With an all-star cast, entertaining performances, and a heartwarming story, the recently-released Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey has easily captivated audiences.
The movie rates highly for most viewers’ and critics’ reviews thanks to its mixture of musical numbers, humor, and fun-filled family film.
It appears this one is on pace to be a Christmas classic, based on all of the above.
However, it’s Buddy 3000 from Jingle Jangle that has fans a lot of fans talking. In a similar fashion to the super-cute Baby Yoda from The Mandalorian, fans are now searching for a toy version of the robot for the holidays.
Jingle Jangle well-received amongst viewers and reviewers
The new Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey was released on streaming platform Netflix on November 13, 2020.
The movie stars Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) as Jeronicus Jangle, an inventor and toymaker who owns a shop called Jangles and Things.
He creates a special sentient doll named Diego, which ends up in the hands of Jeronicus’ apprentice, who steals the doll to start his own business.
Jeronicus ends up meeting his granddaughter Journey (Madelin Mills), who helps him with a new techie invention her mother started called The Buddy 3000.
That robot has become a fan-favorite in Jingle Jangle.
The Christmas-themed family movie is rated PG and stars Phylicia Rashad, Keegan Michael Kay, Hugh Bonneville, John Legend, and Ricky Martin.
As of this writing, it’s sitting at a 94 percent overall rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer from just over 50 critics’ reviews. Audiences weighed in with a slightly lower score of 81 percent, based on about double that number of reviews.
Fans want Buddy 300 from Jingle Jangle now
As one would expect, the cute factor of Buddy 3000 has fans in search of their very own for the holidays. That hasn’t happened just yet, though.
Still, many people popped up on Twitter asking for the item as part of their holiday wishlists.
“I would like a Buddy 3000 this Christmas,” one fan wrote on a tweet with a screenshot of the Jingle Jangle robot.
I would like a Buddy 3000 this Christmas pic.twitter.com/La67cUp3DH
— christienne (@ChaoticChrist) November 17, 2020
Another fan posted a tweet in which they demanded Jingle Jangle merch from Netflix, including a soundtrack, book, and everything else. They also asked for Buddy 3000 for their father as a Christmas gift.
Singer and Jingle Jangle actor John Legend posted on Twitter about how proud he was of the movie, bringing about a user to comment that their son was looking for Buddy 3000.
Is a Buddy 3000 toy in the works?
There are plenty of others echoing those sentiments as Buddy 3000 really gave Jingle Jangle a unique aspect. Not only could this become a new Christmas holiday movie favorite that people enjoy annually, but the robot star provides a nostalgic throwback.
Buddy 3000 reminds some people of other major movie stars such as ET the Extra-Terrestrial, R2-D2 and BB-8 from Star Wars, WALL-E, and Johnny 5 in Short Circuit.
All of those lively on-screen creations have since spawned plenty of merch, including dolls and more. It appears the same may be happening for Jingle Jangle and Buddy 3000, based on an EW report.
The robot concept originally came to life through a drawing done by writer-director David E. Talbert’s then-four-year-old son, Elias. Talbert mentioned the toy was also inspired by his own memories of other on-screen characters.
“I grew up with R2-D2 and Short Circuit, and the Lost in Space robot, [Robby], and then most recently, I fell in love with WALL-E,” Talbert told EW.
“And he’s not a robot, but I loved E.T. I love his eyes. I love how childlike E.T. is, so I wanted to throw all of those into like a gumbo, into a pot, and then mix them all together. That’s what Buddy 3000 is.”
The Robot’s name also pays tribute to Talbert’s favorite musical artist, Andre 3000. As far as the toy goes, Talbert previously joked that would be happening, but fans may have to wait a bit longer.
“I am gearing up for a Broadway run for Jingle Jangle, so that’s when we will introduce the Buddy 3000 toys,” Talbert teased.
“We’re thinking, if this one does well, of spinning off Jingle Jangle into other versions, so Buddy 3000 is definitely going to have to be a toy by next Christmas.”
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey is now streaming on Netflix.