Pest Control is the second part of episode one of My Life as a Teenage Robot. It first aired on Nickeloden in the United States on August 1st, 2003.
Plot
Brad and Tuck set up tracks for Tuck's toy car in Jenny's bedroom, and Jenny helps out by using her head and pigtails as a ramp for the car to drive on. Dr. Wakeman walks in on them while the car is speeding through Jenny's room. When Jenny accidentally lifts her head up, the car runs on her head, and flies through the glass of one of Jenny's TV's. Brad and Tuck notice how angry Dr. Wakeman is about the broken television, and they leave Jenny's house. Dr. Wakeman lectures Jenny about how she should have more respect for her body, and leaves Jenny's room.
A group of mutated lab rats that live in the broken television set overhear Dr. Wakeman's speech, and they decide to take revenge on her. However, their leader Vladimir notices Jenny sitting on her bed and suggests that they should take over her body instead. The rats put her to sleep by playing a lullaby through the room's TV monitors. Once asleep, the rats move out by the thousandths led by Vladimir. They enter her body through her belly vault like door that can only be unlocked by using a combo. Vladimir cracks the combo the rats begin to infest her body. The rats go to submarine-like stations. Jenny wakes up to see the rats entering through her belly panel. She begins to frantically throw the rats out of her body, but Vladimir orders the rats to disable her central wiring system by chewing the wires linking to her robotic brain apart. In the process of disabling her, her systems begin to malfunction. Jenny tries to reassure herself that she is okay, but Vladimir unscrews her head from the inside, taking her body for himself and leaving Jenny's disembodied (though still functioning) head behind. Once the rats have fully taken control of her body, Jenny bites her body's toe, only for Vladimir to smash her head against the wall. He then swings her foot letting her head go of it and knocking her unconscious. After the rats leave to attack Dr. Wakeman, and later the world, Tucker comes in to get his car, and finds Jenny's head thinking Dr. Wakeman dismantled her because of the crash.
Quotes
- Vladimir: Our once strong, thick tails have been made thin, stringy and weak! Our subtle, sensitive ears, blackened, mishapened! And our sleek forepaws, mutated, into swollen, freakish, hands!
- Tuck (upon placing a disembodied Jenny in a pile of stuffed toys): There you go! Surrounded by all your friends? What's there to be smiling about?! Oh Jenny! You were the best, freaky, creepy, robot friend a boy could ever have!
Jenny: Hey! Who are you calling creepy? - Tuck (is about to give a high five to Jenny's head): Yeah! High fiiiiiii-- nevermind.
Trivia
- Vladimir and his comrades are a homage to the early designs of Mickey Mouse, particularly the pair of little mouse pants that Nora reveals at the end. Also, Mrs. Wakeman's shoes are similar to Minnie Mouse.
- The rats' decidedly Soviet leanings may be a homage to Worker and Parasite, an animated show within The Simpsons.
- The Soviet background of the rats could also be a reference to a children book, where Soviet rats take over a farm, which referes to the Russian Revolution in 1918.
- In this episode, it shows that XJ-9 has gadgets that seem pointless when it comes to saving the world.
- It is also shown that it is all blue and very submarine-like inside XJ-9, or at least in her abdomen area.
- After the split screen credits of It Came From Next Door/Pest Control, Sibling Tsunami/I Was a Preschool Dropout, Daydream Believer/This Time With Feeling, the season 1 theme song of Rocko's Modern Life plays during the Frederator logo instead the person shouting "FREDERATOR!", this was corrected in 2010.
- This is the first time where Nora calls Jenny "Jenny" instead of "XJ-9".
- Tuck wants to give Jenny's head a high five, but he - and most of the other characters in the show - has just four fingers.
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