Davis and Alcorn have, by all accounts, enjoyed being part of Neutron’s now sizable entourage (he employs some 120 people at DNA’s new Las Colinas studios). After one trip to Hollywood, Alcorn told a Dallas newspaper, “I got to see Pamela Anderson, so that’s a good weekend. I was quaking on the inside and trying to act like I belonged there on the outside.”
Neutron doesn’t sound as impressed. “I saw a lot of stars and movie people,” he says of Oscar night. “David Lynch kept following me around. He wants me to be in his next picture. He’s got some thing about midgets and hairdos. I kept telling him, ’I’m not a little person. I’m just a short kid.’ But he just sort of laughed and kept drinking his coffee.”
Asked about a well-publicized dust-up with Shrek at Vanity Fair’s after-party, an altercation that Neutron supposedly got the better part of, the boy genius plays it coy, asking, “Do I look like I could kick anybody’s butt?” But, he adds, “I could probably invent some kind of butt-kicker.” Shrek was later rumored to have sent Neutron, as mock condolence, an Oscar statuette constructed entirely of earwax.
Neutron’s robot dog, Goddard, wanders into the lab and leaps into his lap. He pats the dog as he talks about the pressures put on an action hero and multilevel franchise. He says changing his name from Quasar to Neutron wasn’t a problem for him, but there have been other suggestions he has shot down. “There was talk of cutting my hair and dying it blond, kind of an ’N-Sync look,” he says. “But that’s where I draw the line! Oh, yeah, there was talk of making Goddard a robot cat! Who ever heard of a robot cat?!”
At length, something rather curious emerges about James Isaac Neutron. He might be the smartest person in the entire universe. Just ask the Yokian space aliens! But he’s still a boy. It’s easy to forget as he talks about superstring theory or the artificial neural network that makes Goddard tick, but Neutron really is just an undersized 10-year-old with an enormous head shaped like gourd. It’s obvious and yet it’s easy to miss.
Take his mother. When it is brought to his attention that Judy Neutron has been reading the book Unwrapping Your Gifted Child, Neutron doesn’t seem to grasp the fear and responsibility Judy must feel. “You know moms,” Neutron says. “They worry too much. I don’t really feel gifted anyway. In fact, sometimes I think being a genius is a curse! People treat you differently. Sometimes that gets me down, you know? But then I de-interlace my atomic structure and walk though a few walls, and I feel much better.”
Listening to Neutron, you come to realize that beneath all the technical jargon lies nothing but innocence and wide-eyed wonder. He’s incredibly intelligent, but his emotional capacity hasn’t kept up with his brain. One suspects that growing up will be far harder for him than inventing invisible hamsters or doing battle with an advanced alien species. One wonders if his handlers will ever let him reach adolescence—though there are signs on the horizon.
Neutron says he’s already begun to feel things he can’t quite explain. His neighbor Cindy Vortex is also 10 years old and attends the same public school as Neutron. Their relationship could be described as adversarial at best. But she’s a cute blonde, and Neutron has apparently noticed. “The other day, I actually held the door open for Cindy,” Neutron says. “When I realized my mistake, I quickly slammed it in her face. That spontaneous act of chivalry was a first for me. It’s getting a little scary.”
Then Neutron says he’d like to go up to his house for a Purple Flurp, his soft drink of choice. On the way out of his lab, he shows a reporter his newest invention, nearly finished. It’s a pair of pants equipped with a “smart chip” that enables the pants to fold and put themselves away. A genius, yes. But still a 10-year-old who hates to put away his clothes.
(Only days later, just prior to press time, these pants would malfunction, develop a mind of their own, raise an army, and nearly enslave the entire citizenry of Retroville.)
