Bowler Hat Guy

## Villain Description

### Goals

Ruin Lewis's future by presenting the Memory Scanner and Doris as his own inventions (succeeded, but ultimately backfired)
Become a successful man after everything that happened to him (succeeded)

### Powers

Mind-control (briefly, through Mini-Doris)

### Type of Villain

Vengeful Schemer

**Bowler Hat Guy** (real name: **Michael Yagoobian**) is the secondary antagonist of *Meet the Robinsons*.

He was a kid nicknamed "Goob" who was Lewis's roommate back in 2007. However, he was kept up all night because of Lewis's science project, causing him to fail to catch the baseball in the ninth inning, so he was bullied by his teammates. Thirty years later in 2037, he developed a hatred against Lewis because of it, and now plots to ruin Lewis's future by presenting his inventions as his own with the help of his boss, DOR-15, who is only using him to get what she wants.

His past self is voiced by Matthew Josten, while his future self is voiced by Stephen J. Anderson.

## Biography

### Background

#### Losing his Baseball Game

Bowler Hat Guy is a person named Mike Yagoobian, and back in 2007, he was Lewis Robinson's 12-year-old roommate at the orphanage. Because Lewis was working on the Memory Scanner for his science project, he kept Goob up all night. So, during the baseball game which happened the same time as the science fair, Goob fell asleep during the ninth and final inning for his team, the Dinos, and failed to do the winning catch, causing everyone on his team to lose that one run. Because of this, he got beat up and bullied by his own teammates. Goob was so furious because of what happened to him, so he never got adopted, and despite a few classmates offering to help him, Goob was so focused on himself that he didn't notice. Eventually, thirty years later in 2037, the orphanage closed down, leaving him as the only person there, and he decided that it was Lewis's fault for him failing the catch because of him keeping him up all night on his project, and made a plan to get his revenge.

#### Plotting with Doris

Goob started to throw eggs at the Robinson Industries building while telling Lewis (who is now Cornelius) that he stinks, and then starts to wrap up the building with toilet paper, but that is when he met DOR-15, who took him away. Soon, Doris revealed she also had hatred for Lewis/Cornelius, and revealed her past. Goob became her henchman, Bowler Hat Guy, and the two made a scheme to ruin Lewis's past self's future. They spied on Lewis/Cornelius's mansion and saw that his son, Wilbur, forgot to lock the garage door as he was leaving the mansion, giving them the advantage to steal the second working time machine that Lewis/Cornelius created, and go to the past in 2007 when the science fair at Lewis's school took place. As a result, Wilbur took the first time machine created so he can take Lewis's past self to the future to fix the whole mess he indirectly caused.

### *Meet the Robinsons*

#### First Attempt at Success

Bowler Hat Guy is first seen when he and Doris are hiding from the science fair where Lewis's past self is about to present his invention, the Memory Scanner. As the two criminals are hiding, Doris goes to the Memory Scanner and malfunctions it, so when Lewis presents the Memory Scanner, it causes havoc in the fair instead of following its programming. With that, Doris repairs it just so Bowler Hat Guy can present it as his own invention as part of her master plan. They travel to the company Inventco where Bowler Hat Guy accidentally takes the alias of "Ms. Marian Johnson", and goes to present the Memory Scanner as his own invention. However, he doesn't know what to say, and his time is up, so the company's CEO throws him out of the building in fury, along with the Memory Scanner being thrown at the back of his head. Due to the incident, he and Doris decide that they need to capture Lewis.

#### Tracking Down Lewis

Bowler Hat Guy and Doris go back to Lewis's orphanage, where they try to capture him. However, they only find Bowler Hat Guy's past self, who talks about what happened when he lost his baseball game, and Bowler Hat Guy has sorrow in his eyes for the boy, knowing that he was the boy a long time ago. However, when his past self reveals that his coach told him to let it go, Bowler Hat Guy tells him not to, and instead let hate drive his life, which he claims will allow him to do great things. With that, Bowler Hat Guy and Doris leave his past self and go to the roof of the orphanage, where they gather clues about where Lewis could've gone. They conclude that Lewis went to the future, so they return to the year 2037.

Once again in the future, Bowler Hat Guy and Doris spot Lewis's future self's mansion, but Doris tells Bowler Hat Guy to stay in the time machine. She then creates a Mini Doris for him to use in their scheme against Lewis. Bowler Hat Guy then does a demo with Mini Doris by steering it, but then decides to use it to brainwash one of the singing frogs. He tells the frog to capture Lewis, but the latter couldn't do it because of being too small and having little arms. In response, Bowler Hat Guy releases the frog and goes back in time to brainwash a friendly *Tyrannosaurus rex* to use it to cature Lewis, intending to use it as a nice surprise for Doris, and thinking she'll be prous of her. However, upon seeing the *Tyrannosaurus*, Doris shakes in fury because she is trying to kill Lewis and his future family by dropping a chandelier on them. As Bowler Hat Guy tries to captue Lewis by using the *T. rex*, the latter couldn't do it because of having a big head and little arms. Eventually, Wilbur, Lewis's son from the future, uses a meatball cannon to knock Mini Doris off its head, thus stopping the brainwashing, with the singing frogs destroying Mini Doris by crushing it beneath a car's back hood. Because her plans failed, Doris furiously slaps Bowler Hat Guy.

#### Trapping Lewis

After an incident where Lewis is revealed to be from the past and is told by his future family to return to his own time, Bowler Hat Guy, while wearing Doris, makes a deal with him that if he shows him how the Memory Scanner works, he will show him his mother from the past, and reaches out his hand. Furious at Wilbur for lying about taking him to see his mom and not noticing the "crossies" in his other hand, Lewis agrees to the deal and goes with him and Doris back to the closed-down orphanage. While Lewis honors his part of the deal by showing how the Memory Scanner works, Bowler Hat Guy goes back on his word, and uses the "crossies" as an excuse. Then he reveals to Lewis that the latter is Cornelius from the past, and that he himself is Mike Yagoobian (Goob), Lewis's roommate from the past, and shows him his backstory. Then, he reveals Doris's origins, where she was invented by Lewis in the future to help people with small tasks, but turned against her creator by mind-controlling his test subject, but was seemingly shut down by Lewis/Cornelius, who didn't know that she was still active and escaped, and turned Goob into her minion where they made a scheme to go back to the past so he can present the Memory Scanner as his own invention, not knowing that Doris had much bigger plans. After revealing his backstory, Goob and Doris have Lewis bring the Memory Scanner to them, but Lewis escapes with Wilbur and Carl and is able to retrieve the Memory Scanner.

#### Ruining Lewis's Future

However, Goob and Doris aren't done yet, so the latter gruesomely kills Carl to take back the Memory Scanner to Goob. The latter tells Lewis to take a look around because his future is about to change. Then he and Doris go back to the modern day, where he goes back to Inventco and is successful at presenting the Memory Scanner and Doris as his own inventions. As a result, Doris gets mass-produced under the label "Helping Hats", and she betrays Goob after revealing her larger plan to take over the city by brainwashing its entire population through horrific means. As Goob is horrified by what Doris has done, he reveals that he never wanted Doris to do so, so she has four of her Helping Hats attack him. It's very likely that Goob is enslaved or killed after this.

#### Change in Plans

After Lewis sees the evils that Doris has done and realizes how to defeat her for good, he goes back in time to the modern day and tells Goob to stop presenting the Memory Scanner because he doesn't know what he's doing. When Goob tells Lewis that he's trying to ruin his future, Lewis reveals that Doris is just using him for her own means and will dispose of him when she has the chance. Upon hearing this, Goob gets confused as Doris grabs him and pushes him aside before she tries to murder Lewis. However, the latter says that he will never invent her, thus erasing her for good. He then takes Goob back to the year 2037 and shows him what Doris would've done later on. The future is restored, including Wilbur, and Doris's future self while ruling over the city (albeit offscreen) is also erased. Upon seeing Goob, Wilbur immediately attacks him, and tells Lewis to get help, but the latter tells him to adopt Goob. When the two try to do so, they can't find him, but they see his notebook where he erased his original plan and drew a question mark because he doesn't know what he'll do next. Goob looks at the audience and shows sorrow in his eyes, before walking away.

#### Getting his Future Saved

Eventually, after Wilbur kept his promise by showing Lewis his mother from the past as well as him as a baby, they return to the year 2007, where Wilbur drops him off. However, this time, Lewis decides to save Goob's past self's future by waking him up during the baseball game, knowing that if he doesn't do so, the latter would remain a hurt and tragic person. When Lewis does so, Goob catches the ball, and his teammates cheer him on. Soon, after Lewis presents the Memory Scanner at the science fair, Goob gets adopted, meaning that his future self as Bowler Hat Guy very likely changed into a much more successful and nicer man.

## Personality

Bowler Hat Guy is a scheming villain who wants revenge on Lewis for keeping him up all night and causing him to lose his baseball game during his childhood. Because of his incompetence, he wishes for others to help him out in his evil plans, most notably his boss, Doris. However, he does become remorseful after realizing that she viewed him as nothing more than a disposable pawn, thus giving up his plans on revenge and wanting a new change in life. It's likely that when Lewis helped his past self win the baseball game, Bowler Hat Guy transformed into a nicer, more successful man, thus turning from his villainous ways.

## Trivia

* He is similar to Randall Boggs from *Monsters, Inc.* due to being the secondary antagonists in their stories who serve the true main villains (DOR-15 and Henry J. Waternoose III) in their evil goals. Both are also emotional villains who were motivated by a tragic past from their schools, and have assistants who work for them (Mini-Doris and Jeff Fungus).
* Despite wanting to be a successful man in life, Bowler Hat Guy took extreme measures to do so, as he was willing to present the Memory Scanner and Doris as his own inventions to ruin Lewis's future as Cornelius. However, this was because he was motivated by a tragic backstory, as despite him being in a similar situation with Lewis during his childhood, he got treated worse than Lewis when he was bullied by his own teammates just because they lost their baseball game.
* There was to be a scene where Lewis takes Bowler Hat Guy back to 2007 during his past self's baseball game. Knowing that the kid on the field who was snoring was his past self, Bowler Hat Guy tells him to wake up, and he wins the baseball game. Having realized that he never had to destroy Lewis's destiny and only had to go back in time and wake up his past self, he thanks Lewis before being whisked back to the future as a man with a more successful life. The scene was ultimately cut from the final film and is included in the deleted scenes for the film.