Johnny 5 is alive!
NOVA Laboratory robotics experts Newton Crosby and Ben Jabituya developed several prototype robots called S.A.I.N.T. (Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport) for the U.S. military to use in Cold War operations, though Crosby and Ben would rather seek peaceful applications of the robots. After a live demonstration for the military, one of the units, S.A.I.N.T. number 5, is struck by lightning arcing through the lab's power grid. This scrambles its programming and makes it sentient. It then escapes the NOVA facility.
After Nova Robotics goes bankrupt after the Short Circuit (1986 film) by Captain Shroeder, one of their programmers, Benjamin Jahveri (Fisher Stevens), starts up his own business, "Titanic Toy Corporation", that specializes in making Entertainment robot that he makes by hand from the back of his truck. For two days, Ben has been in a big city implied to be New York City peddling his toy robots on the street corners. One robot wanders away from his stand and makes its way into the office of Sandy Banatoni (Cynthia Gibb), an assistant buyer for Simpsons (department store)' toy department. Sandy tracks Ben down and orders 1,000 of his toys. Overhearing this offer is con artist Fred Ritter (Michael McKean), who smooth-talks his way into brokering the transaction between Ben & Sandy, becoming Ben's business partner in the deal, and later acquiring the funding Ben needs from a loan shark.