Samantha "Sam" Sparks is the deuteragonist of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and Cloudy: The Series. She is a young weather intern who aspires to become a meteorologist. She and Flint Lockwood bond over their shared passion for science and the two of them become a couple.
Sam has shoulder-length blonde hair that has bangs swept to the right side, green eyes and pink lips. She has spent her whole life trying to balance between cute and geeky, and her design reflects that, inspired by Farrah Fawcett's 1970's hairstyle, but with big eyes and has pink fingernails on her hands.
— The Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of MeatballsLike Flint, Sam's appearance solidifies her place as an outsider. Her hairstyle is modern and incorporates highlights, lowlights, and layers. "Her clothing has color and textures more sophisticated than any other character's in the film. [1] "
She wears a pink short sleeve shirt, a mint green blazer, brown skinny jeans held by a white belt, and lighter brown ballet flats. She also wears a silver watch on her left wrist, and a silver bracelet on her right wrist, along with earrings and a necklace. Near the end of the first movie, she wears a white short sleeve shirt, and blue skinny jeans held by a brown belt with a gold buckle.
In the sequel, Sam's design is heavily inspired by Ellie Sattler from the first Jurassic Park movie. She wears her hair in a loose ponytail with side bangs, a pink unbuttoned shirt tied in a knot at the bottom front with rolled up sleeves, a dark violet tank top underneath, white short shorts that reach her thighs, beige hiking boots, a gray backpack, and socks. She’s also seen wearing weather-themed pajamas and a light green mud mask.
In the series, Sam wears a purple skirt, mint green blazers, and a white short shirt.
Sam is outgoing, extroverted, talkative, and socially competent. She is also brilliant and analytically-minded, but due to bullying faced as a child, she decided it was best to connect with others by dumbing herself down and playing up her cuteness. [2] Sam has an intense passion for weather, which often bleeds through her false "cute" persona. [3]
— Head of Story Kris PearnOnce she has accepted herself for who she is, Sam is the rational foil to Flint's whimsical imagination. She acts as his conscience and grounds him in reality when he is too enamored with Chester V's charm. [4]
She is a friendly, sweet, likable, polite, perky, beautiful, brave, fun, outgoing, very smart girl who is sometimes shy and insecure. When she first started as a weather reporter, she got a little nervous and tonged-tied, but after that she was great on camera. Sam can also be very protective and caring, as she did not want to drop the rope that Flint was holding when she touched the peanut brittle.
She is also very easygoing, well-mannered and good natured. As she interacts with the girls, she supports them in everything they have to do. Even though she's tough sometimes, she is gentle with them, and is “big sisterly” towards them. With Alyssa, she often helps her, although in an enthusiastic, optimistic way. She loves her for who she is, and is always willing to help her friends, each with their own unique thing, become the best they can be. She is little less quirky than Flint, but still caring. Sam also, when not at work, hangs out with them, and does things with them, a friend would do. She loves and care about Alyssa, her friends, and Flint.
Alternatively, she's brainy, wise, and benign. Sam could get a little emotionally hyperactive at times, but quickly turns meek and quiet when accidentally saying something wise, however she later overcame this after encouragement from Flint. In the first movie, she is considered "a nerd" on live television by Patrick Patrickson when he saw her hair in a ponytail.
Sam also has strong morals, as she knew that Chester V was up to something bad, and was a liar about the foodimals which are benign, and can have a short temper if not listened to, such as Flint not listening to her warnings when being manipulated by Mayor Shelbourne and later Chester V.
| “ | When I was a little girl, I wore a ponytail, had glasses, and I was totally obsessed with the science of weather. Other girls wanted a Barbie, I wanted a Doppler Weather Radar 2000 Turbo. | ” |
As a young girl, Sam had a strong passion for meteorology, decorating her room with weather-themed posters and diagrams and sharing weather forecasts with her class. However, her classmates called her "four-eyes" and teased her for her nerdy appearance and interests. [2] Despite needing her glasses, Sam decided to remove them, get a "new look," and work to fit in with the crowd, even if it meant hiding who she really was.
She also wanted to be a meteorologist when she was very young, but her parents didn’t support her. She’s shown to be an intern for a news company in the beginning of the first movie, where reporting on the weather (as an unpaid intern) was one of the first opportunities for her to be a meteorologist publicly.
In addition to her love for weather, Sam was also a skilled horseshoe thrower, even participating in competitions. She gave up horseshoe tossing when she missed the appearance of a comet and instead devoted her full passion to weather.
Sam and her family moved around a lot as a child, making it harder for Sam to keep and maintain friendships. When she briefly lived in Swallow Falls, Flint offered to invent something that would make everyone forget that she was ever there, so she wouldn't have to deal with the heartbreak of saying goodbye to her friends (and thus keep the continuity of the movies intact) [5] .
Sam never fully integrated with Swallow Falls's culture, considering many of its traditions and tall tales as "weird." However, over time, and with Flint's help, she learned to appreciate the town's quirks and participated in some of its traditions (like Lobster Claus).
Sam lived in New York City and worked for Weather News Network as an intern. When the mayor called asking his cousin at WNN to send someone to do a weather report from Swallow Falls as an excuse to get the grand opening of Sardine Land on national television, WNN sent Sam because she was "cute and super perky." Sam enthusiastically viewed this as a step forward in her career, practicing her lines in her car as she traveled from New York to Swallow Falls.
When put on the spot, however, she flubbed her lines, saying "Hello Sam Sparks, I'm America. It's Swallow Falls degrees. " before accepting her loss and redirecting Manny to focus on the mayor instead. Later in the day, Sam was able to regain her footing, making puns at the camera, before the FLDSMDFR slammed the camera into her face, smooshing it over the whole frame and utterly humiliating her. She headed to the docks, frustratedly throwing her microphone into the ocean, before dejectedly sitting on the edge, where she accidentally kicked Flint in the face.
While venting about her humiliating first day, she quickly noticed that Flint had made an alternative to shoes to solve the untied shoes epidemic, as well as a monkey thought translator, and deduced that Flint was the creator of the "rocket" that had ruined her career. While venting to him about how hard it was to make it in the weather field, Flint noticed bits of food raining from the sky. To their wonder, the FLDSMDFR created a perfect storm of cheeseburgers, which revitalized Sam's career.
Over the next month, Sam worked closely with Flint to determine what food was being ordered, then reported on the menu for the day with a series of cheeky puns. She also reported on the invention of the Outtasighter and the renovation of the town.
Towards the end of the month, Flint surprised Sam by creating a giant Jell-O mold, since she had mentioned offhand that Jell-O was her favorite food. After a moment of hesitation, Sam exuberantly bounced around the Jell-O castle, even doing a cannonball into the Jell-O pool. Later that evening, after she bailed from calling Jell-O an "elastic biopolymer adhesive but you eat it," she admitted to Flint that she had been hiding her geeky tendencies behind a cute mask. Flint gave her a "makeover" by putting her hair up in a Jell-O scrunchie and putting her glasses on, telling her that she was beautiful that way since it was her authentic self. She leaned in for a kiss, but Flint instead puffed up his cheeks. Sam accepted this and was about to continue when Flint's phone rang, interrupting their date.
While sitting in the van debating whether to wear her glasses again, she noticed dusty Doppler Weather Radar 2000 Turbo sitting on a table behind her, which Flint has bought and given her as a surprise gift. Dusting it off and excitedly powering it up, she realized that a massive food storm was brewing. She tried to warn Flint, who brushed off her concerns. To make matters worse, when the weather turned for the worse with a spaghetti twister, Patrick Patrickson focused instead on her nerdy appearance, ignoring the clear and present danger.
Undeterred, in the aftermath of the storm, Sam had Manny patch through the WNN's broadcast to warn the world that the spaghetti tornado was just the beginning and that food storms would sweep across the globe. Shortly thereafter, Flint arrived in the town square in the Flying Car II, apologizing to Sam and explaining his plan to shut down the FLDSMDFR with a kill code copied to a USB. Sam insists on coming with Flint to navigate him through the storm, but rejects Flint's attempt at a kiss as she was still upset with him for brushing aside her concerns.
Up in the clouds, Sam was the first to notice the FLDSMDFR had gathered a meatball-like cocoon of food around itself and had created sentient food to defend the machine. Sam and Flint dove into the top vent of the meatball, but were thrown off course by Brent. Sam used the Doppler to guide the three of them back to the center of the meatball, when they were attacked by man-eating chickens who swallowed Brent. Brent realized his new identity as Chicken Brent and held the chickens back as Sam and Flint proceeded.
They stumbled across a chasm filled with sharp shards of peanut brittle. When Flint admits that he had lied about having a peanut allergy to impress Sam, they decided that Sam would lower Flint into the chasm via a licorice rope. An earthquake caused Sam to lose her grip, and when she scrambled to grab the licorice rope again, she cut her arm on a piece of peanut brittle. Her arm and face immediately began to swell, and Flint decided that she should come back to the flying car for an allergy shot. She didn't want to agree and told Flint to come with her. The two confessed their feelings to each other and shortly after that, Flint cut the rope to allow Brent to take Sam away.
Sam was nearly incoherent by the time she reached the car, mumbling and groaning, but Manny injected her with an Epi-pen and she instantly recovered, her first concern being where Flint was. She turned around to look out the rear window of the car in time to see the meat-a-roid explode with Flint (presumably) still inside.
Upon landing, Sam broke the news to Flint's father, and tried her best to comfort him while still processing her own grief. However, a swarm of Ratbirds descended from the sky, revealing that Flint, while scorched and dazed, was still alive. Tim Lockwood clumsily attempted to make a fishing metaphor, to which Sam repurposed Steve's monkey thought translator to help Flint and his dad reach an understanding. Tim nodded for Flint to talk to Sam, and she insisted that he kiss her, puffing up her cheeks the same way he had done in the Jell-O castle, and the pair finally share a kiss at last.
Shortly after their kiss, Flint and Sam immediately started brainstorming ideas for Sparkswood, the lab the two of them would build for themselves and their friends. But their plans were interrupted by the arrival of Chester V, who told the residents of Swallow Falls that Live Corp would clean the island and relocate them all to San Franjose. He also offered Flint a job as a Thinquanaut, and Sam insisted he take the opportunity, telling Flint he had her full support.
In San Franjose, Flint and Sam would pack lunches for each other and exchange them before going to work. Sam supported Flint wholeheartedly when he submitted inventions for the Live Corp Vesting Ceremony, assisting with Tim Lockwood's birthday party when Flint unveiled his Celebrationator. On the night of the Vesting Ceremony, Sam was busy reporting on a tornado and misinterpreted Flint's voicemail message, bringing an orange vest-shaped cake to celebrate the vesting that had not happened. Sam consoled a humiliated and distraught Flint, telling him he looked great in his lab coat and that "everyone gets humiliated on national television. It's not that big a deal."
Early the next morning, Flint awoke Sam with a rapidfire explanation that food monsters were learning to swim to escape Swallow Falls and threaten the world. Sam immediately jumped into action, insisting despite Flint's protests that he would need a lot of help and that they should gather their friends to come with.
Sam was immediately awestruck with the colorful and vivacious environment of food creatures. She was instantly won over by an adorable strawberry creature who expressed a fondness for Flint, affectionately naming him Barry. Sam protected Barry from Chester V, hiding him in her backpack and teaching Barry to speak, encouraging him when he called her "Saspa." When Chester threatened harm to Barry and the other foodimals, Sam grew wary of his motives, insisting that the foodimals should be researched, not destroyed. Her suspicions grew when, after being attacked by a Tacodile, Sam noticed that their attacker was merely a mother protecting her children.
Sam was also quick to notice Chester's effect on Flint, especially when Flint acted paranoid and unreasonable towards Brent. Sam told him that despite Brent's past as a bully, Flint shouldn't hold it against him since Brent is loyal to him now and is here to help, not hinder.
When Sam confronted Flint and told him that destroying the FLDSMDFR was a bad idea, Flint told her her opinion "matters, just. not right now." She angrily reminded him that he was losing sight of their dreams of Sparkswood and focusing too much on pleasing Chester, before storming off, the rest of the gang in tow.
While angrily ranting to Manny about how Chester is obviously manipulating Flint, Sam stumbles across a Cheespider, which snarls at them and makes moves to attack. Sam, determined to prove that Chester was lying about the danger of the foodimals, reached out her hand and pet the cheespider's bun. The Cheespider instantly began to act like a puppy, enjoying having its buns scratched, rolling over and letting Sam and her friends pet it.
When Earl asked why the Cheespider attacked before, Sam realized it was because they were wearing Live Corp backpacks, making them appear like Thinquanauts. Realizing Chester was up to something nefarious, she tried to warn Flint but was captured by Thinquanauts and frozen with a freeze ray similar to Flint's Re-freeze-a-Fan.
Chester's assistant Barb transported Sam and friends to the factory. On the way there, Sam pointed out that Chester called Barb a "monkey," even when she didn't like it, and told her that real friends care about their friends' feelings.
Chester tied up Sam and friends with yellow police tape, preventing Earl from using his strength to break them free, then used them as leverage to force Flint to allow him to continue using the FLDSMDFR to turn the foodimals into food bars. Sam heroically insisted Flint save the island, even if it meant sacrificing them, but Flint refused and decided to fight Chester. When the Celebrationator fell out of Flint's pocket, Sam gave him the hint to use it to find the real Chester among his holograms. Flint stunned Chester and rescued his friends.
Sam noticed that Chester was trying to escape with the FLDSMDFR, and with Barb's help and the help of the foodimals, stopped him once and for all. When they returned the FLDSMDFR to its rightful place, Sam welcomed Barb into their friend group with open arms.
River Expedition
Sam and Flint established a reserve for the Foodimals, allowing them to flourish and build culture. Sam continued to broadcast from the island, sharing weather reports as well as headline news and cultural events on the island.
Sam reaches out to Flint about trouble at the Jelly Castle: first the path to the castle is blocked by giant broccoli, then Gummy Bears attack tourists, and finally Ratbirds invade the interior. Each of these levels uses the Chopper-er. When the dam holding back Mount Leftovers is about to collapse, Sam instructs Flint to rescue schoolchildren trapped in buses, including Cal.
Sam offers to help Flint power up the Flying Car II using giant food at the cannery and volunteers to use the Doppler weather radar to help him navigate through the clouds. Sam and Brent flew up to the Meat-a-Roid with Flint and offered him weapons during his confrontation with the FLDSMDFR, including Spray-On Shoes.
Sam can be seen in Flint's yard in the beginning of Act VII.
If the player gets the game's true ending, Sam and Flint remain in the Flying Car "enjoying the view from above, and eating a very large ice cream."
