Osmosis Jones

Frank DeTorre is an unhealthy and lazy zookeeper at the Sucat Memorial Zoo in Rhode Island. Miserable by the death of his wife Maggie, he copes by overeating and foregoing basic hygiene, much to his daughter Shane's embarrassment. Inside his body, which is called the "City of Frank" by its anthropomorphic inhabitants, white blood cell Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones is a maverick officer of the Frank Police Department, the city's center for responses against bodily threats. After Ozzy - against orders - induced Frank to vomit a contaminated oyster onto Shane's teacher Mrs. Boyd, Frank lost his previous job at a pea soup factory and was banned from visiting Shane's school, and Ozzy was demoted to patrol duty in the mouth.

Some time afterward, facing a serious challenge to his re-election prospects, Mayor Phlegmming doubles down on his junk food policies, ignoring their effect on Frank's health. This induces Frank to eat a boiled egg that fell into a chimpanzee's habitat, allowing Thrax, a virus known as La Muerte Roja, to enter his body; to alleviate the safety concerns of his secretary Leah Estrogen, Phlegmming then instructs Frank to take a cold pill through brain signals. The pill, Drixenol "Drix" Koldreliff, proceeds to disinfect the throat, covering up evidence of Thrax's arrival. Ozzy is told to assist Drix in his investigation, much to his chagrin. Thrax assumes leadership of a gang of sweat germs and launches an attack on the mucus dam in Frank's nose, nearly killing Drix before Ozzy rescues him.

The duo pay a visit to Chill, a cell from a flu vaccine and one of Ozzy's informants. Chill directs them to Thrax's hideout - a germ-ridden nightclub in a large zit on Frank's forehead. Ozzy goes undercover and infiltrates Thrax's gang, where he learns that Thrax, wanting to be known as the most dangerous virus in medical history, intends to masquerade as a common cold and use his knowledge of DNA to kill Frank within forty-eight hours. When Ozzy is discovered, Drix comes to his aid, causing a brawl which culminates in the zit being popped by a grenade. The pus lands on Mrs. Boyd's lip during a conversation between her and Frank, foiling Frank's one chance to apologize to her. In response, Phlegmming furiously closes the investigation, has Ozzy fired from the force and reminds Drix that pills are only to remain in the body temporarily before ordering him to leave.

Unbeknownst to the duo, Thrax has survived the zit's destruction. After killing his remaining henchmen, he proceeds to launch a lone assault on the hypothalamus, where he steals a crucial nucleotide. He then abducts Leah and flees to the mouth to escape. His actions disable the body's ability to regulate temperature, causing Frank to develop a severe fever. As Frank is taken to the hospital, Ozzy, having discovered Thrax's survival, reunites with Drix and convinces him not to leave. The two catch up to Thrax in the uvula and rescue Leah. Thrax uses pollen to induce Frank to sneeze, riding the 'wind' out of the mouth. Drix then shoots Ozzy out of the mouth after Thrax, and they land on Shane's cornea. As they fight, they fall onto one of Shane's false eyelashes, dislodging it. Ozzy tricks Thrax into getting his hand embedded in the lash, and escapes just as the lash falls into a beaker of rubbing alcohol, where Thrax dissolves.

As Frank's temperature surpasses 108 degrees, he goes into cardiac arrest. Riding on one of Shane's tears as she mourns her father, Ozzy returns to Frank's body with the stolen nucleotide, reviving him just in time. Ozzy is welcomed back into the police force and enters a relationship with Leah, while Drix is allowed to stay in the body as Ozzy's new partner. Having narrowly cheated death, Frank commits himself to living a healthier lifestyle, which results in Phlegmming losing the election to his opponent, Tom Colonic, in a landslide. Phlegmming is reduced to janitorial duty in the bowels, where he accidentally triggers Frank's flatulence, ejecting himself from the body.

Osmosis Jones went through development hell during production. The animated sequences, directed by Tom Sito and Piet Kroon, went into production as planned, but acquiring both a director and a star actor for the live-action sequences took a considerable amount of time, until Bill Murray was cast as the main character of Frank, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly stepped in to direct the live-action sequences. As part of their contract, the Farrelly brothers are credited as the primary directors of the film, although they did no supervision of the animated portions of the film. Will Smith was interested in the part of Ozzy, but in the end his schedule would not permit it.

Principal Photography on the live-action scenes took place from April 2 to June 19, 2000 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Osmosis Jones was originally rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "crude language" and "bodily humor" in 2000. However, Warner Bros. edited the film to make it family-friendly; and in 2001 when it was released, the film was re-rated PG on appeal for "bodily humor".

A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on August 7, 2001, by Atlantic Records. The soundtrack failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but Trick Daddy's single "Take It to da House" managed to make it to number 88 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

• Once Upon a Time... Life, an animated series with similar anthropomorphic representations of cells and germs.
• Ozzy & Drix, an animated series that serves as a continuation of the film.
• Cells at Work!, a Japanese manga/anime series with a similar premise.
• Inner Workings, a Disney short film that is set in the human body.
• Inside Out, a Pixar computer-animated film that is set inside the human brain.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Osmosis Jones

• Osmosis Jones at IMDb
• Osmosis Jones at The Big Cartoon DataBase