I love this show! Zim is so cute! He's like a manical little...bug.
This is Nickelodeon's first animated sci-fi-fantasy series created by demented (though
strangely fun) comic book artist
Jhonen Vasquez. Imagine it this way:
Determined but inept alien invader +
dangerously stupid robot sidekick +
obsessed kid/paranormal investigator out to stop them = Invader Zim
Zim's from the planet Irk, where height determines social status, and the two rulers, Purple
and Red (who are the same height, so they must rule together), are known as the
Allmighty Tallest. Zim, however, who was previously banished to the planet Foodcourtia
after getting a little trigger-happy and single-handedly wrecking his home planet during
Operation Impending Doom I, is microscopic in comparison, so he is told to conquer the
planet Earth during Oper. I.D. II, a "spinning ball of filthy...dirt," as he later comes to call
it (he doesn't realize that his "secret mission" was just to get rid of him). He is also given
an insane robot partner, Gir, who is supposed to assist him in collecting
information on Earth and its people which is valuable to his mission, but instead prefers
running around and screaming like a lunatic (Fun Fact: When Gir gets too confused, he
explodes).
Then, naturally, there has to be a character who is trying to stop him. Otherwise, the
show would've been lacking a plot and would've been doing pretty good to last 2
episodes. This character is Dib, who is obsessed with thwarting (what a cool word!
Thwart, thwart, thwart...nevermind) Zim's scheme (he also has a really cool coat, which I
got one like it for Christmas, but I digress). Dib also has a sister, Gaz, who hates his guts
and has vowed to provide a lifetime of pain and torment to her older brother for bugging
her about his obsessions with the supernatural (he usually doesn't mean to bug her
though). Dib is one year older than Gaz, but Gaz is a thousand times scarier than Dib, so it
all sort of evens out.
In case you're wondering about what kinds of messes little Zimmy-boy gets into, he
ends up dealing with alien babies, germ-free burgers, career day at skool (yes, it's spelled
like that in the show), an alien rash-spore, a hypnotic zit, a worm-hole with a moose,
bologna DNA splicing, a giant mutant hamster, an obsessive "bestest friend," harvesting
organs, an intergalactic water-balloon fight, time-traveling rubber piggies, a disease called
"head pigeons," and even- *gasps* parent-teacher night!!! (The horror!) And the fun thing
is that that's just the first season!
The 2nd season, which was cut short, *cough*Nick*cough* has, so far, included a
vengeful Irken female, a battle between Mars and Mercury, a trip to a military training
planet, a guy in a chicken suit, an alien being abducted by aliens (go figure), skool
fundraising, a panic over a DVD's FBI warning, Dib from the future, a look at Dib's future
(yes those are 2 totally seperate episodes), GIR malfunctioning (how can you tell?), a
giant battle-robot mistakenly sent to Zim, Zim and Dib fighting on a TV show, and an
outbreak of lice!
