Cubix is an animated television series created by Cinepix. Set in 2044, it follows a boy, named Connor, who is fascinated with robots and lives with his father, Graham in Bubble Town, a robot-abundant city that is a center for robotics corporation RobixCorp.
4Kids Entertainment acquired the North American rights to the series, with an English-language dub produced by 4Kids Productions to the series in 2001 shortly after the show debuted in August, retaining them until their transfer to Saban Brands, a subsidiary of Saban Capital Group in June 2012. In the United States, it aired on Kids' WB from August 11, 2001, until May 10, 2003.
Cubix was created by the Korean company called Cinepix and licensed by 4Kids Entertainment in North America, and aired for two seasons on Kids' WB!, lasting from August 11, 2001, to May 10, 2003. In May 2001, 4Kids teamed up with a major quick-service restaurant (QSR) to promote the show. The promotion ran for five weeks nationwide. The show had toys in Burger King kids meals and at retail stores. Trendmasters had the toy license to the series. Jakks Pacific also had the licensing agreement for the toy line.
The show has been the theme of three video games: , Clash 'n' Bash, and Race 'n' Robots.
The total budget for the series was .
Cubix, taking place in the futuristic year of 2044, is the story of a bright-eyed young boy named Connor with a deep fascination for robots. His father, Graham, who dislikes all robots, has never truly been supportive of his efforts. That is, until they move to Bubble Town, a city with "as many robots as people," and the location of RobixCorp. The reason for RobixCorp's global success is the EPU (Emotion Processing Unit), which allows a robot to develop their own unique personality, just like a human being.
Now that Connor's dream has finally come true, he finds himself with one really big problem: everyone in Bubble Town owns a robot, except him. Shortly after his arrival, he meets his nosy neighbor Abby, who sends her flying pet robot, Dondon, to spy on him. Graham, being not so fond of a robot spying on him, attempts to capture Dondon. During his escape, he crashes into Connor, knocking him out. A worried Abby, along with Connor, hop onto her hover scooter, rushing for the one place in town that can fix her friend.
Here, Connor meets Hela, who runs a repair shop called The Botties' Pit. However, to become an employee, he has to fix a robot in less than 24 hours. Of all the robots he could have chosen, Connor picks Cubix, a one of a kind test model referred to as the 'Unfixable Robot.' The Botties all tried to repair him, especially Hela, who could never quite throw him out. Cubix is the one memory left of her father, Professor Nemo, who invented the EPU. Sadly, he vanished after an experiment with a highly volatile substance known as Solex.
Suddenly, a rogue robot inventor named Dr. K runs off with a stolen robot, leaving the Botties' Pit on the verge of collapse. Connor races back inside in a final effort to save Cubix, leaving him trapped inside. This act of kindness jumpstarts Cubix's EPU, bringing him back to life. With only a moment to spare, Cubix saves Connor from the collapsing building. It was never a matter of hardware; rather, of heart, that fixed the "Unfixable Robot". Therefore, Connor passed the test, earning him a place in the club.
That was not the only surprise Cubix had in store, with his amazing design he can transform into virtually anything. Along with their new friends, Connor and Cubix face up against Dr. K to take back the kidnapped bot.
This series follows the adventures and discoveries of the group, as they unravel Dr. K.'s conspiracy and the disappearance of Professor Nemo.
Solex was stated to have been discovered after an alien spacecraft crashed outside of RobixCorp, shortly before Professor Nemo's disappearance. It has two forms; the glowing electric blue liquid form prone to random energy fluctuations, and the more stable crystallized form used in most robots. The story suggests that it has a psychic nature as it reacts to sentient thoughts and emotions, even those of robots' EPUs. Solex in both liquid and crystallized form is capable of producing immense power. In its crystallized form, its "radioactive" glow is similar to pure isolated radium.
In the first season, Dr. K forcibly collects Solex from infected robots to utilize in his ultimate plan with the aid of an alien disguising itself as Raska, the RobixCorp spokeswoman, who it is implied to have killed to assume her identity. It is suspected that Solex was originally discovered by Prof. Nemo, who fearing the misuse of its power, separated the liquid Solex into small doses, placing it into random robots (or that the explosion in his lab the day he disappeared caused the Solex he was experimenting with to be transferred into the robots that were in his lab at the time).
Liquid Solex, however, produces unexpected effects in robots; this is referred to as Solex infection. As the EPU is placed under heavy stress or emotions, the uncontrollable energy reaction of the liquid Solex within them causes them to malfunction and go berserk. Besides the behavioral malfunction, the infected robot also gains extreme power far beyond its normal capabilities. This extreme power has the ability to overload the host and cause self-destruction unless the Solex is removed, the robot is deactivated, or its energy levels return to normal.
In the beginning of the first season, the Botties were unaware of Dr. K's reasons for chasing after robots, but eventually learned of the existence of Solex and soon began racing Dr. K in the search, intercepting the last few robots to safely obtain it themselves before he could extract it. Dr. K's plans were delayed when Kan-It unintentionally absorbed half the Solex he had collected, which ultimately ended up in the possession of the Botties. Needing more, Dr. K launched an attack on the Botties Pit to steal the Solex they had obtained, only for Cubix to drive them off while revealing that he possessed crystallized Solex. Changing tactics, Dr. K and the alien devised a plan to deactivate Cubix and take some of his Solex crystals, which they were able to pull off by deceiving the Botties into accepting a gift of explosives from Raska that were disguised as protective robots. Adding Cubix's crystallized Solex to the liquid Solex he already possessed, Dr. K was able to power a humongous EPU he had created, which he then used to transform his HQ into the Kulminator, an enormous robot. In the end, Cubix sacrificed himself to defeat the Kulminator and explode the Solex within them both, scattering it across Bubble Town. Cubix would then be revived by absorbing the scattered Solex (obtaining the ability to speak on his own in the process), ending the threat of Solex for good.
The titular Cubix is a one of a kind robot built before Professor Nemo's disappearance, who is found deactivated without visible damage, but no way to reactivate him either. He is introduced as part of Connor's initiation ceremony as the robot he chooses to fix. However, he cannot get Cubix to work until Dr. K appears to retrieve Solex from a robot. Connor brings Cubix back to life, just as the building they are in starts to fall apart. His body is made out of a number of cubes, giving him a versatile modular function- by restructuring himself and using different gadgets within the cubes, he can transform into a hover bike, an airplane, a helicopter and plenty more. He can even fly causing no need to transform into a vehicle. Hidden in each cube there is a different gadget with a solution to almost every serious situation. When it comes to fighting, Cubix is exceptionally strong, but often relies on his transformation ability and eccentric strategies to win. He is powered by a generator that runs off crystallized Solex, which is rumored to be the ultimate power source, but nobody knows exactly how it works. Cubix's body is also constructed out of a highly resistant metal that is capable of withstanding devastating amounts of damage without breaking and reversing the effects of rust. He also has additional parts that when added to his structure can increase his strength. Cubix's modular cubes contain special items that may contribute to the transformations like a Glue gun, ForceField generator, and an extra arm. The orange discs on cubix's body can separate and hit enemies with a shock on impact. Cubix can control his body parts to attack enemies when he is pinned and if he has enough energy he is able to generate a small forcefield on his chest to prevent enemies from getting to his power source.
Cubix is a friendly and helpful robot, but lacks speech capability, while speaking seems to be common place among other robots. Usually he just repeats what people around him say, and uses the LED display where his eyes usually are to communicate emotions. However, later in the series this improves greatly and he becomes capable of forming sentences and dialogues, and once he regains the crystallized Solex at the end of the season 1 finale, he repossesses the capacity for independent speech, He uses less of his abilities as the series goes on; however, this may be due to not having as much Solex after fighting Kulminator.
On March 9, 2001, it was announced that Kids' WB (The WB) had picked up the series for its 2001-02 broadcast season. The series premiered on Kids' WB on August 11. The series was renewed for a second season on March 4, 2002. The series ended on May 10, 2003, with reruns continuing until the end of the summer.
On May 22, 2003, 4Kids announced that reruns would move to their FoxBox strand on Fox for the 2003-04 broadcast season. The move was done to help Fox affiliates provide a half-hour of educational and informational programming. The series ran on the block from August 27, 2003, until June 12, 2004.
The series returned to broadcast on the Toonzai block on The CW on July 24, 2010. This was also done to comply with E/I requirements, with the series replacing Winx Club (which previously fulfilled E/I criteria for the block, but was pulled once 4Kids lost the license) in its schedule. In 2012, the license for Cubix was purchased by Saban Brands, and the series aired on the Vortexx block, but was removed after four weeks on September 22, 2012, and replaced with another episode of Rescue Heroes. The show was pulled in late 2014 before a Litton Entertainment-produced live-action block replaced Vortexx.
Since September 2007, the show has been streaming online, being uploaded in its entirety as of early 2008, first on the now-defunct 4Kids.TV website and then on Hulu.
The series was first broadcast in its native Korea on SBS on April 18, 2002, less than a year after premiering in the US.
In October 2001, Lacey Entertainment pre-sold Pay-TV rights in the UK to Cartoon Network for a February 2002 airing window. CBBC picked up free-TV rights shortly afterward. The series premiered on Cartoon Network on February 11, 2002, and became a ratings hit in the country on both networks upon its terrestrial premiere. In May 2010, the series began airing on Pop.
Cartoon Network would also pick up pay-TV rights for Scandinavia and Poland. Later picking up additional pay-TV rights for Hungary and Romania, which were planned to launch as additional audio feeds for the Polish version of the network later on in the year.
On November 28, 2001, TF1 and Mediaset picked up free-TV rights in France and Italy. Before that, the series had also been pre-sold to Star Channel (Greece), SIC (Portugal), Nickelodeon (Latin America), Globo TV (Brazil) and Foxtel (Australia). In July 2002, DR (Denmark), TV 2 (Norway) and MTV3 (Finland) picked up free-TV rights for Nordic territories.
On July 22, 2001, 4Kids entered into a promotion with Burger King to supply Cubix toys within their Big Kids Meals in the US to promote the series. The promotion took place from August 27 to September 30.
On September 27, 2001, Jakks Pacific was appointed as the master toy partner for the series. The company released a series of action figures in Spring 2002.
On May 20, 2002, 4Kids announced the launch of its home video division and appointed FUNimation Entertainment as exclusive distributor. The division announced that a VHS and DVD release of the series would be released in the fourth quarter of the year.
The first release, entitled "The Unfixable Robot", was planned for a release on VHS and DVD on February 4, 2003 Before being delayed until April 8. It contains the first two episodes of the series and additional bonus features, including tips and tricks for the Showdown video game. The DVD was also included with copies of the game.
An additional DVD entitled Cubix: The Movie - The Battle for Solex, was released on DVD on January 13, 2004. It includes the first four episodes edited together as a feature-length movie.
On October 13, 2003, Universal Pictures Video and Vision Video released a VHS/DVD entitled "The Unfixable Robot" in the United Kingdom, containing the first six episodes of the series.
In August 2001, The 3DO Company entered into a video game licensing deal with 4Kids to publish video games based on the series in North America. In December, 3DO Europe secured rights outside the Middle East and Asia to release the titles.
The first title, ' was released on the PlayStation and the Game Boy Color in 2001. The second, Cubix Robots for Everyone: Clash 'N Bash was released on the Game Boy Advance in 2002. The third and last title, ', was released on the PlayStation 2 and GameCube in 2003.