Gortimer, narrating: I've lived my whole life on Normal Street.
There's a lake at one end
and a forest of shady trees at the other.
But what lies in between
is anything but normal.
What is luck exactly?
Is it random fortune, or is it fate?
Do we somehow deserve the luck we get,
or is luck a blind archer
and everything is just hit or miss?
I never gave it much thought before
because it always seemed out of my control.
And what do you do when luck goes wrong,
so wrong that lives are at stake?
Well, if you're Ranger, you put it all on the line.
Ranger Bowen said the only difference
between doing something brave and doing something stupid
is whether or not you survive.
Ranger: No one dies on my watch.
I do this for Normal Street!
So far, Ranger's being brave,
but I'm getting ahead of myself.
As you can see--
The road rocket race:
the one glorious day each year
when the kids of Normal Street
become engineers, mechanics...
See, we have eight wheels--
...and daredevils--
four on each side--
...all rolled into one.
But most important--
We kind of got off to a rocky start,
but eventually...
it all came together.
Dibs on driving.
I get to name it.
This year, we're definitely coming in first.
All right. Fins.
But wait. Aren't there supposed to be 12?
The fins increase drag.
Okay, well, what about a mast?
Ranger, stick to the blueprints.
Let's get this stuff to Mel's.
Stanley Zielinsky,
unluckiest kid on Normal Street.
I'm not kidding.
He could lose a coin flip with a two-headed quarter.
His luck is so bad, it's contagious.
Lose something?
Hey Stanley. Uh...
Thanks. Heh heh.
Building a new road rocket?
Yeah. You going to compete this year?
Come on. I can't do stuff like that.
Well, see you around.
You didn't get any on you, did you?
It's bad luck, not cooties.
You, too?
I'm not saying he's jinxed,
but it's hard to ignore the strong correlation.
[splat]
I just got stanleyed.
You got what?
Stanley. He's a jinx.
Take one step close to him and--
Oh. Okay.
See, well, Stanley didn't just knock over your drink.
You know, his mom and I did the food drive
at the community center last year.
Stanley came and helped out.
You know, he's actually a really sweet boy.
Didn't the fire alarm and sprinklers go off?
That didn't have anything to do with Stanley.
Gortimer, honey, how would you feel
if people blamed you for every bad thing that happened?
This is not one of your better conceived ideas.
I'm with Mel on this one.
Stanley's lived on Normal Street
as long as we have, but can you remember
one time you hung out with him?
He needs us.
[doorbell rings]
What are you guys doing here?
Congratulations.
You made the team.
You're part of Galaxelerator now.
You really think that's a good idea?
If I join your team, it'll just ruin your chances.
Okay. Fair enough.
Nice to see you, Stanley.
Come on. We'll have fun.
Um...
- Great. - Uh--
He warned us.
We didn't listen.
Easy. Easy.
I got it. I got it.
[electricity crackling]
Well, I got to get home.
Guys, this was fantastic.
Really, thanks.
See you at the race.
Yeah. See you.
At least he's happy.
Did we get anything done?
I'm actually unchecking boxes.
How is it possible
for one kid to have that much bad luck?
He's a genetic anomaly.
Or he must have broken a house full of mirrors.
No. Not mirrors.
There's only one object in the universe
that can account for the life of Stanley Zielinsky:
the Mobile of Misfortune.
It all started years ago.
There were two neighbors: Mr. Lee and Mr. Perez.
Lee had all the luck in the world.
The sun was always shining on his side of Normal Street.
But the same wasn't true for Perez.
He wanted some of Lee's luck for himself.
But no matter what he tried, it didn't make a difference.
So Perez took fate into his own hands.
He crafted a contraption so fiendish,
it could control the luck of everyone around it.
He built the Mobile of Misfortune.
He used it to take some of Lee's luck for himself,
and it worked. It worked perfectly.
But the very next day, there was a grease fire.
And before they could put it out,
the entire Lee house was in flames.
But Perez didn't realize
that bad luck can't always be contained.
Sometimes it spreads.
[siren blares]
When the smoke cleared,
all that was left was the mobile in ashes.
If you put bad luck out into the world,
you got to be careful, or you might get burned.
How does this help us exactly?
Because it's still here in town.
They wanted to keep it safe,
so they put it in the one place
where no one would ever think to look for it:
the library.
I can't believe I've never noticed this before.
Look.
Mel: That piece looks lopsided.
It's definitely off balance.
You think that's what's causing Stanley's bad luck?
Only one way to find out.
I don't think we should be messing with this.
We're not messing with it. We're fixing it.
How else are we going to help Stanley?
But look at it. Everything's interconnected.
It's more complicated than we think.
That should do it.
Oh.
My shoe's untied.
Uh-oh. Look who's unlucky now.
Gortimer's shoes come untied all the time.
Sometimes small changes have big consequences,
and before we knew it,
things went from bad to worse.
As Mel might say,
every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
My day was a disaster.
But for Stanley,
things were finally looking up.
Whoa.
What happened?
Not my lucky day.
I'm sorry. Gumball?
See you.
I didn't just get stanleyed.
I was the new Stanley.
Time to take it for a quick test drive.
- Wait. - The paint isn't dry yet.
Come on.
You got gortimered.
Don't call it that.
Hand me a towel.
I'm not a jinx.
That's what a jinx would say.
- Hey. - He'd say that, too.
Gortimer, you have to look at the data.
Right now you're what they call an outlier,
as in this is the statistical norm
and this is you.
She doesn't know it,
but she's agreeing with me
in her own way.
Oh. Hey, honey.
Gardiner wants grilled cheese for dinner.
You want me to make you one?
You'd probably just end up
burning down the entire house.
Oh, boy. Don't tell me
you're still blaming everything on Stanley.
Nope. Not on Stanley.
Uh-oh. Looks like we're out of bread.
How about some leftover broccoli casserole?
Enough was enough.
We had to fix the mobile.
I knew it.
I knew someone messed with the mobile.
No wonder I've been so lucky lately.
You knew about the mobile this whole time?
Of course.
Then why didn't you just unjinx yourself?
I couldn't.
You see, a while back,
my mom was having a really rough time.
She lost her job, and it was stressing her out.
So I fiddled with the mobile
and changed my good luck for her bad luck.
The next day, she got a new job
and everything was fine for her.
And for me it was, well, you know.
But I'm okay with that.
So when I changed your luck--
You took the bad luck on yourself.
Gortimer, I'm not letting you guys lose this race.
Stanley, don't.
Whoa. That was close.
Uh-oh.
Maybe it won't be that bad?
[siren blares]
I-- I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
But it wasn't.
This doesn't look promising.
The road rocket race. If everyone's got bad luck--
Someone's definitely going to get hurt.
Go. Stall the race. Buy me time.
I'll take care of this.
Are you sure you can fix it?
Gortimer, I can fix anything.
Theoretically.
Let's go.
- Oh, it's spreading. - Let's go.
Sorry.
Ohh!
Stop the race! Stop the race!
Someone could get hurt.
Someone else could get hurt.
Gortimer, what's going on?
Sarah, we need to stop the race.
Not going to happen. We're starting in a couple of minutes.
- Um-- - Our rocket isn't here yet.
Yes, that.
All right, go get it, but hurry up.
My stopwatch broke, so I need to grab another one.
I'll go get the rocket.
Also, I think it might rain,
and that's got to be dangerous.
The whole race takes two minutes.
Two minutes?
You could lose, like, three arms in two minutes.
Not off the same person, obviously.
If we can't stop it, maybe we can postpone it.
Yeah.
Uh, good news, everyone!
We're going to race tomorrow instead.
Well, I'm out of ideas.
[sigh] There's only one thing left to do.
[sigh]
Complain all you want.
No one dies on my watch.
I do this for Normal Street!
Ranger, you realize we can literally just pick you up, right?
I'll go limp. It'll be like trying to carry a sack of potatoes.
I've carried a sack of potatoes.
It's not that hard. Stop stalling.
Everyone's worked really hard for this.
You're ruining everything.
Is he ruining it,
or is he making it better?
All: Ruining it.
Good. See? Your car's here.
And ready for its lengthy inspection.
No. No more delays. Time to start the race.
Or maybe we should just reconsider the whole idea of a race.
I mean, isn't there too much competition
in the world already?
Gortimer, can you do something?
Yeah.
For Normal Street!
You leave me no choice.
All right, teams, time for Plan B.
Take your cars around Ranger and Gortimer.
- Well, darn. - Wait!
Did you fix it?
I'd say it's 50/50.
You know what? I like those odds.
Stanley, what are you doing?
I've waited my whole life to do something that's cool.
I'm sick of sitting on the sidelines.
Let's ride.
Ranger, you okay with this?
I think he's earned it.
Rocketeers, take your positions.
Hey, Stan...
good luck.
♪♪ ["Ode to Joy"]
[excited chatter]
- Go, Stanley! - Go, go, go!
Yeah!
He's winning!
Keep going, Stanley! You've got this!
Go, go, go, go!
[chatter]
[clatter]
♪♪ ["Ode to Joy" slows down]
It's okay. You can still make it.
Come on, go. Go.
[chatter]
[cheering]
Come on.
[panting]
What happened?
Well, I guess I lost.
You broke it.
It just fell apart.
I can't believe it.
None of this stuff was bolted down.
Look, half these boxes were still unchecked.
We were so distracted worrying about the jinx,
we didn't finish building the car.
We made our own bad luck.
Sorry you didn't win, Stanley.
Are you kidding?
That was awesome!
I want to do it again, except faster.
You know, technically the race isn't over
till every car crosses the finish line.
So we didn't win.
The important thing is
no one got hurt.
Besides,
we've got a real jump on next year.
None of us was really sure
what fortune would hold for us after that day.
Were we still going to have bad luck?
From time to time. Everybody does.
But in the end, it doesn't matter
because luck is what you make it.
And for us, we made it a friend.