Grandpa 2.0: Grandpa Gets Schooled
2025 · 6m
Directed by Gabe Janisz, Justin Noel
Genres: animation, comedy, family
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, whimsical
strange old cartoon i found Two kids get fed up with their grandpa, so they build a new one. He's updated with an upgrade.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Finally—a film that starts from a genuinely unhinged premise (Kids! Build! A better grandpa!) and commits to the absurdity without winking. Most shorts about family would soften this into something heartwarming; Janisz and Noel go darker and weirder instead.
The film's formal control is remarkable—a clear lineage to stop-motion grotesquerie and darkly comic fables, with disciplined pacing that knows exactly when to land each joke. The animation craftsmanship serves the story's unsettling core without ever becoming precious.
What elevates this beyond premise-as-joke is the animation team's choice to make Grandpa 2.0 genuinely uncanny rather than cute—that design decision and the slight vocal processing difference do all the work in making the replacement feel authentically wrong and funny.