Sid The Science Kid: The Movie is a 2013 animated film based on the Sid the Science Kid television show.
After entering a contest, Sid and his classmate Gabriella have won a special, pre-opening tour of the Super Ultimate Science Museum- alongside another team of junior scientists, the Chinese Niuniu (Julianne Buescher) and Yangyang (Allan Trautman). Together, the quartet meets the museum’s designer, the eccentric Dr. Bonabodon (Christopher Lloyd), and are sent on a tour of the museum’s stunning and high-tech exhibits guided by Dr. B’s piece de resistance- a robotic tour guide with incredibly advanced AI by the name of Bobbybot (Bruce Lanoil).
The children are awed by the stunning science and technology on display, but a rift soon develops as the Chinese students, winners of the contest’s 10-12-year-old category, consider Sid and Gabriella “too little” to know as much as they do… and then an accident with a Van de Graaf generator leaves Bobbybot’s systems fried. Things go from bad to worse as the Chinese students’ attempt to fix him causes the robot to go, in two words, absolutely cuckoo, and start causing chaos around the museum. With less than an hour until the Super Ultimate Science Museum opens to the public, will Sid, Gabriella, Niuniu, and Yangyang be able to catch Bobbybot and restore order in time?
The film has an odd, obscure bit of trivia attached to it- in addition to Bobbybot, Dr. Bonabodon had also made six other tour guide robots, each with a more specialized function; these six were known as the Wheel-E-Bots, and plans were made for them to receive their own TV show; while this project never got off the ground, and very little is known about it today, it appears
that the show was intended to place the ‘Bots in a space station on some sort of three-year space mission.
Tropes in Sid The Science Kid: The Movie include:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Yangyang and Niuniu’s attempt to reboot Bobbybot after an accident with a World Of Weather exhibit ends up turning him into a preschool-friendly version of this- he’s not out to hurt anyone, but his normal “tour guide” attitude has been replaced by an uncontrollable desire to run around, act crazy, and make the exhibits go haywire.
- Amusing Injuries: In the Hall Of Machine Marvels, a Seesaw Catapult sends Ira skyrocketing up to the ceiling- where he’s promptly caught and swung around by a ceiling fan and then sent flying between ceiling fans before landing headfirst on the ground with a “clang”. Fortunately, being a robot, he can just shrug it off.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: The visit to the museum’s paleontology exhibit, has pterosaurs (which are not true dinosaurs) being called dinosaurs, with Bobbybot making no move to correct this.
- Artistic License – Space: The opening-credits flythough of the Solar System features planets that are far too large, far too close, or both.
- Asian and Nerdy: Niuniu and Yangyang; justified, as the movie is about science and they’re only in the movie because they won an invention contest; if they weren’t nerdy, they wouldn’t be there at all.
- Bait-and-Switch:Sid: Wait, you guys designed a rocket?
Yangyang: No.
Sid: I was gonna say, that’d be really hard.
Yangyang: We built one! - Big Creepy-Crawlies: The “walk inside a beehive” exhibit comes complete with gigantic (simulated) bees.
- Chekhov's Gun: Sid’s toy microphone, used as part of his lever-launching invention, ends up being taken out in order to capitalize on another one of these- Bobbybot’s love of jokes.
- Chekhov's Skill:
- Subverted with Yangyang- he’s, allegedly, a really good programmer, but when he and Niuniu attempt to reboot Bobbybot after he gets fried all they end up doing is making him go crazy. This ends up being double-subverted when he manages to get Bobbobot back to working order near the end of the movie.
- Sid’s joke-telling ability, demonstrated in his video of his invention, ends up being used to lure Bobbybot out of hiding.
- Child Prodigy: Niuniu and Yangyang, entrants in the 10-12 section of the museum’s contest who built a fully functional rocket ship.
- Color-Coded Characters: Dr. Bonabodon’s robots.
- Red - QT9
- Orange - Stack
- Yellow - Ira
- Green - Popo
- Blue - Zippa
- Pink - Pinki
- White - Bobbybot
- Company Cross-References: After Bobbybot reprograms the animatronic T. rex, it starts singing (and dancing to) a scatted version of "Dinosaurs A-Z" from Dinosaur Train (which was running on PBS Kids around the same time as Sid the Science Kid). The animatronic dinos themselves also use more realistically retextured character models of Boris Tyrannosaurus and Morris Stegosaurus from the aforementioned series, although this is probably more a case of Recycled Animation than intentional homage.
- Continuity Nod: There are several references to episodes from the animated series, such as the lever being stated to be Sid’s favorite simple machine, and Sid bringing up that he learned about friction “last year”.
- Crisis Makes Perfect: Done rather egregiously with Niuniu and Yangyang’s reprogramming skills. They were unable to properly reboot Bobbybot while he was, for lack of a better term, “unconscious”, when they had all the time in the world to work and no disruptions… but, late in the movie, they were able to correctly reboot him while he was awake… and jerking around due to laughter, which really ought to make typing on his control panel at least a little bit difficult.
- Disembodied Eyebrows: Bobbybot has a pair of these floating above his eyes; inexplicably, they even keep floating after he shuts down.
- Dramatic Irony: After the children spend most of the movie running around attempting to catch Bobbybot, he says this once his normal programming is restored:Bobbybot: So, how are you enjoying the tour, kids? I hope it’s not too boring.
- Easily Detachable Robot Parts: When Bobbybot’s malfunction makes him start acting like a cowboy, he takes off one of his arms and twirls it around like a lasso.
- Einstein Hair: Dr. Bonabodon has this.
- Ending Theme: A reprise of “We’re A Team Of Scientists” plays over the credits.
- "Eureka!" Moment: After Sid runs out of jokes, Gabriella recalls Sids’ grandmother’s comment on how some problems are better solved by thinking like a kid, and realizes that she has another way to make Bobbybot laugh- confounding his optical recognition software by making funny faces.
- Extendable Arms: Bobbybot’s arms are shown to be stretchy at times; the best demonstration of this is the scene in the dinosaur exhibit where Niuniu demands that he “back away from the control panel” and he obliges.
- Failure Montage: Half of the “We’re A Team Of Scientists” montage consists of the children searching for Bobbybot, but managing to miss his hiding place every time.
- Floating Platforms: After entering the museum, the contest winners and their adult supervisors are taken up to a higher level on a hovering, disc-shaped platform with glass walls around the edges.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Bobbybot can be seen on the walls of the beehive exhibit for a few seconds before he makes his presence known.
- Global Ignorance: When told that the winners in the 10-12 category are Chinese, Sid wonders this:Sid: Can you drive to China? Is it near Florida, or somewhere like that?
- Gratuitous Disco Sequence: Bobbybot’s first act of exhibit sabotage involves somehow reprogramming the Van de Graaf generator to generate disco-style lighting, and even somehow play disco music.Bobbybot: Oh yes, oh hot! Look at me go, I’m a disco bot!
- Hammerspace: This is where the Wheel-E-Bots got their Groucho Marx glasses, Bobbybot got a banana he blended into a smoothie, and the dinosaur exhibit Bobbybot reprogrammed to sing got its microphone. This is also where Sid keeps his toy microphone, which he used as part of a plan to lure Bobby out.
- Hard-Work Montage: Half of the “We’re A Team Of Scientists” sequence is devoted to Dr. Bonabodon and the Wheel-E-Bots restoring the exhibits Bobbybot had tampered with to normalcy.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: At one point during the “We’re A Team Of Scientists” montage, Bobbybot hides by retracting his eyes into his body and filling his glass dome “head” with water, fishbowl decorations, and even a live clownfish. To Sid’s credit, however, he does at least give the suspiciously Bobbybot-shaped fishbowl stand a second look before giving up at its apparent inertness.
- Hologram: Bobbybot is equipped with a two-way holographic communication system- which is used once in the movie when Sid’s grandmother, and Niuniu’s mother, want to check up on the kids, and never seen again.
- Human Traffic Jam: The first comedic Wheel-E-Bot scene has Ira, Popo, and Stack doing this (with Stack in the front) in the hallway between exhibits.
- Hurricane of Puns: Bobbybot’s spiel for the beehive exhibit.Bobbybot: And now, here are some facts that you will love, because they are unbeliveable. Ha ha! I’m on a roll.
- Inevitably Broken Rule: Before sending the kids on their tour, Dr. Bonabodon warns them not to mess with Bobbybot’s control panel… which Yangyang and Niuniu end up having to do after Bobbybot is fried by a Van de Graaf generator exhibit. Their improper attempt to reboot him results in Bobbybot going haywire, setting off the plot of the rest of the movie.
- Informed Ability:
- Niuniu’s interest in astronomy; it’s mentioned that she worked together with Yangyang to build a rocket ship for their project, but her space knowledge is never used and when Bobbybot needs to be rebooted she suddenly gains Yangyang’s programming skills.
- Of the Wheel-E-Bots, we never get to see Zippa’s Super-Speed or Ira’s scientific database, and the sole indication of Popo’s childcare function is some Toilet Humor involving diapers.
- Is This Thing On?: Sid asks this while preparing to lure Bobbybot out with jokes.
- Leitmotif: A jaunty ragtime tune plays in scenes where the three Wheel-E-Bots that are following behind Bobbybot’s tour are present.
- Linked List Clue Methodology: After getting bored of simply running from the children, Bobbybot sets up one of these to find him- a clue installed in an animatronic dinosaur sends the kids to the bee exhibit, where a clue read out by one of the fake bees sends them to the World Of Weather room, where a clue given by the Van de Graaf generator sends them to the Hall Of Machine Marvels… where they get tired of searching and decide to resort to Cutting the Knot.
- Missed Him by That Much: In “We’re A Team Of Scientists”, the children narrowly miss spying Bobbybot twice; one when he’s standing under the bridge they’re on, and one when he’s disguised as a fishbowl.
- No OSHA Compliance: The hovering platform has glass walls, with gaps at either end to allow people to step on and off… except the gaps don’t close when the platform hovers, even high off the ground.
- One-Wheeled Wonder: Of Dr. Bonabodon’s robots, Stack, Ira, and Bobbybot are this.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Hilariously, after Bobbybot spots Stack, Popo, and Ira following the tour group and calls out their names, they turn around, produce Groucho Marx glasses from Hammerspace, and try to pretend not to be themselves. Needless to say, Bobbybot isn’t fooled.
- Pink Is Feminine: The only female Wheel-E-Bot is painted pink, and even named “Pinki”.
- Pun:
- Sid makes a very bad one at the end of his Super-Duper Microphone Lever Joke Teller demonstration.
Sid: What do you call a flying skunk?
(Gabriella activates the contraption; a few seconds later, Sid has a microphone in his hand)
Sid: A smell-a-copter!- A malfunctioning Bobbybot declares that a banana smoothie would be quite “a-peel-ing”.
Bobbybot: Sorry kids, gotta bounce!
(Produces a pogo-stick attachment and jumps away from them)- When Bobbybot “transforms” into a spider in the beehive exhibit:
Bobbybot: In fact, this spider wants to put a new spin on things. Out with the old, and in with the moo!
(Reprograms the bees to emit mooing noises)
Gabriella: Bees that moo? That isn’t good.
Bobbybot: Sure it is! It’s all in the land of milk and honey!- Sid ends up weaponizing Bobbybot’s love of these to lure him out with the promise of a good joke.
Sid: Why are cows good in math?
Other children: I don’t know, why?
Sid: Well, follow me and I’ll tell you.
(Bobbybot does exactly that, following Sid into the hallway)
Sid: Because they have built in cow-culators!- After that attempt doesn’t work, Sid tells a few more in order to lure Bobbybot out again and keep him in one place.
Sid: Why was the broom late for school? (...) Because he overswept!
Sid: Why didn’t the crab share its cookies? (...) Because he was shellfish! - Punny Name: QT9’s name sounds like it has the word “cutie” in it.
- Race Against the Clock: The second half of the movie has the cast scrambling to catch Bobbybot, get him back to normal, and restore the exhibits he interfered with before the museum opens; when the explicit time until opening is first brought up, they have 30 minutes to do it.
- Rapid-Fire Typing: Yangyang and Niuniu attempting to reactivate Bobbybot is presented as the two of them doing the touchscreen equivalent of this on his control panel… including scenes of both of them “typing” at the same time.
- Robot Dog:
- QT9, who was programmed like a sheepdog in order to “herd” large tour groups.
- While malfunctioning after being reactivated, Bobbybot briefly transforms into something resembling a dog and barks.
- Rube Goldberg Device: Sid and Gabriella’s entry for the museum contest, the Super-Duper Microphone Lever Joke Teller, is one of these- you stomp on the end of a wooden plank, causing a rock on the other end to be flung up into the air and land on the end of another wooden plank, flipping that rock into the air, until the last plank flings Sid’s plastic microphone into the air and he catches it and tells a bad joke into it.
- Running Gag: Characters being unable to properly pronounce Dr. Bonabodon’s name. This gets Lampshaded late into the movie.Dr. Bonabodon: You found him! And you fixed him! And you said my name right!
- Seesaw Catapult:
- A series of miniature versions of these are used in Sid’s contest-winning contraption to (eventually) toss his microphone into his hand.
- Ira is subjected to this (courtesy of Popo, and on an actual seesaw) in scene where the Wheel-E-Bots explore the Hall Of Machine Marvels, launching him right into a ceiling fan.
- Shout-Out:
- The winners of the contest to earn an early tour of the Super Ultimate Science Museum are sent files of golden tickets which they need to print out and use to gain entry.
- Star Explorers is a clear parody of Star Wars, right up to having Laser Blade fights which Sid and Yangyang mimic.
- Show Within a Show: At one point, Sid mentions that the hallways between exhibits remind him of the spaceship from Star Explorers; Yangyang is also familiar with that movie, and following scenes set in the hallways feature them pretending to be in said movie, including acting out a fake lightsaber-fight.
- Silly Animal Sound: Bobbybot reprograms the giant bees in the beehive exhibit to emit moos instead of their normal buzzing noise.
- Simple Solution Won't Work: After Bobbybot is shut down by an accident with the Van de Graaf generator, Yangyang says they can’t just call Dr. Bonabodon because the accident shut down all of his systems, including any they might use to contact the scientist.
- Showdown at High Noon: Parodied in the scene where Sid prepares to draw out Bobbybot using jokes, as Western music plays and a tumbleweed randomly materializes despite the scene taking place indoors.
- Slow Laser: The lasers Bobbybot uses to activate and mess with various pieces of machinery move slowly enough that you can see the beam extending from the source… oh yeah, and their beam is visible too.
- Stock Dinosaurs: The Super Ultimate Science Museum’s paleontology exhibit has animatronic versions of…a stegosaurus, a triceratops, a brachiosaurus, and, of course, a T. rex.
- Super-Strength: Stack’s defining trait is his ability to lift and carry heavy loads. Unlike the rest of the Wheel-E-Bots, this does actually get properly demonstrated in the film, as it saves the robots when a giant model of the planet Neptune seemingly crushes them, and it’s very helpful in cleaning up the Hall Of Machine Marvels.
- Telescoping Robot: Bobbybot starts displaying these capabilities after being improperly rebooted; things he produces from himself include fake dog ears, a Wind-Up Key and fake toy feet, a different kind of wheel to the one he usually rides on, a rocket booster, blender blades inside his glass dome-head, a pogo-stick attachment, two sets of helicopter blades, spider legs that actually let him Wall Crawl, a fishbowl complete with a live clownfish.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: For some reason, Pinki was built with three eyelash-like protrusions above each eye.
- Toilet Humor:
- One of the robots, Popo, is equipped to deal with babies, complete with a diaper-changing station.
Dr. Bonabodon: You might say that Popo takes care of the “Poo-poo”.- When Bobbybot prepares to activate one of the animatronic dinosaur’s roars, the children chant “Make him burp! Make him burp!”
- Wall Crawl: Bobbybot’s “robot spider” form has this ability; during the “We’re A Team Of Scientists” montage, he uses it to hide from the children by standing under the bridge through the beehive exhibit.
- X-Ray Sparks: When Bobbybot is zapped by the Van de Graaf generator, the audience can briefly see the outlines of some of his internal components.