Film / Re-Animated

Created by Adam Pava and Tim McKeon to serve as Cartoon Network's first foray into live-action programming, Re-Animated is a 2006 live-action/animated comedy Made-for-TV Movie that serves as the pilot for Out of Jimmy's Head.

During a class trip to Gollyworld, after being coerced by both the popular kids and his clout-chasing best friend, put-upon middle schooler Jimmy Roberts (Dominic James) finds himself searching one of the attractions for the frozen brain of deceased animator Milt Appleday. When his half-hearted search has him encounter Sonny Appleday (Matt Knudsen), Milt's middle-aged son who is searching for the brain himself for some nefarious goal, Jimmy quickly flees and is hit by an amusement park train in the process. At an on-premises hospital, the doctors realize that the child requires an emergency brain transplant and, naturally, the only brain available is the one from the very much true urban legend. Jimmy survives the operation with his personality and memories intact, but he soon discovers he can now see all of Appleday's characters in real life.

Now badgered by Appleday's most famous creations — namely the egotistical Golly Gopher (Paul Reubens), his kind girlfriend Dolly Gopher (Ellen Greene), the show-witted Crocco the Alligator (Brian Posehn), stand-up comedian Tux the Penguin (Tom Kenny), and the silently violent Pickles and Prickles — Jimmy struggles to navigate his new life between Sonny's schemes to steal his brain and Golly's plans to reclaim his greatness by having Jimmy become head of the animation studio.

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Re-Animated contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Milt Appleday treated Sonny as his least favorite child, even though he was an only child.
• All Animation Is Disney: invoked Milt Appleday not only created this universe's version of Mickey Mouse and friends, but also Captain Ersatzes of Tom and Jerry and the Transformers.
• Anthropomorphic Food: Pickles, who is naturally an anthropomorphic pickle.
• Artistic License – Biology: Even ignoring the idea that a brain transplant is even possible, the brain surgery is done within hours and without even cutting Jimmy's hair. On top of that, considering it's someone else's brain entirely, not even transplanting Jimmy's "personality gland" would make him the same person he was before.
• Artistic License – Physics: Done deliberately, for Rule of Funny, with the train that necessitated Jimmy's surgery and threw him several meters into the air being even slower than most similar amusement park trains.
• Audience-Alienating Era: invoked Sonny Appleday attempted to put Golly and his friends through a Totally Radical makeover that included Special Effects Failure and Synchro-Vox. Golly is mortified upon seeing this, and it's why Sonny was fired. 30 years later.
• Brain in a Jar: Milt Appleday's brain, though instead of being hidden underneath the "Tux's Arctic Adventure" ride as per the urban legends, it was preserved in a lunch cooler for thirty years by one of the park's theme park actors/surgeons.
• Brain Transplant: Jimmy is hit by a train and the only way to save him is transplanting the brain of the company founder.
• Bumbling Dad: Jimmy's dad. He's a complete manchild whose Establishing Character Moment shows him eating cereal that is literally just cubes of sugar and laughing at cartoons when he was supposed to be taking Jimmy to school. Where he also works as a guidance counselor. He's also shown to be incredibly goofy on occasions, such as drawing a woman's face on his stomach and making it talk to Jimmy.
• Cement Shoes: Prickles and Pickles do this to Jimmy to stop him from giving up his seat to a rude classmate.
• Dastardly Whiplash: Sonny, in spades.
• Deus ex Machina: Jimmy's alien half-sister Yancy zaps Sonny away during the climax of the movie, when her brother is about be attacked. She does mention having some random powers, like receiving AM radio, but nothing like that.
• Deal with the Devil: The plot gets set in motion after Jimmy agrees to let the toons help him stick up for himself, in return for making them famous again.
• Extreme Doormat: Jimmy is shown to be this case for everyone at his school, including his best friend, due to his inability to stand up for himself.
  Tux: Poor Jimmy, you should really change your name to "Matt". Because you're getting walked all over! Zing!
• Freudian Excuse: Being neglected by his father and seen as his "least favorite son" despite being an only child, it's no wonder Sonny's not exactly sane.
• Hair Reboot: Despite having brain surgery, Jimmy's hair is perfectly intact.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  Golly: Aw, don't worry about Craig, that guy only cares about himself, now Golly, let's get back to making me famous!
• Illogical Safe: The toons introduce themselves after jumping out of a safe that crashed on Jimmy's head.
• Inspired by…: As part of the wider spoofing of Walt Disney, the whole "founder's brain hidden in the theme park" angle is based on an urban legend which states that Walt Disney's body was cryogenically frozen after he died and hidden underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland.
• It's All About Me:
  • Golly was already egotistical, but he gets worse when he sees how the low quality of cartoons created after Milt Appleday's death have begun to damage his public image.
  • Craig too, he constantly uses Jimmy for his own advantages and isn't interested in what he has to hear, treating him more like a lackey than a friend.
• Jerkass: Both Craig and Golly start out like this. They get better later.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Golly is an egotistical jackass at his worse, but he's not wrong when pointing out that hasn't stopped being complete pushover who is never able to say no, finally making him internalize what Robin has been trying to make him realize.
• Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy: When Jimmy's classmates try to force him to search for Milt Appleday's brain, one of them invokes this trope in order to convince him that the urban legend is true.
• Manchild: Jimmy's dad. He's too preoccupied eating sugary cereal and laughing at cartoons to remember to finish getting dressed or to take his son to school (where he also works).
• Mixtape of Love: Jimmy decides to impress Robin by burning a mix CD, something that his cartoon friends, who haven't been able to roam about since the 1970s, have never heard of.
• Narcissist: Milt Appleday comes across as this in archival recordings.
  Milt Robot: Hiya, kids! I'm Milt Appleday, the greatest man who ever lived!

• Nonindicative Name: Crocco is actually an alligator. It's apparently a family name.
• Ocular Gushers: Dolly "floods" Jimmy's kitchen this way upon coming to the conclusion he hates her.
• Rescue Romance: Happens twice, with both being examples of Chained to a Railway. The first time is with Golly and Dolly, shown in a cartoon at the beginning of the film, which is later echoed during the film's climax with Jimmy and Robin.
• Running Gag:
  • All Belgians are really good jugglers, for some reason.
  • Jimmy's classmates has many pets, with him showing off a new one in very scene he appears in.
• Simpleton Voice: Crocco, courtesy of Brian Posehn.
• Synchro-Vox: Used briefly. Overlaps with in-universe Special Effects Failure when we see the ''Golly Raps'' cartoon that Sonny created.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Lampshaded. When first meeting the group, Jimmy (who isn't really a fan of cartoons), questions why there are two Gollys. Golly is offended and claims his and his girlfriend look nothing alike, while Crocco stage whispers that the only way he can tell the duo apart himself is the bow.
• Tie-In Cereal: Invoked. To showcase Jimmy's dad as a Manchild, he is introduced watching a Golly Gopher cartoon while eating Golly Gopher-branded cereal called "Sugar Cube Crunchems". As the name would imply, the cereal is basically just a bowl of sugar-cubes that he pours a whole bag of sugar onto.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: It's implied that what Sonny really wants is his father to not see him as that "little booger".
• Willing Suspension of Disbelief: As fitting for a Live-Action Cartoon world, you just need to accept that a kid gets a brain transplant, ends up seeing cartoons in his head, and no one is all that concerned about it.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Sonny. He was seen as a screw-up by his father, pushed around by his coworkers and despite his attempts to carry on his father's legacy, he was seen as a failure and a joke for his initial (admittedly bad) attempt. It's hard to blame him for losing his mind the way he did.
• Would Hurt a Child: Sonny has no problem trying to decapitate or run a 12-year-old over with a train.