And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird is a 1991 family film about young inventors Josh and Max building a robot named Newman, which winds up being possessed by the spirit of their late father, Matt. The dad reconnects with his family and helps his sons build the Newman robot. When rival inventors steal the robot to dismantle it for the purpose of reverse engineering, the kids contact the spirit of Albert Einstein for help.
This film provides examples of:
- Catchphrase: Matt's "No bugs, no bytes."
- Child Prodigy: Max.
- Convenient Decoy Cat: After Alice breaks in the garage, Josh investigates only to conclude it was the cat.
- Crash-Into Hello: Josh and Beth.
- Cute Machines: Newman.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Matt reminding his wife Sarah that he used to do something for her that she liked. You know, a foot massage.
- Expy: Newman looks a lot like R2-D2.
- First Father Wins: Subverted. Matt is dead, and he returns to the afterlife at the end, letting Steve marry his widow.
- Haunted Technology: The premise of the film.
- Historical Domain Character: Einstein.
- Jerkass: Dwayne and his father Walter.
- Jump Scare: At one point, Max randomly jumps in front of the camera wearing a monster outfit.
- Market-Based Title: In the U.K., it was renamed to the considerably shorter Robo Dad.
- Meaningful Name: Newman, because it leads to Matt becoming a "new man".
- Nerds Are Sexy: Beth seems to think so of Josh.
- Offscreen Crash: Max runs off and Matt tells him to "watch out for the... (crash) ...box."
- One-Liner: Matt's main schtick.
- Ouija Board: Featured prominently during séances throughout the film.
- Paparazzi: Alice pursues the robot story to the point of breaking and entering.
- Percussive Maintenance: Max uses this to fix Newman's voice glitch.
- Ride the Lightning: Ghosts are electrical. This is how Matt possesses Newman.
- Shout-Out: A poster for Metropolis is seen in the garage.
- Matt's final words "I'm coming, Grandma" are likely a reference to Sanford and Son's "I'm coming, Elizabeth"
popular misquote.
- Matt's final words "I'm coming, Grandma" are likely a reference to Sanford and Son's "I'm coming, Elizabeth"
- Spooky Séance: The initial contact made with Matt, complete with Tentative Light. The seances with Einstein are less dramatic.
- The Symbiote: Matt's relationship with Newman.
- Techno Babble: Engaged in by the inventors.
- Teen Genius: Josh.
- Tin-Can Robot: Newman.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Despite Matt/Newman being a human mind possessing a sentient machine, Walter is fine with dismantling him. Josh takes issue with that.
