History Film / Daryl

* AIIsACrapshoot: Inverted. The expected "super soldier" became a kind human being.

* ArmiesAreEvil: The military is the main antagonist of the show, wanting to destroy Daryl and build an adult SuperSoldier version without the human emotions that Daryl demonstrates like friendship and fear.
* ArtificialHuman: Daryl has an artificially grown organic body almost identical to a human body. He eats, sleeps and even grows. What makes him robotic is his computer brain. One could say that he is a {{Cyborg}} in that he mixes organic and robotic, but unlike most cyborgs the robotic part is not an addition to an already existing human.

* AwardBaitSong: "Somewhere I Belong" as performed by the late Teddy Pendergrass with music by the late Music/MarvinHamlisch and lyric by Dean Pitchford--neither a stranger to this.
* BadassDriver: Daryl learns how to become one by [[TaughtByTelevision watching a TV show about a stunt drivers,]] and demonstrates these skills during a ChaseScene on the interstate.
* BaseballEpisode: Daryl's foster parent is a baseball coach, so when Daryl demonstrates that he is an InstantExpert with batting, Daryl is put on the team for the BigGame against the OpposingSportsTeam that has always beaten them in the past. [[spoiler: Daryl's batting skills givens his team an early lead, but when he quits, it come [[DownToTheLastPlay Down to the Last Pitch]] and Turtle makes the winning hit.]]

* CoolCar: Dr. Stewart's 1985 Ford [=LTD=] [=LX=] sedan. Basically a civilian version of the Ford LTD police cruiser. He smuggles Daryl out underneath the backseat and Daryl himself drives the car like he stole it to elude their pursuers. They're later forced to leave the car behind at a farmer's house after running out of gas and take an older truck. They leave a note apologizing for the trouble, tell the truck's owner that he can keep the car and leaves him $10 for the gas.
-->'''Dr. Stewart:''' ''(opens the truck's hood to hotwire it)'' Oh boy. He's getting one hell of a deal.
* CoolPlane: The SR-71. Which in RealLife [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality could not be started on the ground without a large and complex "starter cart" to spin the engines to speed and took off with very little fuel]] due to leaky fuselage tanks at normal temperature, being filled up with fuel in flight.

* CutLexLuthorACheck: They've cloned a human body, put a brain into it. These are HUGE steps, but the military is just interested in destroying Daryl and getting a super soldier.
* EmergentHuman: Either that or PersonalityChip. Daryl develops the ability to feel emotions, express subjective preferences, make friendships, empathize with other people, enjoys things like ice cream and baseball, etc.

* GoodWithNumbers: Not suprisingly, considering he has a robotic computer for a brain, Daryl can do very advanced mathematics with little effort.

* MeatSackRobot: This is what Daryl is. He is a computer brain, placed in an organic body (how they actually made the body isn't much touched on).

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Turtle, apparently. It's not clear if this is his real name, but it's unlikely it's his given name.
* PrecisionFStrike: Like so many other family films in the 80s, this one also has its share of profanity.

* RobotKid: Daryl. Or at least the "robot" part is his brain.
* SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining: Not exactly. It is more of a case of having lots of Awesome Training but not the one particular set of Awesome Training needed at the moment. [[spoiler: When the scientist that created him is shot and dying, he expresses regret that he was never given medical programming that would have allowed him to save the scientist's life. TearJerker time.]]
* ScienceIsBad: Subverted, if not inverted. The scientists that created him are the ones arguing that Daryl has become more than an experiment, and that shutting him down would be equivalent to murder.

* SuperIntelligence: Daryl presents the appearance of having SuperIntelligence, although it turns out to be more of a case of Super ArtificialIntelligence.

* SuperSoldier: The Youth Lifeform project was a prototype for a military adult SuperSoldier project.

* TheTrapParents: Subverted. Dr. Stewart and Dr. Lamb are Daryl's creators, so they technically count as his parents, but with the military interested in replacing Daryl with a super soldier of sorts, they decided to send him back to the Richardsons.
* WhatAPieceOfJunk: Dr. Stewart laments giving up his brand-new [=LTD=] for an older and rather worse-for-wear-looking Ford pickup, but the truck proves itself to the protagonists. [[spoiler:It even serves as a battering ram at a police roadblock and keeps going, suffering only minor damage. The police car it rams into has its rear wheel broken off the axle, disabling it.]]
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: The military has no problems with thinking of Daryl as a simple machine, easily disposed of without any moral qualms, however the scientists that created him come to view him as having real personhood and equal value to a human.

* CranialProcessingUnit: It is his robotic brain which makes Daryl a robot, and it is located in his skull where a normal brain would be. [[spoiler:When he seemingly drowns at the climax, Turtle points out that a robot brain ''can't'' drown to assure the rest of his family that Daryl is only undergoing a DisneyDeath... and sure enough, Daryl shows up shortly afterwards, having WakeUpAtTheMorgue.]]

* PrecisionFStrike: Like so many other family films in the 80s, this one also has it’s share of profanity.

%% * AdorablyPrecociousChild: Daryl demonstrates some (but not all) of the characteristics of the trope.

%% * CarSkiing: Daryl does this when driving through heavy traffic.

%% * OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Turtle, apparently, unless the writers really intended that to be his name.

%% * RidiculouslyHumanRobots: Daryl, both in appearance and personality.

* TheTrapParents: Subverted. Dr. Stewart and Dr. Lamb are Daryl’s creators, so they technically count as his parents, but the military interested in replacing Daryl with a super soldier of sorts, they decided to send him back to the Richardsons.

* AwardBaitSong: "Somewhere I Belong" as performed by the late Music/TeddyPendergrass with music by the late Music/MarvinHamlisch and lyric by Dean Pitchford--neither a stranger to this.

* AwardBaitSong: "Somewhere I Belong" as performed by the late Music/TeddyPendergass with music by the late Music/MarvinHamlisch and lyric by Dean Pitchford--neither a stranger to this.

A 1985 ScienceFiction film directed by Simon Wincer, starring Mary Beth Hurt, Creator/MichaelMcKean, Kathryn Walker, Creator/ColleenCamp, and Barret Oliver in the title role.

* WhatAPieceOfJunk: Dr. Stewart laments giving up his brand-new [=LTD=] for an older and rather worse-for-wear-looking Ford pickup, but the truck proves itself to the protagonists. [[spoiler:It even serves as a battering ram at a police roadblock.]]

* RoadBlock: While making their escape, Daryl and Dr. Stewart spot one up ahead; it's just one car and one cop, but as Stewart points out, that's enough. Daryl sneaks out of the truck; while Stewart bluffs his way past the cop, Daryl removes all the fuses from his car, ensuring that he can't follow them if he realizes anything's up. [[spoiler:Unfortunately there's a ''second'' block just up the road, and the first cop, having spotted Daryl fleeing from the scene, had warned the second one that they were coming. The truck smashes its way through, but Stewart is fatally shot in the process.]]