Web Page No 2704

18th July 2020

1st Picture. Robby the Robot

2nd Picture. Poster for The Forbidden Planet

3rd Picture. From Lost in Space

4th Picture. From Lost in Space

Robby the Robot

Robby the Robot first appeared in the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. He made a number of subsequent appearances in science fiction movies and television programs, usually without specific reference to the original film character.

The name "Robbie" (spelled with an "ie") had appeared in science fiction before Forbidden Planet. In a magazine adventure The Fantastic Island (1935).

In The Forbidden Planet the story centres on a crew of space explorers from Earth who land their starship, the C57-D, on the planet Altair IV, ruled by the mysterious Dr. Morbius. Robby is a mechanical servant that Morbius has designed, built using knowledge gleaned from his study of the Krell, a long-extinct race of highly intelligent beings that once populated Altair IV. The film’s plot is loosely based on Shakespeare’s play The Tempest with the planet Altair standing in for Shakespeare’s remote island and Dr. Morbius for Prospero.

Robby has artificial intelligence, but has a distinct personality that at times exhibits a dry wit. He is instructed by Morbius to be helpful to the Earthmen. One of the rules was against harming or killing humans; this becomes an important near the conclusion of the film when Robby refuses to kill the Id monster, recognizing the invisible creature to be an alter ego of Dr. Morbius. Hollywood purposely depicted Robby in the film’s advertising posters as a terrifying creature carrying a seductively posed unconscious maiden but no such scene was ever in the film.

Robby was designed by members of the MGM art department and constructed by the studio's prop department. The robot's design and finish represented a radical advance on the conventional "walking oil-can" depictions of robots in earlier films. However, this did not come cheap: As with every aspect of the production of Forbidden Planet, MGM spared no expense on Robby's design and construction. At a reported cost of US$125,000 (equivalent to at least $US1.1 million today and was one of the most expensive single film props ever created up to that time.

The Robby suit was constructed using metal, plastic, rubber, glass, and Plexiglas. The plastic parts were a pioneering example of the use of the new technology of vacuum-forming heated plastic over wooden moulds. The finished suit stands just over 7-foot tall and was fabricated in three detachable sections: the legs and lower torso, the barrel-like chest section (which included the arms), and the highly detailed 'head'. The tall plexiglass dome that covered the head housed the mechanisms representing Robby's brain. Conical protuberances attached to each side of the head carried two small forward-facing blinking lights (his eyes) and two rotating chromed rings, one mounted vertically and the other horizontally, which represent Robby's audio detectors (his ears). The bottom front section of the head is a grille consisting of parallel rows of blue neon tubes, which light up with Robby's voice. This neon grille also enabled the operator to both see out and to breathe.

Robby's barrel-shaped torso featured a front panel fitted with a rectangular flap (into which samples of any substance could be inserted for Robby to analyse and replicate); underneath the slot were two rotating discs fitted with small flashing lights and below that a row of five buttons that moved in and out. Robby's stubby arms were connected to his body with plastic ball-joints that fitted into matching sockets in the torso. The arms could also be extended and this section was covered with a concertina-type rubber sheath. Robby's three-fingered hands were also made of rubber. The bottom section of the suit hinged at the top of the legs, allowing Robby to both bend forward and swing each leg backward and forward slightly enabling him to walk with relative ease (albeit with rather small and stiff steps).

One of the suit's few drawbacks was that the many intricate moving parts in the headpiece made a considerable amount of noise when Robby was powered up. During shooting, Robby's voice was performed off camera by an uncredited actor who spoke lines into a microphone that was fed into a voice-actuated circuit connected by a cable run into Robby's foot and then up through a leg and to the neon tubes in Robby's head; this device synchronized the flashing of the neon tubes to the dialogue.

The robot quickly became a science fiction icon and was reused or recreated in multiple TV shows and made appearances in other films and TV shows these included episodes of The Thin Man, Columbo, The Addams Family, and Lost in Space.

Robby made few appearances after the 1970s, but he did make a cameo appearance in Gremlins (1984); he can be seen standing in the background and speaking some of his trademark lines. He was also featured in a 2006 commercial.

Robby the Robot was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2004.

In 1971, the original 1956 Robby was sold to Jim Brucker and put on display at his Movie World/Cars of the Stars Museum, near Disneyland, where it was often vandalized by visitors. Robot historian Fred Barton was commissioned to restore Robby while the robot was still on display at the museum. He used original duplicate replacement parts made for the Forbidden Planet by MGM's prop department. It was, however, in a desperate condition once again several years later. The museum closed in 1980, and Robby, along with his vehicle, original MGM spare parts, and shipping containers were sold to William Malone who noted that Robby had once again fallen into a state of disrepair.

Having built the first ever replica of Robby in 1973, he was able to carefully restore the robot prop to its original condition using additional spare parts which the original builders had stocked in Robby's stage cases some 25 years earlier. The original Robby the Robot remained in Malone's collection for many years until finally being sold by Bonhams Auctioneers in New York on November 21, 2017, for US$5,375,000. It became the most expensive hero film prop ever sold at auction.

Try this video link:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM_YeUCMjII

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Peter

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Maureen Writes:

I am so glad that I lived in the past, it has made me what I am today and I don’t think it is necessarily all bad. We were the 1950’s pioneers and like the 1850’s pioneers in America, we hitched our wagons and struck out into a new world of Post War Britain. You must admit, the last 70 odd years have been quite an adventure.

My first adventure was beating the odds -  You say, in the 50’s it would be “exceptionally rare for a premature baby to survive” I know I was only 4 weeks premature but I survived.  I also survived being female much to the disgust of my paternal Grandmother (to her I was a sh’tt’’g arsed maiden, therefore of no use on a farm)

I played with my Bakelite dolls tea service but had more fun with my brothers Bako building set with base board, rods and bricks that slipped down between the rods. I loved building houses. I had great fun with his meccano set. He also had a farmyard and a train set which I played with as mush as he did and we had our own dinky toys, coaches, cars and tractors.

We didn’t have Television until after ITV came into being [1955] but we did love our radio which still impacts on every day life;  “Left hand down a bit” from the Navy Lark.  The Knightsbridge March by Eric Coates always reminds me of Saturday nights programme of “In town tonight”  I still envisage the London traffic driving round the statue of Eros and through the busy London Theatre Land.

Equal opportunities, well they are still not equal, but one has to make them happen.  I remember Brian Wragg at school, made his parents Silver Wedding Anniversary cake in the cookery class rooms with the backing of Miss Tuffin albeit at evening classes.  He fully iced the cake and decorated it with very fine trellis work in 6 layers deep. Of all the wedding and anniversary cakes I have made I have never been able to  achieve 6 layers.

I also remember the hospitals from the view of a child. In 1951 I was in St Mary’s Children’s ward, after a bout of Measles I had a secondary infection which no one seemed to know what it was. To my indignation I was snatched from my loving mothers arms and placed in a cot.  My Mother was banished to visiting Wednesday afternoons and Sunday afternoons only,  from my cot I could see the corridors on the ground floor and wait to see my mother come and go.  In hind sight it was probably a good job they put me in a cot as I am sure I would have gone AWOL and probably walked home to Drayton. Always the rebel!

News and Views:

On this day 18^th July 1960-1965

On 18/07/1960 the number one single was Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 18/07/1961 the number one single was Runaway - Del Shannon and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 18/07/1962 the number one single was I Can't Stop Loving You - Ray Charles and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 18/07/1963 the number one single was I Like It - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 18/07/1964 the number one single was House of the Rising Sun - Animals and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 18/07/1965 the number one single was Crying in the Chapel - Elvis Presley and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was First Mariner 4 photos of Mars received.