Cute Kids And Robots - Television Tropes & Idioms

The death knell for any attempt at a serious science fiction show is the inclusion of a cute kid and/or a robot in the primary cast, especially if the show is supposed to be military-flavored. The robot is invariably too cutesy or smart-ass, or the kid too twee or saccharine, and the serious aspects of the show suffer for it. Sci-Fi version of A Boy And His Dog.

The adolescent version of the cute kid is the Teen Genius.

This trope's name comes from a 1991 posting on GENIE

(a now-defunct online service from General Electric) by Babylon 5 creator J Michael Straczynski, who promised the SF community that his show would have no cute kids or robots, ever.

Examples:

Twiki on Buck Rogers In The Twenty Fifth Century.
Boxey and Muffet (a double-whammy!) on the original Battlestar Galactica.
- Worse than Boxey and Muffet were the gang of "boy scouts" who ended up super-powered when visiting Earth on Galactica 1980.
- The 2000s Battlestar Galactica had a kid, Boxy, who was the son of the official sent to the armistice station and presumably the first human killed by the returning Cylons. He appeared for a couple of episodes, then simply vanished. Fans joked that "he was delicious". The writers claim he died of cholera. Meanwhile, the only robots on the show are a race of murderous killing machines. They're often sexy, but never cute.
K9 in Doctor Who, though K9 ended up as one of the show's most popular characters.
Subverted in Zone of The Enders: Dolores, I (A veteran pilot and a mecha with little girl personality).
Because of a film option taken out on the Human Torch (which never materialized), one animated version of The Fantastic Four had to replace him with "H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot".
Subversion: A cute kid did once show up on Babylon 5 (episode "Believers"). He was killed by his own parents for religious reasons before the end of the episode. Another came in later (episode: "Confessions and Lamentations"), and her species was driven to extinction before the end of the episode. A third discovers an assassin, gets shot, and lives just long enough to reveal the assassin's existence. Also featured were a sarcastic, wise-cracking AI voiced by Harlan Ellison (had its speaker shot, then got wiped from the computers) and an adorable plushy toy (Thrown Out The Airlock). J Michael Straczynski could be subtle when it suited him, but this was not one of those times.
In Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Anakin Skywalker annoyed many fans for being a blatant example of an Impossibly Lucky Cute Kid — who happened to build his own Robot Buddy.
- R2-D2 and C-3PO themselves are Cute Robots but get away with it because they're cool and iconic.
  - This Troper is part of that small, but not-as-small-as-you-think group which feel that R2-D2 and C-3PO are the worst cute robots of the lot.
In Steven Spielberg's film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, the kid was a Cute Robot Kid who wants to Become A Real Boy.
- Despite this, the movie was ridiculously dark and depressing (and long. So, so long...), to the point where comparisons to Neon Genesis Evangelion don't seem too far off. Seriously, it wouldn't have been much of a stretch if it did have a Kill Em All ending.
  - It technically did...
Does a take in Robocop 2, with the child crime lord who died in his arms. Also happens in the third film, when a young Japanese girl hacks an ED-209 security robot with her computer.
- Robocop: The Series, with a young girl named Gadget who hangs around Murphy all the time....
- ...and Robocop: Prime Directives, when Murphy hides out in Old Detroit, he helps a young girl find her mother, rogue Ann R. Key.
And let's not forget Will Robinson and his Robot on Lost In Space.
Cowboy Bebop uses a variant with Ed and Ein, a manic feral child and a "data dog". Neither are too cute to ruin the seriousness of the show, and their departure late in the series foreshadows that things are going to soon get very violent.
Parodied in South Park, when Cartman sent himself 700 years into the future to become the "time child" with his sidekick, a robotic dog whom he hates and tries to sell.
Louis Skolnick from Revenge of the Nerds and his robot.
Blitzy Zulander from The Bots Master, who is not only a skilled pilot due to her playing so many video games (and at only 10 years old), but also apparently designed and built the protagonists' gigantic combining robot, Jungle Fiver, from nearly scratch.
As with everything, parodied on Galaxy Angel, which adds to the original cast a robot and two cute kids, all three of which are found incredibly annoying to the main cast.
And, of course, let us not forget the reviled figure of Wesley Crusher, on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Data, however, managed to avoid the most irritating features of robottiness.
- Data was, however, irritating in his Fish Out Of Water act, which having the entire Wikipedia in his head, as well has living among humans for many years, was way overdone.
  - It makes sense if he had Wikipedia for a brain. Human interaction probably wasn't notable enough.
  - Probably counted as original research, too.
Transformers, in any incarnation, had the Cute Kid in some form or another, though it didn't really start becoming noticeable until Transformers Armada. Interestingly, the first known character to truly fit this tripe, Wheelie, was a Cute Kid and a Cute Robot... and yet, was a Transformer, and not a human like the others were.
- Transformers Animated averted this. While it did have a cute kid in the form of Sari, the fandom found her relatively acceptable. And then she turned out to be a cute kid and a robot.
The venerable Gundam has more than enough cute kids and robots in its many incarnations than anyone might to wish, being essentially Trope Codifier. Indeed, it was original Mobile Suit Gundam that introduced the much loved by producers and much resented by the viewers motif of three annoying rugrats with its trio of Katz, Letz and Kikka. Sure, this was justified by the ship being stuffed full of refugees, but this justification didn't make them any less annoying. It also features a cute robot in the form of Haro; however, it generally serves as little more than an advanced toy and a mascot for the Gundam franchise as a whole. Haro is actually popular enough that it is the only character to exist in more than one Alternate Universe.
- As is the Trope Overdosed Eureka7, which initially seemed to include Maurice, Maeter and Linck only in a homage to the original 0079 trio. Fortunately, in the second half of the series they underwent Character Development and not only got somewhat less annoying, but even managed to acquire some relevance to the plot.
- The reason why there are less kids was due to this guy: Katz Kobayashi. Being The Scrappy made sure one is more careful with cute kids. Sadly however, Gundam ZZ created the first instance of lolicon: Puru, and later her CLONE Puru Two. However, unlike Katz, both Purus are very well received.
In The Iron Giant the cute kid Hogarth Hughes discovers and befriends a giant robot who being both gigantic and robotic naturally attracts fear and ire from the 50s townsfolk and the inevitable nuclear angst ridden government agents and military that follow. It should be noted that the movie was based on the 1968 novel by Ted Hughes — The Iron Man — but the the trope is pushed much harder in the movie than the original novel. And it is great.
Subverted in Persona 3, where the cast is joined by cute grade schooler Ken Amada and Robot Girl Aegis — Ken turns out to have joined you to exact bloody vengeance on his mother's killer, another member of the party, and Aegis is emotionless and borders on stalking the main character — and is also a sleeper agent implanted by a human villain who eventually uses her to subdue the rest of you.
- There's also Pharos, who could hypothetically be constructed as cute... If he wasn't also extremely eerie-looking, visible only to the main character, and tends to teleport into your room at night to offer you cryptic foretellings about the end of the world... Not to mention that he's also the herald of the Anthropomorphic Personification of death.
Bokurano... Oooh, boy... Bokurano has fourteen cute kids and their wisecracking AI 'helper'. The kids are all broken mentally and killed off in rather horrid fashions, while the AI cracks wise at them as they do and seems to revel in their misery. And it's all played very straight.
Legend Of Galactic Heroes has Admiral Cazellnu's daughters, although they don't appear much outside the ending songs.
Naomi Wildman in Star Trek Voyager, despite being very cute and helping save the ship at one point, seemed to avoid the negative consequences of being such a trope. Per the trope, spent most of her time hanging out with the robot-analogue Seven of Nine. Possibly by being a Morality Pet.
Metal Gear Solid 4 manages to include Sunny (the kid) and the Metal Gear MK II (the robot) from the outset. And remains deadly serious thoughout.
The Tachikoma ruined Ghost In The Shell SAC for This Troper.
- Although the Tachikoma are definitely robots and might be considered childish, they also think that killing people is fun in the right circumstances, and are genuinely upset when unable to use their heavy weapons package.
Ergo Proxy has a cute kid Robot Girl, Pino, but she certainly doesn't make the show any less bleak.
The Braves series. Just the Braves Series.
Sharply parodied in MST3K, with Timmy Bobby Rusty (Paul Chaplin), as Dr. Forrester tries to boost the show's lagging ratings.
The Cyantian Chronicles: In spades. And more lovable for it.
- The cute kids (or should I say "cubs") are easy to spot. The robots aren't as common, but there are the oh so cute Familiars. And the smaller forms of certain Xaibars.
Non sci-fi example: Rocky IV has a cute kid, AND a frickin' robot who does chores and crap. And the sharks did jump.
Big O, for being Batman with giant robots subverts this because it isn't cutesy, and is a very psychological show.