Kids Link — Spy

: Many of the franchise's most iconic and bizarre elements, such as the Thumb-Thumbs , were based on drawings Rodriguez made when he was a child.

Spy Kids launched a franchise (the less said about Spy Kids 4 , the better, though we’ll always have the baby with the jetpack) and turned Rodriguez into a family-film icon. It gave us Danny Trejo as Uncle Machete (a character so cool he got his own R-rated spin-off). It proved that Latinx-led family casts could open blockbusters without a single white savior in sight. Spy Kids

The casting was genius. Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino played Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez, suave secret agents who had retired to a life of suburban boredom. For the kids, Rodriguez cast Alexa PenaVega (then Alexa Vega) as the overachieving Carmen and Daryl Sabara as the anxious, imaginative Juni. But the secret sauce was the villain: Alan Cumming as Fegan Floop, a children’s TV show host with a terrifying army of surrealist henchmen—the "Thumb Thumbs." : Many of the franchise's most iconic and