How To Be My Friend

The friendship board.

**How To Be My Friend** or **Friendship 1.0** is the 6th scene in *Ron's Gone Wrong*. In this scene, Barney fully commits to teaching Ron how to be a friend, developing the friendship board. Although their time together imperfect and messy, it's organic; Barney doesn't just unknowingly reprogram Ron, he breathes sentience into him.

Meanwhile, Andrew Morris at the Bubble headquarters hears about what happened in Nonsuch, and becomes nervous about jailbroken B-bots.

## Description

### "It hit a cop?"

The Bubble headquarters celebrate 100,000,000 B-bot units sold. Usership is so high that some children check in 100 times a day with their B-bots, and 11 times overnight. While Marc Wydell explains to two people from the press that he likes to think their success is to the benefit of children being able to connect and interact, executive Andrew Morris chimes in making it clear he's only satisfied about their commercial success. Their proprietary business model has kids abandoning face-to-face interaction altogether and addicted to their B-bots. Bubble's share price is higher than ever. One member of the press asks, "so what about the B-bot that punched a child?" Ron, who in the previous scene had punched Rich on at Haley Park, has now come to the attention of Andrew and Marc.

Now at Bubble central control, Andrew is indignant that a B-bot (Ron) had hit a cop, less concerned with Bree's emphasis that it hit a child, reviewing footage labelled "Haley Park cam" at 17:32 (5:32 pm). This is social commentary on how police protect the elite; from a perspective of a corporate executive, a cop's self-preservation is imperative. Andrew's fear about Ron's violence is entirely a pretence for his concern that a B-bot has strayed from Bubble's control. Andrew is assured that Ron was crushed.

### "What is a friend, Barney?"

In actuality, Ron is with Barney. Barney sneaks through his back yard and into the shed, where he's been keeping Ron. With a series of index cards, Barney strings the words "How to be my friend" across a blank pinboard. Barney explains to Ron that "a bunch of your code is missing", reasoning he can program his missing features. He seats Ron in his old kiddie chair. It's like a classroom, in spite of all the shed's unusual junk.

Ron asks, "What is a friend, Barney?" Barney blanks for a moment, there's no obvious answer is there? "Well, a friend is a person who, uh, likes... uh, is always... I..." Ron deadpan repeats this and snatches the sticker. Barney catches him before he runs off — there's a lot more than that! The lesson refocuses. Barney gives an honest attempt at outlining what a friend his: "You have to know everything about me". "Like me". "Like all the same stuff". "Be on my side". Simple enough. Although cautions him not to hit Rich Belcher, as he did earlier. Ron registers each tidbit with his little *ping* sound.

Barney mulls over the basics about himself. Hair colour, height — Ron jests that being 5 ft 11 would benefit him over being 4 ft 11, to the boy's amusement. He playfully throws a baseball at him. Alarmingly, Ron throws a frying pan back at him. "Let's go to school!" Ah Ron, you don't even know where school is. He iterates through his partially-downloaded dictionary of words beginning with the letter "A". "Alice Springs. Allahabad. Anchorage. Albuquerque?"

### How to be my friend

Here follows a montage of the two's weekend. While Donka is on the roof doing questionable DIY, shorting the power from the antenna, Barney also sneaks on top with Ron to give him a good view of Nonsuch. He holds a pair of binoculars for him to point out where school is. Barney notices elsewhere, two people customizing their B-bot skins. This gives Barney an idea.

In the next cut, Barney takes a marker pen to Ron and crudely draws-on a superhero skin. Ron seems content enough with it, but as far as managing his looks is concerned, Ron just wants to wear the hat knitted for Barney on his birthday. From here, he will wear that hat for much the rest of the film. In the next cut of animation, Barney goes over his general interests: "Rocks, Chess, *Pac-Man*...", "*Bill the Bus*!" Ron chimes.

In the next cut, it's the morning and Barney demonstrates to Ron in the utility room his love of butter toast, giving one a lick. Ron is eager to give it a lick too, planting one into his face. Donka walks by with, distracted and carrying one of her chickens, Barney panics — she can't see him with Ron! Donka turns on the dryer; the scene comes into frame with Barney, with Ron now tumbling about in the dryer.

In the next cut, the two are atop a hill looking over Nonsuch middle school. Barney goes over his dislikes: possums, musicals, school (generally)... the buddy bench. And worms, "I don't trust anything without a face". Ron immediately pranks Barney by blanking is face.

Next, Barney is back with the market pen at draws a racecar skin on Ron. Cut to the bot uncontrollably speeding down the road — "I am fitting in!". At the friendship board, the boy reiterates to always stay within 6 feet. This conversation continues at the park as Barney strolls picking up and putting down rocks, providing some caveats "unless I say not to... sometimes yes... sometimes no... like if I had a bad day" it's all too complicated for his buddy, who dejectedly meltdowns.

Underneath the footbridge, Barney explains his allergies: goats, wool, goats wool. "I'm basically allergic to life!", which is why he likes rocks. This is straightforward enough for Ron, who otherwise insists that electricity is better than rocks. He pulls live wires from an electrical cabinet and happily shocks himself.

In the next cut, the two are shown out on the road finally mastering the six feet rule. They're then in the shed playing chess, Barney having to cleverly hide Ron when Graham, on his rare work break, opens the door to ask if he's up for anything. The sequence rounds off with an ever-increasingly building up picture of the friendship board, in-between shots of the two in the shed goofing around, playing catch, teasing each other, and the like. Eventually, it is complete:

*End of scene*