'NEU' KID IN TOWN UPSTART DIGITAL EFFECTS FIRM CREATES ITS OWN MEDIA PHENOMENON.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

If you're the new, weaker kids from out of town, it helps to hook up with one of the bigger boys at the playground.

That's sort of what happened to the Dallas-based animation outfit DNA Productions. John A. Davis, a founding partner of the company with Keith Alcorn, had an idea for a computer-generated whiz kid character who invented all kinds of cool, space-age stuff to play with. A brief notice about the idea made it into an obscure computer graphics journal, Hollywood writer Steve Oedekerk (``The Nutty Professor,'' ``Ace Ventura: Pet Detective'') read about it and called, and the next thing Davis and company knew, they had a multifaceted deal with the Nickelodeon children's entertainment megalith.

The result is ``Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius,'' the 3-D feature, opening Friday, which Davis directed, Oedekerk co-wrote, Alcorn supervised most visual elements of, and Nickelodeon execs Albie Hecht and Julia Pistor produced along with the other guys. It was made relatively cheaply - in Dallas! - mostly with off-the-shelf software (LightWave, Messiah, Sasquatch, Maya Fusion) and precious little of the expensive, proprietary programs such big-budget CG features as ``Shrek,'' ``Monsters, Inc.'' and ``Final Fantasy'' employed.

But what the movie saved in costly computer components has been more than compensated for in marketing muscle, as Nickelodeon - a division of the same Viacom conglomerate that owns the movie's distributor, Paramount Pictures, as well as such awareness-spreading operations as CBS and the Blockbuster video store chain - has been teasing the tykes with Jimmy sightings for more than a year.

He was first seen in a trailer attached to the Nick/Paramount ``Rugrats in Paris'' movie 13 months ago. Since January, there's been a new ``Neutron'' short appearing on the kids cable channel every month, with an accompanying game on the network's Internet site. Then, late last summer, the ``viral campaign'' commenced. Jimmy started popping up unexpectedly in other Nick animated shows, using his gadgets to subvert the storylines of ``SpongeBob SquarePants'' and the like ... and all the while making millions of young viewers know that the movie is coming.

``I'm blown away by the life that Jimmy's taken on across all these different platforms,'' notes the mellow, ponytailed Davis. ``That's mostly due to Nickelodeon's marketing; they're so behind this that it's just gone crazy. I see him popping up everywhere, things I never expected.

``And Nickelodeon knows the kid audience so well that it's made for a nice creative partnership. I'd be going along, doing my thing, and they'd remind me to include something for this or that kid age group. A good example would be my first choice for a music bit wouldn't have been Aaron Carter, but the Cramps. So that kind of partnership was really healthy for the film.''

Making the movie as kid-friendly as possible wasn't the Nick people's only worry.

``Ah, there was some concern about awareness,'' Hecht, the network's president, comically understates. ``We've tried to do our best to really put Jimmy out there for people.''

Gettin' Jimmy with it

But without a successful, regular TV show a la ``Rugrats,'' nor big-time voice talent like Tom Hanks or Eddie Murphy to promote (``Star Trek's'' Patrick Stewart - as, amusingly, a gooey alien - is the highest-profile voice in the movie), getting people into theaters to watch a new CG cartoon character is obviously a gamble.

But Oedekerk says that that's where the real corporate creativity - or, at least, receptivity - became crucial.

``These guys are creative, and that's not a line,'' Oedekerk insists. ``You know, when you pitch an idea like, 'Hey, what if Jimmy came out in the middle of ``Rugrats'' and started messing around with the show,' and you don't hear 'No!' that's almost impossible. Jimmy flies into 'SpongeBob' and changes all the characters into puppets for 10 seconds. ... These are ideas that have never been done before.''

Neither has DNA's method of what's being called ``garage band animation,'' at least not for a feature-length film. But Davis and company feel that that approach was more creative than economics driven, too.

``Really, what it gave us the ability to do was to draw upon a larger talent pool,'' Davis explains. ``This software is so pervasive, kids use it in their bedrooms, and that's where some of the greatest talent comes from. It's a great way to tap into younger people who have a lot of enthusiasm and innate ability, and mix that with more seasoned people who have more experience and have them really feed off each other.''

Of course, DNA did discover that there probably were advantages to having in-house software designers if you could afford them.

``The downside is that you don't have the developers in the room next to you, so you can just run over there when you have a problem or need a new program,'' Davis says. ``You've got to get on the phone and bite your fingernails, wondering if they'll get somebody out to you in time.''

'Neutron' is the bomb

However well the movie does, Nick and Viacom appear committed to Jimmy in various forms: publications, video games and in a regular television series that's scheduled to begin in September 2002.

``We've never had a character as amazing as Jimmy,'' Hecht notes. ``Half-Einstein, halart Simpson, this guy has really captured all of our imaginations. And the fact that he is digital has made him virtual for us, and enabled us to put him everywhere.''

``And because he's a genius,'' Oedekerk adds, ``he's one of the few characters that's both fun and organically educational. It's really his genius that creates all the fun that he promotes.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) WHIZ KID

Everyone loves `Jimmy Neutron'!

And no one's even seen the movie yet

(2) Jimmy Neutron is in total control in the new Nickelodeon-Paramount animated film.