Welcome new subscribers! We are taking a break in our story as I frantically finish the last book in the Horrible Bag trilogy. You can read all existing chapters of the Teenage Robot story (and other newsletters) by clicking the link below

https://robrenzetti.com/newsletter-archive/

This week we finish with the pages from the original My Life as a Teenage Robot show bible.

The Features page was my attempt to give the execs an idea of what the "rules" of the world look like. The reality in a sci-fi show can look very much like our own world or be something very otherworldly. So I tried to give them (and my crew) some idea of the parameters in our show.  I'm also addressing possible worries about violence. Action shows were a relatively new phenomenon at Nickelodeon, and I'd just finished working on Samurai Jack where robots were sliced up on a regular basis, their "oil" (blood) spilled in gratuitous amounts. I'm letting them know that I'm going to be much lighter with the violence and not resort to hand-to hand combat in every battle. Though Jenny did end up having her share of fistfights. (Yay!)

This last page is basically a discussion of format - most episodes will have two eleven minute segments. I leave open the possibility of twenty-two minute stories and holiday specials, though neither of these were greenlit yet.

The rest of the bible is short descriptions of the episodes from season one, the first of which you see here. They were used by various departments for different reasons and were tacked onto the document later on. The very earliest version of the bible would've had just a few of these. I think Raggedy Android and Class Action were included. Unfortunately the file format of that version is so out-of-date that I can no longer open it.

That's it for the Teenage Robot show bible. I hope you enjoyed this peek into the creative process. Something new next week!