Meet the tiny, glowing-haired technicians living inside your household appliances to keep them running
In short: The Fixies are miniature beings who dwell within our devices, maintaining order through technical expertise. Based on a 1974 Soviet story, this Russian animated series blends education with adventure, as young Tom Thomas hides his tiny friends from his dog while learning how the modern world actually functions.
The Fixies, a portmanteau of fix and pixie, are the stars of a popular Russian animated franchise produced by Aeroplane Productions. Created by Alexander Tatarsky, the series draws its inspiration from the 1974 children's book The Little Warranty People by Eduard Uspensky. Since its 2010 debut, the show has functioned as both entertainment and a technical primer, with each episode detailing the inner workings and safe operation of common household devices.
The lore of the Fixies is deeply tied to their labor. Their distinct physical traits—large hands for constant repair work and glowing hair for navigating dark machinery—were finalized by artist Pronin. They possess the unique ability to transform into screws, a design choice that began with the artist sketching a screw before deriving the character's form. Their signature greeting, accompanied by the interjection 'Tideesh!', features a three-fingered hand gesture that also appears on their tools and clothing.
The narrative centers on a young boy named Tom Thomas, who maintains a secret friendship with a family of fixies: siblings Simka and Nolik, their parents Papus and Masiya, and their grandfather Grandpus. Tom must protect these tiny allies from his chihuahua, Chewsocka, while navigating school life and his own relationships. The franchise has expanded significantly beyond television, spawning multiple feature films including The Fixies: Top Secret in 2017 and Fixies vs. Crabots in 2019, with a third film, The Fixies: Guardians of the Earth, slated for 2027.
The production utilizes a mix of CGI for the main narrative and Flash animation for specific explanatory segments. The series has enjoyed broad distribution, airing on networks like Russia-1, Carousel, and Nickelodeon's Russian offshoot. By grounding its fantastical premise in the mechanics of everyday objects, the show provides a clever bridge between childhood curiosity and the complex technological world that surrounds us.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The Fixies
- Also: Wikidata — The Fixies · CC0
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