Eddy "Special Ed" (non-existent unproduced episode of Cartoon Network animated series; late 1990s/early 2000s)
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy "Matinee Mandy" (lost original English audio of Cartoon Network animated short; 2007)
• I Heart Tuesdays (lost production material of cancelled Cartoon Network animated series; 2011-2012)
• I-10: The Ben 10 User Generated Experience (found Cartoon Network TV special; 2008)
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes "Crossover Nexus" (partially found original 22-minute version of Cartoon Network animated series episode; 2010s)
• Skatoony (found original British version of Cartoon Network quiz show; 2006-2008)

External Links

• Google Drive link to all original voice synced Season 1 episodes.
• Google Drive link to the Latin Spanish dubbed episodes of the series.