Development began in 2002,[5] with production underway starting in 2004, under the working title A Day with Wilbur Robinson, with a release initially slated for 2006.

His energy, eccentricity, and malfunctioning inventions frequently scare off prospective parents, so he embarks on a mission to locate his birth mother, who left him at the orphanage when he was an infant.

While taking the memory scanner to his school's science fair, Lewis meets Wilbur Robinson, a mysterious boy who claims to be from the future.

Lewis accidentally goes up the tube and ends up meeting the rest of the Robinson family except for Cornelius, Wilbur's father and the inventor of the time's technologies, who is away on a business trip.

Because he was repeatedly kept awake during Lewis' work on the scanner, Goob fell asleep during a Little League baseball game and failed to make an important catch, costing his team the championship.

Leaving Lewis in the future, they return to the past and enact their plan, successfully pitching the memory scanner and subsequently mass-producing Helping Hats.

Lewis repairs the second time machine, and confronts Goob and Doris in the past, and invalidates her existence by vowing to never invent her, restoring the future and Wilbur.

Cornelius laboratory room explains how the memory scanner started their successful career, and persuades Lewis to return to the science fair.

Lewis heads to the fair, realizing he had to wake Goob up at the baseball field just in time for him to make the winning catch, averting his future.

In addition, Joe Robinson is Wilbur's obese uncle, Billie's husband, and Bud and Fritz' brother who rides in an easy chair, his whimpers are provided by an uncredited actor.

[8][9][10] Prior to Disney's involvement, Joyce had pitched the story to various filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, George Miller, Peter Jackson, Francis Ford Coppola and Diane Keaton as a potential live-action movie.

[11] Pre-production of the film was first unveiled during SIGGRAPH 2001 where a character resembling Lewis was showcased in a tech demo for "Project Gemini".

While still taking cues from his retro style, influenced by everything from Technicolor movies to '40s architectural design, the crew also took inspiration from the company Apple.

They also took inspiration from Disney animated classics, such as Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and Peter Pan, and from Warner Brothers cartoons to capture the 1950s aesthetic.

When he saw an early screening for the movie, he told Anderson that he did not find the villain scary or threatening enough, and suggested that he make some changes.

The website's consensus reads: "Meet the Robinsons is a visually impressive children's animated film marked by a story of considerable depth.

[25] Realmovienews stated that it has "a snappy plot that demands close attention as it whizzes back and forth in the space-time continuum, touching on serious ideas and proposing some rather disturbing alternate realities.

[26] Danny Minton of the Beaumont Journal said that "The Robinsons might not be a family you want to hang out with, but they sure were fun to meet in this imaginative and beautiful 3-D experience".

It includes four original songs written for the film, performed by Rufus Wainwright, Jamie Cullum, and Rob Thomas.

The track "Little Wonders", recorded by Thomas, reached number 5 on the Billboard AC chart and the top 20 in Australia and Canada.

The song "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" was originally from the Disneyland attraction General Electric's Carousel of Progress which was located in Tomorrowland.

[34] Disneytoon Studios originally planned to make a direct-to-video sequel to the film, tentatively titled Meet the Robinsons 2: First Date.