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Llama Drama
Jimmy transforms Carl into another creature, catapulting his friend into a world of glamor, fame - and danger.
- GenresChildrens
61 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 29, 2024
Can I just say how amazing this book cover happens to be? It gets better the more you look at it. I don't know which is better - the nondescript grass texture that blankets the blank void that Carl, Jimmy, and the llamas are inhabiting, the fact that Jimmy's arm is weirdly overlapping the fence when he's supposed to be standing a couple feet behind it according to the ground's perspective, or Jimmy's really ecstatic face while he shoots his best friend in the back with a laser.
Ah, nothing like a small paperback made to cash in on a popular TV show you owned as a kid to read on a rainy day after you discover it in the garage. To my surprise, this book is not based off of a particular episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the hit 2000's era CGI show based off of the Nickelodeon movie about a kid with a massive peanut-shaped head, but it does follow the basic formula of your average episode from that show.
Meant for younger readers, the basic essence of Jimmy Neutron is distilled to its purest state. Jimmy Neutron, who has a head bigger than the rest of his body in order to communicate the fact that he is really really smart, has invented a new gadget that bends the laws of nature to his childish whims and he needs a guinea pig to test his highly unsafe invention. Luckily, he has two best friends who are dumb enough to be subjected to ghastly scientific experimentation over and over again; a rotund, allergy-infested loser named Carl, and a bug-eyed, superhero-obsessed loser named Sheen. In this story, Jimmy's victim of the day happened to be Carl.
What happens to Carl? Why, Jimmy Neutron convinces his friend through light bribery - if you let me experiment on you, you can write a killer school paper - to go to a zoo, sneak into one of the enclosures (something that is apparently very easy for these schoolchildren to do), and touch a llama. After he does so, Jimjam Jimmy Jimbo fires his Transformatron 4000 at him, horrifically melding Carl's human DNA with the llama's DNA and transforming him into a hideous human-faced llama/man chimera, neither truly boy nor truly llama, a creature that immediately invokes pity in the wrongness of its existence. The Carl llama never speaks, because if he did, it would either be wordless screams of agony or the ancient tongue of the Elder Gods.
Like in the TV series, something goes wrong with the invention and Jimmy Neutron has to race against the clock to fix his Transformatron 4000 and rescue Carl from a bizarre series of circumstances that involving stage magicians because, it turns out, if Carl stays a llama for too long, he'll be trapped a llama forever, just like Tobias in Animorphs. This is a side-effect that Jimmy Neutron knew ahead of time but didn't tell Carl, by the way.
Don't worry readers, the day is saved, with a light twist implying that Carl still has a little bit of llama inside his genetic make-up, but hey, he doesn't seem to mind too much that his friend almost trapped him in the body of a zoo animal for the rest of his life.
How much you'll enjoy the book depends on how much you like Jimmy Neutron. The drawings of the characters throughout the story are pretty accurate 2D depictions of their 3D models (and honestly, this artist absolutely nailed the unhinged feral energy that Sheen always radiates) and the storyline and the actions of the characters are definitely very lighthearted and very in tune with the show.
I was going to recommend it mainly to the kids that this book is aimed at, but considering that Jimmy Neutron hasn't been in regular TV circulation for quite some time, this book will probably mainly be read for nostalgia value by young adults at a far higher reading level.
Really, the main reason (dare I say it, the only reason) you should read this book is to see the scary Carl/llama monster, which must be seen to be believed.
Ah, nothing like a small paperback made to cash in on a popular TV show you owned as a kid to read on a rainy day after you discover it in the garage. To my surprise, this book is not based off of a particular episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the hit 2000's era CGI show based off of the Nickelodeon movie about a kid with a massive peanut-shaped head, but it does follow the basic formula of your average episode from that show.
Meant for younger readers, the basic essence of Jimmy Neutron is distilled to its purest state. Jimmy Neutron, who has a head bigger than the rest of his body in order to communicate the fact that he is really really smart, has invented a new gadget that bends the laws of nature to his childish whims and he needs a guinea pig to test his highly unsafe invention. Luckily, he has two best friends who are dumb enough to be subjected to ghastly scientific experimentation over and over again; a rotund, allergy-infested loser named Carl, and a bug-eyed, superhero-obsessed loser named Sheen. In this story, Jimmy's victim of the day happened to be Carl.
What happens to Carl? Why, Jimmy Neutron convinces his friend through light bribery - if you let me experiment on you, you can write a killer school paper - to go to a zoo, sneak into one of the enclosures (something that is apparently very easy for these schoolchildren to do), and touch a llama. After he does so, Jimjam Jimmy Jimbo fires his Transformatron 4000 at him, horrifically melding Carl's human DNA with the llama's DNA and transforming him into a hideous human-faced llama/man chimera, neither truly boy nor truly llama, a creature that immediately invokes pity in the wrongness of its existence. The Carl llama never speaks, because if he did, it would either be wordless screams of agony or the ancient tongue of the Elder Gods.
Like in the TV series, something goes wrong with the invention and Jimmy Neutron has to race against the clock to fix his Transformatron 4000 and rescue Carl from a bizarre series of circumstances that involving stage magicians because, it turns out, if Carl stays a llama for too long, he'll be trapped a llama forever, just like Tobias in Animorphs. This is a side-effect that Jimmy Neutron knew ahead of time but didn't tell Carl, by the way.
Don't worry readers, the day is saved, with a light twist implying that Carl still has a little bit of llama inside his genetic make-up, but hey, he doesn't seem to mind too much that his friend almost trapped him in the body of a zoo animal for the rest of his life.
How much you'll enjoy the book depends on how much you like Jimmy Neutron. The drawings of the characters throughout the story are pretty accurate 2D depictions of their 3D models (and honestly, this artist absolutely nailed the unhinged feral energy that Sheen always radiates) and the storyline and the actions of the characters are definitely very lighthearted and very in tune with the show.
I was going to recommend it mainly to the kids that this book is aimed at, but considering that Jimmy Neutron hasn't been in regular TV circulation for quite some time, this book will probably mainly be read for nostalgia value by young adults at a far higher reading level.
Really, the main reason (dare I say it, the only reason) you should read this book is to see the scary Carl/llama monster, which must be seen to be believed.
May 19, 2022
Carl wheeler toes so hot 🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵
May 16, 2023
I love reading books inspired by old cartoons. It's so fun reading in their funny voices
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews