The Fixies

The Fixies (Russian: Фиксики, romanized: Fixiki) is a Russian animated children's television series based on The Little Warranty People by Eduard Uspensky. The series premiered on 13 December 2010 as a segment on the television show Good Night, Little Ones! on Russia-1 and Bibigon.^[1] The series was created by Alexander Tatarsky and is produced by Aeroplane Productions.

The Fixies centers around the adventures of little people called fixies (a portmanteau of "fix" and "pixie") who live inside various devices and keep them in order with their technical knowledge. Each episode focuses on a particular everyday device and involves the fixies explaining what it is, how it works, and how to safely use it.^[2]

One of the protagonists is Tom Thomas, who managed to make friends with fixies named Simka and Nolik. To learn more about different things, they are helped by older fixies—their parents Papus and Masiya, as well as Grandpus. At the same time, Tom Thomas is obliged to keep the fixies' existence a secret from everyone else and to protect them from his dog Chewsocka.

In the second season, new characters were introduced—four classmates of Simka and Nolik: Fire, Digit, Toola and Verda, as well as Professor Eugenius and his secretary Elisa, whose laboratory houses a school of young fixies.

Появление в сериале учёного-исследователя и нового места действия расширяет наши возможности. Главное, что мы теперь сможем коснуться таких тем, о которых в обстановке обычной квартиры и с помощью героя-ребёнка было не рассказать. Например, мы запускаем в производство серии «Огнетушитель», «Подушка безопасности», «Провода», «Экотестер». Всё это позволит сериалу «Фиксики» стать более универсальным и ответить на большее количество «почему?», которые родители слышат от детей.

The appearance of a researcher and a new place of action in the series expands our capabilities. The main thing is that we will now be able to touch on topics which had not been covered within the atmosphere of an ordinary apartment with a child character. For example, there will be episodes on fire extinguishers, airbags, electrical wires, and ecotesters. All of this will allow The Fixies to become more universal and respond to a greater number of questions that parents hear from children.

— Georgy Vasilyev, producer^[3]

• Simka (voiced by Larisa Brokhman in the Russian-language dub and Susan McKee and Colleen O'Shaughnessey in the English-language dub) is a 9- to 10-year-old girl
• Nolik (voiced by Yakov Vasilyev, Andrey Kononov, Artem Skosaryev, and Ilya Sintsov in the Russian-language dub and Brady Timms and Jessica DiCicco in the English-language dub) is Simka's younger brother
• Papus (voiced by Yuri Mazikhin, Gosha Kutsenko, and Pyotr Ivashchenko in the Russian-language dub and Trevor Duvall in the English-language dub) is Masiya's husband and father of Simka and Nolik.
• Masiya (voiced by Inna Koroleva) is Papus's wife and mother of Simka and Nolik.
• Grandpus (voiced by Dmitry Nazarov and Dmitry Buzhinskiy in the Russian-language dub and Michael Mennies and Roger Craig Smith in the English-language dub) is Simka and Nolik's grandfather
• Tweak and Geek (voiced by Prokhor Chekhovskoy) are twin brothers
• Basiya (voiced by Lilia Shaykhitdinova) is Tweak and Geek's foster grandmother.
• Mega (voiced by Tatyana Veselkina in the Russian-language dub and Emily Kleimo in the English-language dub) is Nolik's best friend.

• Fire (voiced by Inna Koroleva and Prokhor Chekhovskoy in the Russian-language dub and Grace Gonglewski and Jason Spisak in the English-language dub)
• Digit (voiced by Larisa Brokhman and Stanislav Yevsin in the Russian-language dub and Susan McKee and Robbie Daymond in the English-language dub)
• Toola (voiced by Varvara Obidor in the Russian-language dub and Karen Peakes and Cherami Leigh in the English-language dub)
• Verda (voiced by Inna Koroleva and Yekaterina Semenova in the Russian-language dub and Grace Gonglewski and Kimberly Brooks in the English-language dub)

• Tom Thomas (voiced by Ivan Dobryakov, Andrei Kluban, Felix Golovnin, Alexander Novikov, Yaroslav Efremenko, Roman Lenkov, Miroslav Aksyonov, and Daniel Minkov in the Russian-language dub and Griffen Lloyd, Ben Snyder, Nik Shriner, and Wyatt Maximo Thomas in the English-language dub) is a 10-year-old boy
• Tom's Mom (voiced by Larisa Brokhman in the Russian-language dub and Colleen O'Shaughnessey in the English-language dub)
• Thomas Wearington (voiced by Aleksey Rossoshanskiy and Pyotr Ivashchenko in the Russian-language dub and Trevor Duvall in the English-language dub) is Tom Thomas's father
• Chewsocka is the Thomas family's pet chihuahua
• Professor Eugenius (voiced by Diomid Vinogradov in the Russian-language dub and Ed Swidey and Dave Boat in the English-language dub) is Grandpus' colleague
• Elisa (voiced by Varvara Obidor in the Russian-language dub and Grace Gonglewski and Julie Nathanson in the English-language dub) is Professor Eugenius's secretary.
• Katya (voiced by Daria Kolbaseyeva and Anastasia Dyatlova in the Russian-language dub and Laura Wood and Cassandra Morris in the English-language dub) is Tom Thomas's friend.
• Buggy is a spider.

Also in 2005, an animation studio itself was created with the same name as the production company. Even before the characters were created, a logo was registered which was a hand with its thumb, index and middle fingers extended upwards, suggesting a gesture similar to the Schwurhand or the Serbian three-finger salute. In the show, the symbol appears on the fixies' clothes, tools and vehicles, and the gesture is used by fixies alongside the interjection "Tideesh!" as a greeting and to celebrate a job well done.^[4]

Later, Pronin finalized the fixies' appearances, having given them the following attributes; large hands (due to the fact that fixies are constantly working), glowing hair (due to the fact that fixies constantly work in the dark) and the idea to have the fixies be able to transform into screws. The artist decided to first draw a screw, then draw a fixie whose appearance is derived from that screw. The cartoons primarily used CGI animation with Flash animation being used for explanatory segments.^[4]

In 2014, Aeroplane Productions and Nickelodeon signed a license agreement under which the series would begin airing on Nickelodeon's Russian offshoot for a period of two years starting in January 2015.^[5]

The series has also been broadcast on Carousel and Dietski. It also aired on Russia-K between July and December 2014 and has aired on Moult since June 2014.^[6] It also aired on Tloum HD in the summer of 2016, and on O! since 8 February 2017.

On 28 October 2017, Aeroplane Productions and Petersburg Animation Studio released a full-length animated film called The Fixies: Top Secret, which has been shown in many countries around the world.^[7] Even before the release of Top Secret, it was announced that work was underway on a continuation.

On 29 March 2019, a teaser of the second full-length cartoon called Fixies vs. Crabots was released, which tells about the confrontation between fixes and crab-like robots called Crabots.^[8] The film was released on 21 December 2019.

• Official website (in Russian)
• English homepage
• Official YouTube channel (in Russian)
• Official YouTube channel (in English)
• Official website of Aeroplane Productions (in Russian)
• The Fixies on IMDb