Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a 2001 American animated science fiction comedy film produced by Nickelodeon Movies, O Entertainment and DNA Productions, and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

The film follows the title character, a schoolboy with super-genius intelligence, who must save all of the parents of his hometown from a race of egg-like aliens known as the Yolkians.

A 40-second demo was animated using LightWave 3D and gained popularity at the 1995 SIGGRAPH convention, garnering the attention of Oedekerk and leading DNA Productions to develop an extended TV pilot.

Due to its success, the film was continued into an animated television series called The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, which premiered on July 20, 2002, and ended on November 25, 2006.

Eleven-year-old boy genius Jimmy Neutron lives in Retroville with his parents, Judy and Hugh, and his robot dog, Goddard.

Jimmy's friends are overweight Carl Wheezer and hyperactive Sheen Estevez, and his long-standing rival, intelligent classmate Cindy Vortex, teases him for his small stature.

After Jimmy launches a communications satellite into space, hoping to contact alien life, he crashes his makeshift rocket into his house's roof, upsetting his mother.

Taking Nick's advice, Jimmy uses his shrink ray invention to sneak out and meets Carl and Sheen at Retroland for a night of fun.

Their leader, King Goobot, views Jimmy's message and notices a picture featuring his parents, declaring his search complete.

After braving a meteor shower and camping on an asteroid, Jimmy and company eventually reach Yolkus and find the parents with mind control devices attached to their heads.

Using a cellphone owned by Cindy's friend, Libby Folfax, Jimmy contacts Goddard, who escapes from Ooblar and frees the children.

Jimmy and company reach the Yolkians' Colosseum where a giant egg is hatched, releasing Poultra, a gigantic three-eyed alien chicken.

As Goobot arranges the parents to be eaten using a mind control remote, Jimmy rallies the children to storm the colosseum and battle the guards while Sheen retrieves an escape vessel, which knocks Poultra on the head upon his return.

In a mid-credits scene, the still-shrunken Miss Fowl is seen riding on an apple worm, named Mr. Wiggles, on her way to the cafeteria in the elementary school hall.

The idea for a series about a boy with super-genius powers was first conceived in the 1980s by John A. Davis, who scripted and storyboarded a short narrative titled Runaway Rocketboy, centering around a character named Johnny Quasar (inspired by a facetious nickname that his summer co-workers had coined for him in his youth)[3] who builds a rocket ship and runs away from his parents.

[3] Around the same time, Davis' Dallas-based studio, DNA Productions, had just begun experimenting with the use of computer animation after obtaining copies of LightWave 3D.

After watching the demo, as well as seeing the show bible which Davis and Alcorn had developed, Oedekerk expressed interest in helping to pitch their concept to different networks.

[4][6] With a budget of roughly $30 million, production of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius was greenlit in Fall 1999, and work began on a script for the film.

[4] The film was largely inspired by Davis' own love of science fiction which he had since childhood, drawing influence from various sources including Thunderbirds and Ray Harryhausen's stop motion work.

Incidentally, they changed the character's nationality to Mexican after opening the role to a broader category and eventually settling on Mexican-American stand-up comic Jeff Garcia.

[5] According to Davis, the character models were intentionally given a "sculpted, graphic look," both to avoid making them look overly realistic and to circumvent the prospect of having to deal with simulating cloth or hair.

[5] Nancy Cartwright, Pamela Adlon and E. G. Daily were all considered for the role of Jimmy Neutron before Debi Derryberry was cast for the film and subsequent series.

[10][11][12] It includes covers of DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince's "Parents Just Don't Understand", Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science", and Kim Wilde's "Kids In America".

[15][16] A "viral" campaign was also designed, consisting of Jimmy mischievously appearing during Nickelodeon shows – such as Rugrats, SpongeBob SquarePants and Taina – and altering them with his zapping device.

[22] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post praised the film, saying that "this little charmer both celebrates and kids the corny conventions of family sitcoms".

[23] Nell Minow of Common Sense Media enjoyed the "stylish 3-D computer animation, good characters", giving the film 3 out of 5 stars.

[26] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, saying that "it doesn't have the little in-jokes that make Shrek and Monsters, Inc. fun for grown-ups.

A simulator ride called Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast opened at Universal Studios Florida on April 4, 2003, and operated until August 18, 2011.

Producer Albie Hecht reported to The Los Angeles Times that the sequel "would be made on the same budget as the first, but with a new batch of inventions and adventures in Jimmy's town of Retroville.

[30] The film was cancelled because the writers could not agree on a story and Alcorn later stated in an interview that "once the TV series came out, there wasn't a lot of incentive to make a movie when fans could simply watch Jimmy Neutron for free at home.