BACKGROUND
I remember when I first watched Meet the Robinsons.
It was only about five or six years ago, when DisneyLife – the little-known streaming app that was the precursor to the streaming giant that is Disney+ – was released in the UK, allowing me the chance to catch up on those animated movies that I’d missed out on; Meet the Robinsons was one of those. And I must say: it surprised me. A lot.
I hadn’t even been paying much attention to it at the time. It was just playing on a tablet while I did something else, but soon, it caught my attention, and by the end of it, I found I’d actually quite liked it.
I hadn’t expected much because Meet the Robinsons was released in 2007, during that timeframe when Disney was being outdone by the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks, with a new Disney animated movie not receiving much attention, or, if it did, receiving it for all the wrong reasons. Disney was not being compared favourably to the other animation studios, so why did I think Meet the Robinsons would be any different? It was just something I wanted to get through, to say I’d watched it. I was wrong to think that.
Not everything Disney touches turns to gold, and Meet the Robinsons is still evidence of that, but it was at least a step in the right direction, after the dismal reviews of Home on the Range (2004), which I partly agree with, and Chicken Little (2005), which I wholeheartedly do not.
I know that Meet the Robinsons does not have much of a following. I personally don’t know many people who have watched it, but it has managed to gain a cult following over the sixteen years since its release, and I am only too pleased by that. Now, granted, it’s not my favourite film, nor is it one that I revisit often. It doesn’t look brilliant, at least not very “Disney-like”, due to this only being their second attempt at a fully CG animated movie, after Chicken Little, and, on top of that, parts of the film feel a bit slow and drawn-out. However, I like some of the plot points, along with a couple of the characters, but the emotional ending with its touching message is really what sticks with you.
PLOT
The movie is quite heavily influenced by science-fiction, specifically time-travel and changeable timelines, kind of like the Back to the Future franchise, but less complicated. Though having said that, there are multiple time jumps in Meet the Robinsons, so bear with me while I try to recount the plot.
Meet the Robinsons begins on a dark, rainy night, outside an orphanage, where a woman leaves her baby on the doorstep to be taken in. We skip forward twelve years to see that the baby has become an imaginative kid inventor called Lewis, who wants nothing more than to be adopted. Unfortunately, his latest “adoption interview” goes awry when his newest invention malfunctions, spraying his prospective parents with peanut butter and jelly – only for the man to be allergic to peanuts…Needless to say, Lewis is devastated and runs up to the orphanage roof to be alone. Mildred, Head of the Sixth Street Orphanage, tells Lewis he’ll be adopted soon, despite having had 124 of these interviews so far, with none of them coming to anything. Mildred tries to lift his spirits, but Lewis is intent on finding his birth mother, the only person, he believes, who has and will ever love him. So, he sets out to make a “memory scanner” to retrieve the only memory he has of his mother so he can find her. Lewis makes the scanner and takes it to his school Science Fair, where he is taken aside by a dark-haired boy called Wilbur, who claims to be from the future, and is looking for a perpetrator– a strange, lanky man with a bowler hat – who has stolen his time machine. Lewis dismisses the idea; however, this man does exist and his bowler hat, which moves on its own, tampers with Lewis’ scanner, causing the Science Fair to descend into chaos.
Wilbur follows Lewis and tries to convince him to help him find “Bowler Hat Guy” and retrieve his stolen time machine. Lewis dismisses him again, so Wilbur takes him in the spare time machine to the future, the year 2037, to prove he isn’t lying. Meanwhile, Bowler Hat Guy and DOR-15, the hat, (pronounced “Doris”) have stolen the memory scanner, to pass it off as their own to InventCo, a big corporation, however, as he knows nothing about it, he is thrown out and the scanner is broken. Bowler Hat Guy and Doris go back to the year 2037 to find Lewis, and get him to fix the scanner. There, Lewis has been trying to fix the spare time machine, on the proviso Wilbur takes Lewis back to see his mother, but while doing so, Lewis accidentally meets the other members of Wilbur’s family, the crazy, zany Robinsons. After Wilbur says that he was never going to take Lewis back in time to see his mother, Lewis walks off angrily, to be picked up by Bowler Hat Guy and Doris in the other time machine; they get Lewis to fix the scanner, promising to take Lewis back to see his mother, but he is captured and told the true story of Bowler Hat Guy – that he is actually Lewis’ former roommate at the orphanage, Michael Yagoobian, known as “Goob” – shock twist! After being kept up for days on end while Lewis made his scanner, Goob fell asleep during an important baseball game, missing a vital catch, and subsequently being beaten up by the team, and, holding on to that blame, became consumed by his hatred of Lewis for ruining his life and decided to join forces with Doris, one of Lewis’ abandoned inventions, to ruin his life instead. Bowler Hat Guy and Doris go back and sell the scanner to InventCo, along with an idea for “helping hats”
Lewis realises this will ruin his future timeline, so fixes the time machine, and, now in this new parallel universe, sees Doris has enslaved every human with these “helping hats”. He vows never to invent her, destroying her, and causing the original future timeline to go back to how it was. Bowler Hat Guy, now without his hatred of Lewis, no partner-in-crime, and with no future plan, goes away to figure out what to do next, while Lewis realises that he is in fact the elusive “Cornelius”, father of Wilbur, patriarch of the Robinson family – or he will be anyway! Cornelius and Lewis meet, where he states that the memory scanner started his career as an inventor. Now Lewis must return to his time to see out this future, but before doing that, Wilbur does take Lewis to see his mother. Just as he’s about to say something to her, Lewis realises he doesn’t need to, as he has a family waiting for him, and that he needs to move on from the past. Lewis returns to his time, wakes Goob up during his baseball game so he can make the winning catch and have a happier future, and then Lewis gets to show the now-working memory scanner again at the Science Fair, where he finds that one of the judges, scientist Lucille Krunklehorn, and her husband, Bud, will adopt him, moving him to the famous Robinson house that he saw in the year 2037, cementing his future with them. The movie ends with a quote from Walt Disney, saying not to dwell on failure and to “keep moving forward”, this being the ultimate message and theme of Meet the Robinsons.
Meet the Robinsons is loosely based on the children’s book, A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce, published in 1990. The plot of the book follows a boy visiting a family friend’s home, only to be introduced to the strange Robinson household and having to join the search for Grandfather Robinson’s missing false teeth. This is a very minor plot point that does appear in Meet the Robinsons, with Lewis helping Grandpa find his teeth being the way he meets the other Robinson family members. Joyce took inspiration from his childhood in Louisiana. One of his childhood friends had a large family, who all lived together in a huge house and were quite a unique household, apparently[1].
CHARACTERS & CAST
Meet the Robinsons involves a few main characters, but has a large supporting cast – something that had troubled some of Disney’s previous animated features, due to the lack of central focus, giving them a “busy, hectic” vibe. The main characters are strong enough to support the plot, however, the supporting cast does not make a huge influence on the story, or the viewer. But let’s focus on the primary characters of Meet the Robinsons.
The point of the duo of Lewis and Wilbur is for them to be contrasting, in look and personality. Even in the original source material, Wilbur was the extrovert, the driving force of the relationship, and Lewis was the introvert, taking more of a passenger-role in the story[2]. Lewis in the movie is blond, kind of nerdy, with glasses and a sweater vest, compared with Wilbur’s look of dark hair, styled in a sort of slicked-back Danny-from-Grease style, with his cool shades, black t-shirt and jeans. Personality-wise, Lewis is a bit shy, and unsure of himself. He seems quite apologetic, thinking he’s a failure and never going to amount to anything. This is probably because of his unfortunate luck with prospective adoptive parents. He’s also going through a difficult time in his life, feeling like he doesn’t belong. Lewis doesn’t start to feel more comfortable in himself until he meets the Robinson family, who teach him that it’s ok to fail, and that it’s great to just be yourself. No matter how “weird” or “strange” you may come across to others, it doesn’t matter what people think.
Wilbur, on the other hand, is confident, and quite sure of himself. He comes from a large, loving family, and that has clearly helped him feel secure. He doesn’t seem like much of a friend to Lewis at the start of the movie, ordering him around a lot, and lying about taking him back to his mother, but that is partly due to the fact that he needed to conceal his identity from the family, and get the timeline back on track. By the end, after Lewis realises he will actually be Wilbur’s father in the future, they seem to get along much better, and Wilbur does keep his promise to take Lewis back to see his mother by the end.
Lewis is voiced by two different voice actors: Jordan Fry and Daniel Hansen. Daniel Hansen seems to have retired from acting since the release of Meet the Robinsons. Jordan Fry is probably best known for playing the role of Mike Teavee in the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the one with Johnny Depp). Wesley Singerman provides the voice of Wilbur Robinson. Since the release of Meet the Robinsons, Singerman retired from acting and now focuses on his career in music.
The other main characters are Bowler Hat Guy and his sidekick Doris – or is that the other way round? At the start of the movie, we are led to believe that Bowler Hat Guy is the villain of the story. Only, he doesn’t act like much of a villain. Sure, he intends to ruin Lewis’ future, and he wants him to be miserable, but Bowler Hat Guy isn’t a very effective villain! For one thing, he isn’t particularly scary or sinister-looking. He has a black cape, his bowler hat, a long moustache, and he moves a bit like a snake, but as soon as he opens his mouth, he doesn’t sound at all like a villain. The other thing is that he isn’t really sure what he’s doing. He’s a bit of a dope to be honest, but a funny one at that.
That’s why Doris is so important, because she is the mastermind of all the schemes, and has to tell Bowler Hat Guy where to go, what to do, and what to say, for the most part. The couple of times he is left on his own to deal with things, they do not go to plan. When he is in InventCo, for example, trying to pass off the memory scanner as his own, Doris is not able to tell Bowler Hat Guy exactly what to say, and as a result, he breaks the invention and gets thrown out of the building. When Bowler Hat Guy is left to capture Lewis, with a mini-Doris to help, he manages to get mini-Doris to control both a frog and a T-Rex, only to find that they are both useless minions because the frog is too small to capture a teenage boy, and the T-Rex’s arms are too stubby to do it either!
The identity reveal of Bowler Hat Guy is the best part for me, and makes him a very sympathetic character in the end. To find he is actually Goob, Lewis’ roommate at the orphanage, who has set out to ruin Lewis’ life after he “ruined” his, is heart-breaking. Goob has been so consumed by hate that he has let his whole life pass him by, not being able to function properly, and ending up without a family, living in the abandoned orphanage alone. He finds Doris when he is about to exact his revenge on Lewis’ company building – by throwing toilet paper over it, very scary – and she tells him to join forces. When Doris is shown to be the evil one, enslaving all the humans, Bowler Hat Guy is clearly upset by this turn of events, and Doris casts him aside. Once Lewis has fixed the timeline, by saying he will never invent Doris, he is about to ask Goob to become one of the Robinsons, but Goob has already walked off. They find his checklist on how to exact his revenge on Lewis, which now is just a question mark, resembling his future. It’s very sad to see. I really like him as a character; I like how he is more complex as a villain, with a complicated backstory, an attempt at being evil, and a redemption at the end[3].
The director, Stephen Anderson, is actually the voice of Bowler Hat Guy, which isn’t unheard of and is quite common if you look into it. For example, Brad Bird who directed The Incredibles (2004) voices Edna in that movie, and Stitch is voiced by the director of Lilo & Stitch (2002), Chris Sanders. Sometimes the scratch voices they use during production stick, and they have to use the same person, even if they are the director! I think he does a brilliant job with it.
For the supporting cast, every member of the Robinson family from the book makes an appearance in the movie, each with their own trait or unique quality. They are free to do whatever makes them happy, whether that is Franny, Wilbur’s mother, who has made a full frog band, as frogs have a capacity to be musical, more so than humans, or Uncle Art, who is a pizza delivery man with a superhero persona. If you want the full details of the family, and their relations, you’ll have to either watch the film or Google it, because it would take forever for me to recount them all here! I wouldn’t say many of the family members are particularly memorable; I could only remember a couple of them, but it is still useful in showing that the Robinsons are a huge, quirky, but loving, family.
For the secondary roles, Disney managed to get a few big names to come in for the voice work. This includes Laurie Metcalf, who voiced Jim’s mother in Treasure Planet (2002) and Andy’s mom in the Toy Story franchise (1995-present), amongst other things. Metcalf voices Lucille Krunklehorn, Lewis’ adoptive mother. Adam West voices Uncle Art. He did quite a lot of other voice work before his death, but is perhaps best known for playing Batman in the 1960s. Nicole Sullivan, known for playing Holly Shumpert in The King of Queens (1998-2007) as well as voicing Shego in Disney’s Kim Possible (2002-07) around this time, provides the voice work for Franny. Angela Bassett, now perhaps most known for her role as Ramonda in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including in the films Black Panther (2018) and its sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), voices the part of Mildred, the head of the orphanage. American actor Ethan Sandler ended up voicing seven different characters, including Doris, and Tom Kenny, best known as the voice actor for SpongeBob SquarePants since 1999, voices Mr. Willerstein, Lewis’ teacher.
The biggest name in my view that Disney somehow managed to get is Tom Selleck as the voice of Cornelius, who only makes a brief appearance towards the end of the movie. The team had always planned to have the joke of the visual image in the movie: Lewis asks Wilbur who Cornelius looks like and he responds with Tom Selleck, so a picture appears in his space in the family tree as Lewis lists off what he’s learned about the family. Disney weren’t sure if they could get the rights to use the image, so looked into trying to sweeten the deal by having Selleck voice the part. Fortunately, when he was pitched the idea, he thought it would be funny and agreed to do it. The team had all grown-up watching Magnum P.I. (1980-88) so needless to say, they were pleased! Tom Selleck is also known for his roles as Peter Mitchell in Three Men and a Baby (1987) and its (far superior) sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), and as NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan in Blue Bloods (2010-present). He was also Jesse Stone in a series of television crime drama films from 2006 to 2015.
PRODUCTION
Disney being involved with Meet the Robinsons goes back as far as the book’s publishing in 1990. Bill Borden, an executive producer for Meet the Robinsons, had asked William Joyce to show the book to Disney executives, just before it was finished, to pitch it to them as a live-action film. They both thought the pitch had gone badly, so were surprised when Disney optioned it. Joyce wrote around eleven or twelve draft scripts for this live-action film, but it wasn’t being moved forward, mostly due to the cost element. It went quiet for many years, until Disney executive Leo Chu got in touch to try to bring the story to the animation department instead.
Around 2001, they were told that the concept would follow Wilbur as a time-traveller and Lewis as an orphan. Joyce and Borden weren’t overly convinced by this story-route as they felt it would feel too much like Jimmy Neutron and not like Joyce’s book at all[4]. Around late-2002, Stephen Anderson was approached with the script, as he had expressed an interest in directing for the studio someday. He had just finished work as a story supervisor on Brother Bear (2003), when he was handed this script for a movie called “A Day with Wilbur Robinson”, based on Joyce’s book. Anderson had an instant connection with Lewis as he too was adopted, and had the same sort of questions about his life: why did his mother give him up? Where was he from? Should he find his birth parents? Anderson felt he had to do this movie[5].
Work on the movie progressed from 2004, with a 2006 release date planned. However, when Pixar was bought by Disney and the leadership of Walt Disney Animation Studios was changed so that it would be led by John Lasseter, some parts of the movie had to be changed. Lasseter was shown the movie, and disliked the villain, Bowler Hat Guy. He asked for the villain to be changed, as he wasn’t scary at all, so the sidekick of Doris was brought in to become the main villain. Apparently, 60% of the film was scrapped and redone at this time, with the ending also being rewritten[6].
Disney did have some struggles with the computer animation side of production since it was only Disney Animation’s second fully CG animated movie. The team found that humans were difficult to capture because any errors or lack of flexibility in movement would be easy to spot, as we know how humans should look and how they move. Bowler Hat Guy in particular was a challenge as they wanted him to be quite sleek and snaky with his movement, but the characters could not bend as well back then. Still, Bowler Hat Guy was quite a step forward for CG in terms of this movement. The clothing also did not wrinkle as fabric should, instead it just stretched, but it would’ve been too expensive to do any cloth renders[7]. It kind of works in Meet the Robinsons because the clothing resembles rubber suits which sort of fit in a futuristic film. For the stylisation of the characters, the team were trying not to use the original illustrations for Joyce’s book, as his style had been used in the 2005 film Robots, produced by Blue Sky Studios, a competitor to Disney. I still feel like the style is kind of similar, especially in the robot butler to the Robinson family, Carl, which would explain why the entire film doesn’t look particularly “Disney”.
However, the most important thing that Disney wanted to get across during Meet the Robinsons was the message of hope and positivity, something that is very “Disney”. They wanted to make the future look hopeful, especially compared to most films that had made the future look bleak or even horrifying. They also wanted to evoke the ideas and the creations of Walt Disney’s original ideas for the Disney Parks, such as Epcot and Tomorrowland. There is even a quick reference to Tomorrowland in the film: as Wilbur takes Lewis to the future for the first time, you can briefly see a sign that says “Todayland”, with a building resembling the attraction Space Mountain in the background.
Then the team got to the phrase “Keep Moving Forward”, and it stuck as a theme. It worked with the adoption element, of not feeling the need to look back at the past, because hope comes from the future. Stephen Anderson mentioned in an interview that he had received letters from people saying how the theme of Meet the Robinsons had gotten them through some really hard times, and that’s all they could’ve hoped for[8].
MUSIC
The soundtrack of Meet the Robinsons is quite an eclectic mix. Danny Elfman, composer for such films as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and multiple other Tim Burton projects, was asked to compose the score for Meet the Robinsons. He successfully went from very crazy, such as the music that plays when the Robinsons are being introduced, and the strange song when Lewis is seeing the future for the first time, to the emotional scenes, like the opening scene outside the orphanage, Goob telling his story, and the ending where everyone is reunited. Elfman also wrote the song “The Future Has Arrived” which he asked The All-American Rejects to perform as the End Credits song.
There are also multiple other songs in the movie. For example, Rufus Wainwright wrote three songs: “Another Believer”, which he performs; a gently peppy song, which is used for the time-lapse of Lewis researching and experimenting with his memory scanner invention, and “Where is Your Heart At?”, performed by Jamie Cullum, a proper swing-time, band leader type of song, performed in the movie by Franny’s frog band, so yes, Jamie Cullum is a singing frog. The third song is the second End Credits song, “The Motion Waltz (Emotional Commotion)”. Rob Thomas performed a song called “Little Wonders”, which is probably the most emotional song, talking about how the past can’t be changed and to look for the good things in life. It plays at the end of the movie when we see that Lewis and Goob have both been adopted and that Lewis’ future home has become his present home[9].
Even the Jonas Brothers got involved in the music, though the song has very little to do with the movie and is quite clearly more of a cross-promotional thing with the Disney Channel than anything else. The music video uses some clips from Meet the Robinsons. It is called “Kids of the Future”, a parody of “Kids in America”. There is even a version of “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” from the Disney attraction Carousel of Progress on the soundtrack, performed by They Might Be Giants. Though I like the majority of the soundtrack individually, I don’t think there is much cohesion with the music. It feels like there are too many big names in there, and all the styles are quite different. The best song for me is probably “Another Believer”. The score is good though, and I feel it helped me connect with the emotional scenes in particular.
RECEPTION
Meet the Robinsons was released a year later than expected, in March 2007, earning very little attention during its release. It made $169 million at the box office against a budget of $150 million, being seen as a “break-even” film[10]. Though it has since gained a reputation as a “cult classic” by some, it was not what Disney had hoped for the movie. Unfortunately, most people do not know this film, either having never seen or having never heard of it. It is not referenced in Disney merchandising and no characters are seen at the Disney theme parks. Or are they?
LEGACY
I thought Meet the Robinsons was completely ignored by Disney; however, I remembered that in actual fact, Bowler Hat Guy makes an appearance in Mickey’s Boo To You Halloween Parade. I saw the parade on YouTube one year, and thought: who is that guy? He’s supposedly a villain, but who is he? It wasn’t until years later, once I’d seen Meet the Robinsons for the first time, that I realised it was Bowler Hat Guy. He appears towards the end of the parade with the other villains, as one of the characters walking/dancing in front of the main villain float. In 2023, he was with Lady Tremaine, Oogie Boogie, Gaston, and Dr. Facilier, amongst others. I believe he has been a fixture in that parade since 2014, at least intermittently. The villains seem to be swapped out every year, so whether he continues to be a presence remains to be seen.
Lewis and Wilbur did appear as “meet-and-greet” characters when the film was first released for a while, at then-named Disney’s MGM Studios, now Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort, but have not been seen for many years, with the most recent sightings being at Disneyland Paris around 2018 for the Disney FanDaze event, along with Bowler Hat Guy. But there was a MagicBand released in 2022 for the movie’s 15th anniversary, with Lewis on one side and Bowler Hat Guy on the other. It is possible these three will appear once more, probably for Special Events, but if you’re desperate to see any character from Meet the Robinsons, seeing Bowler Hat Guy during Halloween is likely to be your best bet!
Meet the Robinsons was not a big success, and divided critics. Some said the movie was charming, with considerable depth, enjoying the plot twists; others were confused by some of the time-travel elements; and there were critics who said it was one of the worst Disney films ever released. It did not receive award nominations from the bigger academies, but was nominated for a couple of Annie Awards, as well as a few smaller ceremonies, mostly for the music.
A direct-to-video sequel was in the works, at least initially, with a title of Meet the Robinsons 2: First Date. This was cancelled by John Lasseter after he became Chief Creative Officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios, as he did with the plans for many other direct-to-video sequels that had been customary releases by Disney in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There was a video game based on the movie, unsurprisingly. More surprisingly, some of the characters featured within the 2023 short Once Upon a Studio, the 100th anniversary celebratory short for Disney animation, with Lucille, robot butler Carl, and Bowler Hat Guy being the easiest to spot. These lesser-known faces finally got to have their moment in the spotlight – even if it was just a few seconds.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Meet the Robinsons was a failure in some ways, and a success in others. It was Disney’s attempt to compete with the other animation studios, yet also trying to find a way to differentiate themselves. The movie gave Disney more confidence in the computer-animation medium which would help them immensely just a few years later. They tried a new concept by moving into science-fiction, which they hadn’t done before, and they got back to creating an emotional story, something the audience could connect with, rather than the comedy route they had previously gone down.
But most importantly, the film presents the audience with a significant message: “keep moving forward”. There were plenty of audience members who were touched by this and saw this movie at a time when they needed that message most. It is a shame that more people did not take something from it.
Meet the Robinsons tells us that the future is full of hope and possibilities if you can learn from your mistakes and failures instead of reliving them. It’s also a story of family, showing us that no matter how lost you feel, you can always find somewhere you belong.
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Shania Russell, ‘Meet the Robinsons at 15: An Oral History of Disney’s Underrated Gem’, SlashFilm (online), 28th December 2022.
[2] Credit: Disney, Inventing the Robinsons: The Making of Meet the Robinsons (2007).
[3] Credit: Scott Mendelson, ‘Walt Disney’s Most Underrated Cartoon Just Turned 15 Years Old’, Forbes (online), 31st March 2022.
[4] Credit: Shania Russell, ‘Meet the Robinsons at 15: An Oral History of Disney’s Underrated Gem’, SlashFilm (online), 28th December 2022.
[5] Credit: Jeff Ames, ‘Interview: Meet the Robinsons Director Stephen J. Anderson Discusses the Classic Disney Film’, ComingSoon.Net (online), 23rd August 2022.
[6] Credit: Mari Ness, ‘When Even Dinosaur Fights Aren’t Enough: Disney’s Meet the Robinsons’, Tor.com (online), 19th May 2016.
[7] Credit: Disney, Inventing the Robinsons: The Making of Meet the Robinsons (2007).
[8] Credit: Jeff Ames, ‘Interview: Meet the Robinsons Director Stephen J. Anderson Discusses the Classic Disney Film’, ComingSoon.Net (online), 23rd August 2022.
[9] Credit: Disney, Inventing the Robinsons: The Making of Meet the Robinsons (2007).
[10] Credit: Scott Mendelson, ‘Walt Disney’s Most Underrated Cartoon Just Turned 15 Years Old’, Forbes (online), 31st March 2022.
The Disney Purist 