Combining live-action sequences directed by the Farrelly brothers and animation directed by Piet Kroon and Tom Sito, the film stars the voices of Chris Rock, Laurence Fishburne, David Hyde Pierce, Brandy Norwood and William Shatner alongside Molly Shannon, Chris Elliott and Bill Murray in live-action roles.

It follows the titular character, an anthropomorphic white blood cell, as he teams up with a cold pill to protect his unhealthy human host from a deadly virus he unintentionally contracted.

Despite the poor financial response, the film was followed by the animated television series Ozzy & Drix, which aired on Kids' WB for two seasons and twenty-six episodes from 2002 to 2004.

This causes Frank to eat a boiled egg covered in chimp saliva, allowing Thrax, a deadly virus known mainly as "The Red Death," to enter his body and inflame his throat.

He launches a lone assault on the hypothalamus where he steals a crucial nucleotide, and then abducts Phlegmming's secretary, Leah Estrogen, before fleeing to the mouth to escape.

Clinging onto one of Shane's tears as she mourns her father, Ozzy falls back into Frank's mouth with the stolen nucleotide, reviving him just in time.

[citation needed] The first trailer for Osmosis Jones was released in front of Pokémon 3: The Movie on April 6, 2001, and contains a classical masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Feature Animation (preceded by The Iron Giant and followed by Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which both also failed at the box office upon their original releases).

[6] The animated parts of Osmosis Jones were praised for their plot and fast pace, in contrast with the criticized live-action segments.

[7] The New York Times wrote "the film, with its effluvia-festival brand of humor, is often fun, and the rounded, blobby rendering of the characters is likable.

[11] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly felt that the film had a diverse premise as it "oscillates between streaky black comedy and sanitary instruction"; however the scatological themes were again pointed out.

[12] Jonathan Foreman of New York Post claimed Osmosis Jones to have generic plotting, saying that "It's no funnier than your average grade-school biology lesson and less pedagogically useful than your typical Farrelly brothers comedy.

"[13] Michael Sragow of Baltimore Sun praised David Hyde Pierce's performance as Drix, claiming him to be "hilarious" and "a take-charge dose of medicine".

Ozzy & Drix, an animated series that serves as a stand-alone continuation of the film, starring Phil LaMarr and Jeff Bennett as the titular characters, aired on Kids' WB for two seasons and 26 episodes from September 14, 2002 to July 5, 2004.